Lenka Hrbkova

I’m a historian of fascism. What is happening in Minneapolis is fascism.

Apologies for being self-referential but

Within the next decade the radical right is going to be the main force on the right in Europe (national and EU level). This includes far-right parties and formerly centre-right parties shifting their position. Moderate conservatism and Christian democracy will largely disappear on the right. 1/

"international law must be followed" is european for "thoughts and prayers"

Gratuluju!

Just came across this case a couple of days ago while on a hike with family. Landau, the wealthy picturesque town in South-Western Germany close to where I grew up, voted to retain street names associated with the NS-regime:63% on a turnout of almost 70% (concurrence with federal election).

Indiana public colleges cut almost 20% of degrees Public Indiana colleges and universities have eliminated 19 percent of their degree programs to meet requirements added to the state’s budget, according to the Commission for Higher Education.

So, here it is. Thanks to a new state law that was NEVER DEBATED, Indiana University has committed itself to abolishing majors in African-American/African Diaspora Studies: American Studies; Art History; French; Italian; Religious Studies etc. DOZENS of majors. www.ipm.org/news-section...

*Register data* results now published for whole Germany:

37% of women under 25 voted for die Linke in the German federal elections in 2025.

Also very striking to see that the AfD was the strongest party among *all age groups of men except those older than 60*.

It should not be lost on anyone that Minnesota Rep Melissa Hortman, who was shot to death in her home last night by an assassin, was a gun safety advocate who worked tirelessly to protect her constituents from gun violence.

Melissa Hortman, who was assassinated last night, was the Speaker of the Minnesota House in the 2023-2024 session, when Democrats ran the state government.

That means she had a leading role in shepherding the many landmark reforms that Dems adopted in that period—an important legacy. Brief 🧵.

If you were an enemy who wanted to undermine the US, especially its economic power and security, you simply could not do any better than the first four months of the Trump 2.0 administration.

Appeal from colleagues at Harvard:

"...we also call upon our fellow institutions of higher education in the United States to declare their willingness to facilitate the immediate co-enrollment of Harvard’s international students., including formal acceptance of transfer for immigration purposes."

New publication @wepsocial.bsky.social w/ Timothy Hellwig and Lawrence Ezrow!

We argue and show that non-centrist/extreme governments prioritize their core supporters over the median voter when making policy.

However, this strategy is likely to backfire at the next election.

tinyurl.com/ynexbzwh

One more constrained than the other: Asymmetrical ideological alignment and its implications for polarization This study examines the ideological alignment of beliefs within opposing partisan camps in Europe. Integrating multiple types of research, I hypothesize that partisans on the ideological left exhibit...

📢 Excited to share my publication in the EJPR! I examine ideological alignment, arguing for asymmetry—left-wing partisans are more aligned than the right. Analyzing 15 countries, 20 issues, and two time points, I reveal evidence and limits of this asymmetry. 🧵
doi.org/10.1111/1475...

It is legally impossible to deport citizens. This is not deportation. Removing citizens to foreign prisons, knowing to a certainty that they will be subjected to treatment that violates the U.S. constitution, doesn’t deserve any label that connotes legal legitimacy.

i am fascinated by the outright refusal of people in the professional political commentary class to just consider the possibility that there is no plan and that trump really is a braying idiot with the more acute case of narcissistic personality disorder on record

Here’s Elon cutting pediatric brain cancer research 👇🏻

I decided to start a #thread 🧵 of stories about legal residents and tourists being (illegally) arrested, detained and/or deported by the Trump regime. I'll only post stories from serious sources, as rumors and conspiracies are really not needed in this authoritarian moment.

Meanwhile, in Rome: demonstration in support of Europe
(Yes, you read that correctly - now they’re waving European flags not in Tbilisi or Kyiv, but in the heart of ‘old Europe’)

Suspension of Hungarian citizenship. A new constitutional amendment would allow for the “suspension” of Hungarian citizenship for dual nationals. This is a thread on the possible consequences, the terrible historical examples, and legal problems.

Nearly a year after the assassination attempt on Prime Minister Robert Fico, how do Slovaks perceive political violence today? See my colleagues' analysis ⬇️

Map showing a highway section in red and social ties in space crossing the highway. Wherever a tie crosses the highway, there is a cross. There are 94 crosses.

🎉 New paper in PNAS: Urban highways are barriers to social ties
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2408937122

Highways are barriers that cut opportunities for social ties. We quantify this effect by overlaying the US highway network with millions of social ties from Twitter.

Paying the costs of war Keir Starmer’s defence spending increase is a very expensive lesson in failing to plan ahead.

The ugly truth: Europe has been more generous to Russia than Ukraine.

It can't get any worse!
[It gets worse]

I will never forget the photo of Zelenskyy’s face after he saw Russia’s war crimes in Bucha in 2022. He seemed to age years in an afternoon. Watching him constantly cross the world asking for aid that should have been thrown at him is one of the deepest shames of our age.

Title: What Costs More: Billionaire Tax Avoidance or Federal Workers? Subtitle: Musk’s tax avoidance could fund 677K federal jobs • Current Tax Rate: 3.27% • Top Federal Tax Rate: 37% Cost Comparison (Bar Chart): • Cost of Musk’s Tax Avoidance (smallest bar, purple) • Cost of Top 100 Billionaires’ Tax Avoidance (largest bar, red) • Total Federal Workforce Salaries (mid-sized bar, green) X-axis ranges from $0B to $380B, showing that billionaire tax avoidance covers a significant portion of federal workforce salaries. Impact on Federal Workforce: • Average Federal Salary: $106,000 • Jobs Musk’s Avoidance Could Fund: 677,782 (29.5% of all federal employees) Federal Workforce Breakdown (Pie Chart): • A segment representing 29.5% of the workforce highlights the share Musk’s avoided taxes could fund, labeled “Share Equal to Musk’s Avoided Taxes: 29.5%”. Sources: • Musk’s Tax Rate: ProPublica • Billionaire Gains: Bloomberg Billionaires Index (Dec. 31, 2024) • Federal Employee Data: USAFacts

How many federal workers would DOGE need to fire to make up for Musk not paying his fair share of taxes?

Answer: 677,000. That's 44% of the entire non-DoD federal workforce.

Again, this power grab is not about the budget. It’s about politics.

Books mentioning slavery, civil rights removed from shelves at Fort Campbell schools - ClarksvilleNow.com At an elementary school at Fort Campbell, home of the 101st Airborne Division, librarians are hard at work scrubbing the shelves for books that contain references to slavery, the civil rights movement...

This is where we are now: An elementary school at Fort Campbell has removed all books from its library that so much as *allude* to slavery or the civil rights movement.

The wholesale erasure of history in real time.

“Most vilified”?! “Most powerful”?! “Hard right”?!
I see at the Economist we have given up even attempting serious reporting on the upcoming German election

Male-female friendships are a under-rated driver of gender equality.

When women can fraternise freely, they can share ideas, gain respect, & build empathy with men who care about their wants & welfare.

Countries with high male-female friendships score better on equality 👇