Adam Serwer

@adamserwer

Romanista. Buy my book:

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Adam Serwer@adamserwer· 23d

Alright after today enough of this international football nonsense

Tweet from AS Roma: International football is important but club football is importanter

Adam Serwer@adamserwer· 27d

“We’re looking at this as a potential starter box. Not sure if we can afford it”

Orange kitty Benne and tortie kitten Jimmy Pickles about to start fighting over who gets to sit in the box

Adam Serwer@adamserwer· 28d

Wrote about the Roberts Court’s highly selective aversion to identifying racism, echoing the logic of the infamous Korematsu decision, which the Roberts Court has both condemned and imitated. Call it Neo-Korematsu doctrine. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

In Trump v. Hawaii, Roberts wrote that “the forcible relocation of U. S. citizens to concentration camps, solely and explicitly on the basis of race, is objectively unlawful and outside the scope of Presidential authority.” But the author of the Korematsu opinion, having exchanged his white robe for a dark one, would have agreed. After all, Hugo Black wrote that “pressing public necessity”—not “racial antagonism”—motivated the Japanese-internment policy. Black upheld Fred Korematsu’s conviction because he argued that the presence of a national-security motive meant the racism against Japanese Americans didn’t count. And that is exactly the logic the Roberts Court has followed in so many cases. This reasoning—Black’s reasoning—has been reiterated again and again by Roberts and his right-wing colleagues to sanction discrimination against the vulnerable populations targeted by the Republican Party.

The Korematsu decision may be overturned by the “court of history.” But its legacy lives on in the Roberts Court.

Adam Serwer@adamserwer· 29d

Rough out there

Tortie kitten jimmi pickles napping on her desk bed

Adam Serwer@adamserwer· Jul 12

Benne appreciation post

My orange kitty benne curled up on the couch on his side

Adam Serwer@adamserwer· Jul 11

Tobin says hello

White and Grey Tabby cat Tobin rubbing his head on a rock (cozy!)

Adam Serwer@adamserwer· Jul 9

He’s mad I won’t leave my desk to pet him

My orange creamsicle cat eggsy beached on the floor of my office

Adam Serwer@adamserwer· Jul 7

bsky.app/profile/jdna...

Pulisic celebrates usmnt goal by copying Trump’s dance moves: ‘I just thought it was funny’

Adam Serwer@adamserwer· Jul 6

Bellingham said

Adam Serwer@adamserwer· Jul 3

The justices that upheld birthright citizenship in 1898 were racist men in a racist era who still could not avoid the plain text of the Constitution. What changed between is that the GOP now sees multiracial democracy as a threat rather than an ideal or aspiration www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

The Fourteenth Amendment has not changed since 1898. What have changed are the Republican Party and the modern conservative movement. Trump believes that “if you import the Third World, you become the Third World.” His rise to power began with his willingness to be a standard-bearer for a movement that cast the first Black president as an illegitimate invader and demanded to see his birth certificate. Trump’s second-term campaign promised “mass deportation” of those very same “Third World” immigrants, and since taking office, he has established an effectively whites-only refugee policy, specifically for white South Africans, illustrating that his objection is less to immigration itself, or to immigrants from the “Third World,” than to immigrants who are not white.

Adam Serwer@adamserwer· Jul 3

The right-wing attack on birthright citizenship is not just about birthright citizenship itself. As MAGA’s reaction to the Supreme Court ruling proves, it is part of their opposition to a broader ideal, that “All men are created equal.” www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

Elsewhere, less tactful conservatives expressed directly what the dissenting justices chose to do in euphemism. Stephen Miller, who runs immigration policy for the Trump administration, told Fox News that “we have people from all over the world, from third-world nations, nations that on their own would have never invented the wheel, let alone modern technology, let alone medicine, let alone air travel.” He went on: “They can just come into the country, have a baby at a hospital paid for by you and me, and then that baby is automatically a citizen? That baby can sit on a jury when he turns 18 and sit in judgment of you and sit in judgment of me and sit in judgment of our loved ones? Can decide who our mayors are? Our governors are? Our presidents are?” Miller’s long-standing view is that what ruined America was the repeal of eugenics-inspired immigration restrictions that had banned immigration from Asia and Africa and from nations in Europe deemed to be composed of lesser white races.

There is very little difference between Miller’s position—if you come from a “Third World nation,” you are inferior—and that of antebellum Democrats and the opponents of the Fourteenth Amendment at the time it was adopted: American citizenship is degraded by having to share it with the biologically inferior. The justices are elite lawyers with the ability to obfuscate this project and ignore its aims, but the rest of us need not pretend. To put it bluntly, Miller’s objection, as articulated here, is not to birthright citizenship. It is to the idea that “all men are created equal.”

Adam Serwer@adamserwer· Jun 30

lol. lmao

Amendment’s guarantees are for only Black Americans and
those who fit their fought-and-bled-for-country, no-otherhomeland, domiciled mold. Post, at 1–3, 90.
That contention is ahistorical for the reasons laid out in
Part I, supra, and those explained in the Court’s opinion.
In my view, it is also difficult to square with the notion of a
“color-blind” Constitution, which has loomed large in the
Court’s Fourteenth Amendment jurisprudence.

