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Sam Greene

11 Dec, 8 tweets, 2 min read

What an exhausting semester this has been.

It's not the technology that doesn't work. It's not the endless meetings to plan for eventualities that will never happen. It's not the daily contingencies and disruptions. Though there is all of that and more.

/1

It's learning anew to find the flickers of recognition that mean progress in half-masked faces. Or else it's the despair of teaching to a screens, to turned-off webcams and muted mics, and of not knowing whether anyone's even there.

/2

It's watching students for fleeting seconds and minutes and hours as they struggle to connect with the material, with the university, with one another, and with themselves. It's knowing that no outstretched hand will touch them where they are.

/3

It's groping for new ways of teaching, of listening, and of supporting in real time. It's never knowing whether any of this is good, or good enough, or any good at all. It's trying to measure with every supposed step forward how much ground is really being lost.

/4

It's saying bye after the last seminar, having done what I did, and wishing I had done more. It's hoping beyond hope that we have landed in a place at least a bit removed from where we took off. It's trying not to think about how much further we could have gotten, if only...

/5

We have all had good classes and bad ones, successful semesters and less so. I am inspired as I look at how hard my friends and colleagues are working. I am grateful to my students for their patience and their perseverance.

/6

It is with no exaggeration that I say I have never worked harder in any semester in my academic career -- and I'm more than certain that the same is true for my colleagues.

/7

But the truth is this: I have never felt less certain about what my students and I have achieved at the end of a semester than I do right now. And I don't know what else to say.

/END

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More from @samagreene

Sam Greene

@samagreene

12 Dec

We need to recognize how remarkable this is.

/1
nytimes.com/2020/12/11/us/…

Part of me, of course, wants to see this as mundane -- as the Supreme Court doing exactly what it _should_ have done, exactly what every non-quack legal expert said it would do. But it would be wrong to dismiss the fears of those who worried it would do the opposite.

/2

As someone who studies authoritarian politics for a living, I would encourage all of us who have the privilege of living in democracies to retain a healthy appreciation of institutions working the way they _should_.

/3

Read 17 tweets

Sam Greene

@samagreene

14 Jun

As #Putin launched the public campaign for his constitutional reform, he took the opportunity to tell #Russia a bit about the United States, and about democracy in general.

"What is democracy?" Putin asked. "It's the power of the people, that's right."

/1

"But if the people elect their higher authorities, then those higher authorities have the right to organize the work of the organs of executive power in such a way as to guarantee the interests of the overwhelming majority of the population of the country," Putin continued.

/2

"And what's happening there [in America]?" Putin went on. "The president says, 'We need to do X', and the governors say 'Go to hell.'"

ria.ru/20200614/15729…

/3

Read 25 tweets

Sam Greene

@samagreene

7 Jun

Is this a turning point?

Will what we are seeing on the streets over these past days and weeks turn into something bigger?

Is change possible?

Frankly, these are the wrong questions.

/1

I make no claim to be a world-leading expert. I am not a famous theorist, and my books don’t top the best-seller lists. But protest and mobilization are my thing: they’re what I research, what I teach, and mostly what I read and write about. And sometimes participate in.

/2

When people see a movement kick off - when the streets are suddenly roiling, when people are angry and taking risks and posing challenges - people naturally want to know where it’s headed. Whether it’s likely to create real change. Whether it might be revolutionary.

/3

Read 10 tweets

Sam Greene

@samagreene

2 Apr

Take a look at this map, because it doesn't show you what you think it shows you: nytimes.com/interactive/20…

(A thread)

/1

The geographical dispersion of whether or not people have stayed at home (or closer to home) looks, at first, glance, like a red state-blue state thing. But it's not.

/2

Look closer. For one thing, there is a discrepancy between the red south and the red midwest. Second, there are differences within red states.

/3

Read 9 tweets

Sam Greene

@samagreene

10 Mar

I'll say it: I may have been wrong about #Putin.

(An appropriately interminable #PutinForever thread)

/1

In case you've missed it, today's news is that a United Russia Duma Deputy (and first woman in space) proposed 'resetting' Putin's presidential terms, allowing him to run again. The Speaker of the Duma called Putin. Putin said ok. And that was that. meduza.io/en/feature/202…

/2

Within the space of about 20 minutes, one of the key planks of Putin's constitutional reform -- limiting the president to two terms -- evaporated.

/3

Read 35 tweets

Sam Greene

@samagreene

5 Feb

I'd like to tell you a story.

In September 2011, when I was living in Moscow, I went to meet a friend and colleague -- a Russian academic at a major Moscow university -- just to catch up, and to talk about some research we might do together.

/1

When I walked into her office, the look on her face was one of despair. Quiet, composed and dignified -- but emotionally and morally eviscerated.

I did not have to ask her why.

/2

The day before we met, something had happened in Moscow that everyone knew was going to happen. In an event choreographed and telegraphed and utterly predictable, Vladimir Putin had announced that -- after four years as prime minister -- he was coming back to the presidency.

/3

Read 17 tweets

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