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1. Curious as to what #twitterstorians make of this piece. Robin's work on conservatism is insightful and important, but I found myself perplexed by this piece. Maybe it just hit too close to home? nymag.com/intelligencer/…
2. For example, this conclusion is at odds w/ how historians since Carl Becker (ca. 1931) have understood their role. All insight is time-bound, there's no place outside of history. Thus, what else can we do but bring to public memory parts of the past that inform the present? 
3. I also find this claim hard to understand. More than ever before there is a world of journalism that seeks out scholars to inform their analysis. Of course this can be done badly, but are we supposed to rebuild the firewall between journalism and the academy?
4. As a historian who tries to use my historical knowledge to make sense of what's happening in US politics, I take it for granted that I'll at times misapprehend the present. That's what it means to be a historical subject. It's unavoidable.
5. That's why "they" say journalism is the rough draft of history. But as a historian who's also a citizen, it's difficult for me to see what the alternative is. Should we encourage journalists and pundits to blather on, uninformed by scholarly insights?
6. Should scholars like me disengage from the public sphere and spend more time reading 19th century archives, with the expectation that when my book is published in 2024 Fresh Air will book me for an interview?
7. I don't think any historian #onhere thinks they speak in a stentorian voice that should stop all arguments with its powerful truth serum. And most of us recognize that our scholarship and authority will be put to political uses far more simplistic than we might like.
8. But again, I just don't understand what the alternative is. The past will always be at play in our present. Those who study the past as a profession can either let that conversation go on without them, or they can pitch in. Why snarkily dismiss that as "Historovox?"