Adam Serwer@adamserwer· Jun 30

That's right.

During the ratification debates, Senator Cowan took aim
at the Roma people too, characterizing them as undeserving
of birthright citizenship because they “wander[ed] in
gangs,” “infest[ed] society,” and “impos[ed] upon the simple
and weak everywhere.”49 And again, Senator Conness dismissed Senator Cowan’s prejudices: “The only invasion of
Pennsylvania within my recollection was an invasion very
much worse and more disastrous to the State, and more to
be feared and more feared, than that of Gypsies. It was an
invasion of rebels [at Gettysburg].

Adam Serwer@adamserwer· Jun 30

Jackson.

Such universalist appeals were a conscious choice. Yes,
Black Americans had suffered a singular wrong. And yes,
they had “‘fought and bled’” for the Union, paying a steep
price for their freedom.28 But the delegates did not rest on
these laurels. Rather, they drew upon the moral and political force of the universal principles that were already core
to the Nation’s identity.
That bears repeating: Freed Blacks did not advocate for
a unique set of rules that catered only to their situation.
Nor did they seek to advance their own position relative to,
or at the expense and exclusion of, other marginalized
groups.

Adam Serwer@adamserwer· Jun 29

Yep it’s all twitter law talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/the-s...

I would argue that this begins with the Obamacare decision in 2012. It followed a model which has now become entirely familiar. It generally begins with mouthing off and brainstorming on social media — comments that then gets picked up by a few generally obscure law professors who fashion it into an argument. This argument is initially treated as absurd before rapidly gaining traction on the right and then rapidly getting taken up by the Court.

Adam Serwer@adamserwer· Jun 29

The later his breakfast the closer he gets to the window

Adam Serwer@adamserwer· Jun 29

Ruling against TPS for Haitians, the Trump justices on the Supreme Court have set a new impossible standard for proving discrimination against non-whites: if there is any other reason *in addition* to the racism, the racism doesn’t count www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

Mullin now sets up an even more impossible double standard. If the government wants to discriminate against Black people, any pretext will do. “As long as there is a plausible basis—any plausible articulable basis—for the government’s action, then the Court will look to that basis as sufficient,” Aderson Francois, a law professor at Georgetown University, told me, “even in the face of evidence that government actors were motivated by animus.” If a Black person wants to prove they’ve been discriminated against, however, no amount of evidence will suffice.

“This Court sees race when it wants to, and blinds itself to racism in most other cases,” Melissa Murray, a law professor at NYU, told me. “It’s hard to imagine how egregious the statement would have to be to be considered ‘overtly racial’.”

Adam Serwer@adamserwer· Jun 28

www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc...

The way people react to this foundation-shaking has contributed to the difficulty Colonial Williamsburg has had in hiring and retaining Black interpreters. “You can ask any of the Black interpreters here—every week, somebody is going to remind you of who you are,” she told me. Not long ago, Canaday was taunted by a group of teenage boys wearing MAGA hats. In what seemed like an attempt to goad her, they asked her how she felt about the hats. “It’s on your head; it’s not on mine,” she responded. When they realized they could not provoke her, the boys lost interest and moved on.

For Canaday, the provocations and insults she’s heard from visitors are reminiscent of her experiences being called the N-word while she was growing up in Williamsburg. Her mother would try to comfort her by telling her that eventually these people would all die off and things would get better. But Canaday doesn’t see it that way. “People die, but the idea doesn’t,” she said.

Adam Serwer@adamserwer· Jun 27

Alito’s standard for racial discrimination in the TPS ruling, that racism has to be the *sole* motivation to count as discriminatory, is so deranged that it could arguably cover neither Jim Crow nor slavery. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

This is a “color-blind” Constitution that the architects of Jim Crow could love. Many of the devices employed during segregation, such as poll taxes, grandfather clauses, and literacy tests, were superficially race-neutral. In fact, slavery itself could conceivably be race-neutral—after all, one does not need to be a racist to seek cheap labor for a profitable business!

Adam Serwer@adamserwer· Jun 27

Israelis decided it would be better to put all their chips on enablers who want to see them vaporized on judgement day than deal with criticisms of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians from other jews. Little too late to start giving a shit what the diaspora thinks now www.nytimes.com/2026/06/27/w...

“I’m extremely concerned,” said Asaf Zamir, a deputy mayor of Tel Aviv who was Israel’s consul general in New York from 2021 to 2023. All three candidates had made fierce criticism of Israel central to their campaigns and political identities. “And they say it out loud in the most Jewish city in the world, after Jerusalem.”

