Will Bunch Profile picture
National opinion columnist, Philadelphia Inquirer. New book AFTER THE IVORY TOWER FALLS (out now!) https://t.co/KaIAvvlnc5. Free weekly newsletter: https://t.co/8g2FAYQDEV
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Aug 15 4 tweets 1 min read
1. Before Trump goes off on the price of Fruit Loops, one thing about today's inflation debate that is driving this boomer crazy

If you're under 45, say, you never really experienced serious inflation in your life before 2022. Now they really think prices are supposed to go... 2. ...down to what they were three years ago. THAT'S NOT HOW THIS WORKS! If it did, the subway would be 35 cents like the first time I took it to a Mets game in 1972. Hopefully your wages, etc., catch up to the new higher price
Aug 11 5 tweets 1 min read
1. The hot mess that was the political media in 2016 continues to slime America 8 years later

In 2016, there was no reasoned debate about the ethics of publishing Russian-hacked documents. Not that it's not a tough call, morally -- but the debate wasn't even held. The documents 2. ...were just published without any thought. Only after the election did anyone wonder so much regard was given to the (mostly inconsequential) leaks and so little to shockingly illegal methods to obtain them. So now..
Jun 28 8 tweets 2 min read
1. I wrote this morning in my column I was an 'agnostic' about Biden dropping out. I said wait for the polls! But then the more (white male, mostly) pundits commanded Biden out, the more I was against it. This NYT editorial is the last straw nytimes.com/2024/06/28/opi… 2. Everything here is a bad look. The "liberal" dudebro groupthink. Journalists carrying more about a trophy than the nation. The naivety of thinking it's easy to replace Biden, and callousness about what's next. The pretending Kamala Harris doesn't exist
Jun 22 4 tweets 1 min read
1. With Trump making the rather bizarre choice to rally tonight at Temple U. in North Philly - on a liberal campus in a 90%-Biden district, with seemingly light outreach to his suburban base, I keep coming back to something that happened in March 2016 2. Then, Trump made the similarly bizarre move to stage a rally at an urban campus in Chicago. The event was flooded with protesters inside and out. An hour before the rally was supposed to start, Trump cancelled it for "safety" reasons politico.com/magazine/story…
Feb 19 4 tweets 1 min read
1. Anyone who thinks that Biden could just drop out and the Dems would pick the perfect replacement at a 4-day lovefest in Chicago is utterly delusional

For all his flaws, it wasn't an accident that Biden a) won the 2020 nomination and b) defeated Trump, which Hillary could not 2. After SC showed his support from middle-class Black voters made him unbeatable, he moved left, brought in Bernie and Liz, and built a fragile coalition of everybody who opposed Trump that held together
Sep 25, 2023 5 tweets 2 min read
Trump just visited the gun company (Palmetto State Armory) that supplied August's racist Jacksonville mass murderer of 3 Black people at a Dollar General store with the gun he painted a swastika on wistv.com/2023/08/29/lea… Ryan Palmeter, the racist Jacksonville gunman, was able to buy an AR-15 style rifle at the Palmetto State Armory despite his past mental health problems. Its model as billed as “our interpretation of the legendary AR-15 rifle that you have grown to love” the-independent.com/news/world/ame…
May 4, 2023 8 tweets 3 min read
1. We are so understandably caught up in the present - Jordan Neely, Proud Boys, Justice Thomas, etc. - that it's easy to forget what happened on this day 53 years ago. But we should never forget May 4, 1970. It made us what we are today. A short thread because... Image 2. ...last year I did a long thread which is still relevant, so it's linked here. We should, every year, mourn the four lives senselessly cut short when National Guardsmen fired a volley of shots at Kent State University students protesting the war...
Mar 29, 2023 4 tweets 1 min read
Two days after a horrific fire in Mexico killed 38 human beings desperate to reach the United States for a better life, not one word about it on the Washington Post homepage

I'm disgusted by our tepid reaction and by Biden's broken promises. I'm writing about it tomorrow Also the New York Times. Just one 24-hour news cycle
Feb 9, 2023 4 tweets 2 min read
1. Until now, I've merely found newish NYT columnist Pamela Paul annoying, but her newest piece is outrageous: A long apologia for fascism in Ron DeSantis' Florida 2. You would think a columnist for America's preeminent news org would be up and arms over DeSantis' assaults on free speech on campus. Nope, Paul says that a Republican governor destroying academic freedom is the fault of liberals
Dec 14, 2022 6 tweets 2 min read
1. I guess this is the column I'm not writing as I use up all my union-won 2022 vacation time, but we're starting to get some surprising clarity about what the 2024 election (I know, I know...) could look like 2. The observation I made two days after the midterms has only been bolstered by good news on inflation, marriage equality, etc. -- it's getting harder to imagine a scenario in which Biden isn't the Dem nominee, unless there's a health issue inquirer.com/opinion/commen…
Sep 29, 2022 10 tweets 4 min read
1. The right-wing wants to wage class war over student debt, painting a picture of elite leftist 'gender studies' majors working as Starbucks baristas