Adam Serwer@adamserwer· Jun 27

The new racist double standard set up by Alito in the TPS ruling: if there’s any other motive in addition to the racism, the racism doesn’t count, but if the state wants to *prevent* discrimination against black people, that is racist and unconstitutional www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

The Roberts Court has been turning anti-discrimination law upside down for years. Its approach came into particular focus in May, with Louisiana v. Callais, in which it determined that not allowing Louisiana’s government to dilute Black votes was racist. In that case, Alito insisted that forcing the state to draw a second majority-Black congressional district would be an “unconstitutional racial gerrymander” because Republicans were entitled to discriminate against Black voters if they argued that their purpose was partisan instead of racist. The Court reaffirmed that position in a subsequent case dealing with Alabama, after a lower court had found ample evidence of deliberate racial discrimination, as opposed to the discriminatory effect of the Louisiana map.

Mullin now sets up an even more impossible double standard. If the government wants to discriminate against Black people, any pretext will do. “As long as there is a plausible basis—any plausible articulable basis—for the government’s action, then the Court will look to that basis as sufficient,” Aderson Francois, a law professor at Georgetown University, told me, “even in the face of evidence that government actors were motivated by animus.” If a Black person wants to prove they’ve been discriminated against, however, no amount of evidence will suffice.

Adam Serwer@adamserwer· Jun 26

How did i get what has to be the one litebrite on the list bsky.app/profile/greg...

Survey says my views are closest to pope leo

Adam Serwer@adamserwer· Jun 25

brushing up on the classics.

In the brief, Alito contended that the Department’s argument against affirmative
action was the same argument made in Brown v. Board of Education134 – that the
Fourteenth Amendment prohibited all legal distinctions based on race or color.135 He
contended that the layoff measure, which limited layoffs of minority teachers in order to
preserve minority hiring gains, was subject to strict scrutiny. He stated that the history of
the Fourteenth Amendment did not support discrimination against whites, noting that
Congress intended to protect two groups of whites who were “in real danger of
deprivation of civil rights” – aliens and white unionists in the South.136 Citing Alexander
Bickel, he wrote that the Equal Protection Clause not only protects against flagrant
wrongs but “embodies a broad principle of equality that is subverted unless applied
equally to all racial and ethnic classifications.”137 Alito maintained that “preferences”
harmed innocent individuals: “Whether a Plessy is ejected from a railroad coach because
he is one-eighth black or laid-off because he is seven-eighths white, the concrete wrong
to him is much the same.”138 He also argued that “preferences” perpetuated racial
division: “[W]hen preferences are granted to some groups, there is inevitable pressure
for similar preferences to benefit every group that can mount a claim of past
discrimination.”

Adam Serwer@adamserwer· Jun 24

Adam Serwer@adamserwer· Jun 21

Fotmob thinks the USMNT has a very favorable path to the later stages

Fotmob thinks the us will face bosnia in the round of 32, New Zealand or Czechia in the round of 16, and Congo, Ghana, Uruguay or Austria in the quarterfinals

Adam Serwer@adamserwer· Jun 21

Just felt like annoying everyone bsky.app/profile/pixe...

Adam Serwer@adamserwer· Jun 19

Yep www.newyorker.com/books/page-t...

If you contend that a belief is less like a certainty and more like a claim, and if a claim—that workers deserve a fair wage, that immigrants are human beings with God-given rights—can be debunked, then perhaps you hold no true beliefs at all. I’ve written in the past, as have others, about “Vance’s essential mutability—his willingness to change his positions and convictions according to the prevailing winds of the political moment.” (It took Vance just five years to complete his transition from “Hillbilly Elegy”-era Never Trumper to maga-aligned Senate candidate.) “Communion,” far more than “Hillbilly Elegy,” is the work of an inveterate opportunist, one who appears torn between the urge to camouflage his careerism—Vance’s true religion—and an equally strong desire to be admired for how well and how profitably he plays the game.

Adam Serwer@adamserwer· Jun 18

What’s the point of all that money if you’re just going to bow and scrape like a worm www.wired.com/story/trump-...

When Trump and Bezos dined in December 2024, according to the book, Trump told Bezos, “This Washington Post is really unfair. You've got to take better care”—a remark that prompted Bezos to commiserate with the incoming president.

“The people there are terrible,” Bezos allegedly replied, complaining about the business side of The Washington Post he had hoped to make profitable. “They don't listen. My other companies, they listen.” (This exchange was earlier reported by the New York Post.)

Adam Serwer@adamserwer· Jun 14

The mifespristone case shows that the abortion federalism promised by Dobbs was a lie—the goal is to ban abortion everywhere, even if that means forcing pro choice states like New York to enforce abortion bans passed by anti-choice states. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

Shield laws are not directly at issue in Louisiana’s case. But Alito’s reference to those laws as part of a “scheme” to undermine Dobbs is a tell that he believes that New York should be compelled to help enforce Louisiana’s ban on abortion. Although the justices who overturned Roe blamed it for fomenting partisan rancor and division, the Dobbs ruling was always going to be worse in that regard, precisely because abortion cannot truly be banned as long as you can cross state lines to get one.

Adam Serwer@adamserwer· Jun 12

From last February: www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc... bsky.app/profile/audr...