The reality? California's desperate middle-class kids living in their cars in the Walmart parking lot, or couch surfing (Thread) 2. My new column asks how the hell the American Dream of an affordable college education in the Golden State devolved from free tuition to this fall's hellscape of thousands of struggling, unhoused students from San Diego to Santa Cruz inquirer.com/opinion/colleg…
Sep 15, 2022 5 tweets 2 min read
FACT CHECK: The death of their heiress to the throne that Americans fought a bloody revolution to cast off has not caused a "huge void" in the U.S. WTAF, you sleazebag British tabloids?
thesun.co.uk/news/19754089/… I've really had enough. I was hoping to ignore this, but I'm writing my column tomorrow about the utter absurdity of the American media obsession with the monarchy we once fought to cast off, and what this all says about the future of U.S. democracy
Aug 23, 2022 5 tweets 2 min read
1. The backlash of white supremacy remains the irresistible force of American politics -- even after the remarkable 2020 protests after George Floyd's murder. Instead of a racial reckoning, we get a push for more cops and a war on public schools inquirer.com/columnists/att… 2. There was something that the far right instinctively understood about Black Lives Matter marches - that this was a revolution of the highly educated. At some protests, researchers found more than 80% held college degrees. This has inspired a Big Lie...
Aug 21, 2022 4 tweets 2 min read
Paramilitary posturing. Voter suppression. Enlisting state power to go after his enemies. Ron DeSantis has brought full-on fascism to Florida, and now he's taking it national

The GOP's DeSantis and Trump are racing into rock bottom for 2024. My new column inquirer.com/opinion/commen… Here's an excerpt. Take a break from preseason football and read the whole thing, And THEN... (next tweet)
Aug 14, 2022 4 tweets 2 min read
Imagine what the FBI could do to YOU after raiding Mar-a-Lago, GOP leaders ask. Seriously?? We know what cops already do to everyday folks like Breonna Taylor

What's with the right's new take on 'law and order'? Who are police really for? My new column inquirer.com/opinion/commen… Here's an excerpt -- I hope you can take a second to read the whole column on this lazy Sunday. And two more things...
Aug 9, 2022 4 tweets 2 min read
America crossed a point of no return with the stunning FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago, with the hope that finally a crooked president can be brought to justice. Not a moment too soon, after a Dallas speech exposed Trump's slide into full-on fascism

My new column inquirer.com/columnists/att… Here's an excerpt that I hope will inspire you to read the whole newsletter Image
Jun 24, 2022 5 tweets 2 min read
1. Ever hear of Shamaine Daniels?

Me neither...before tonight 2. So with all the talk for months, reaching a crescendo today, about how central Pa. Rep. Scott Perry is a curse upon U.S. democracy, you'd think there'd be talk about the best way to get rid of him

@ShamaineDaniels is his Democratic opponent in the November election
Jun 14, 2022 4 tweets 2 min read
The nearly flawless Jan. 6 have convinced me: Donald Trump and wacko inner circle committed felony fraud to stage an attempted coup amid a $250M scam

What I'm not convinced is whether it matters to a nation Giuliani-level drunk on lies. My new column inquirer.com/columnists/att… Here's an excerpt -- take a moment to read the whole piece and tell me what you think
May 27, 2022 5 tweets 2 min read
1. Let's be clear: This is woefully inadequate.

This fall, millions -- disproportionately Black and Brown, convinced the American Dream was hopeless unless they borrowed tens of thousands of dollars -- will likely have to resume payments, and be worse off washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2022… 2. What's more, it's a plug-a-small-leak fix for a collapsing dam. This deserves a lot more attention, but the American Way of College is melting down. Enrollment is plunging. There must be a radical fix for higher education, by which... nytimes.com/2022/05/26/us/…
May 24, 2022 7 tweets 2 min read
1. In my column and my upcoming book, After the Ivory Tower Falls, a main focus has been how America has failed its young people (especially young men). What I've come to strongly support is a government-backed universal "gap year" for 18-year-olds. Why? 2. At 18, we go from schooling as a public good to throwing teens out into the world, most often either a) telling them they're "worthless" if they don't go to college or b) saddling them with a massive debt before many really know what they want to do
May 18, 2022 9 tweets 3 min read
1. I may be the national columnist, but the fate of the nation and what happens this fall in Pennsylvania are inextricably linked. I've been on the story for the last 18 months, and with all the interest I want to highlight some of what I've written 2. Way back in December 2020, I tried to warn readers about the threat that Doug Mastriano posed to Pennsylvania and our democracy inquirer.com/columnists/att…