Kash Patel celebrating with the boys

“You do not save democracy by running around yelling about saving democracy. You do it by demonstrating that democracy and Democratic values deliver better quality of life for normal people.” www.nytimes.com/2026/01/12/o...

Of 107 democracies studied by @pewresearch.org, only one other country uses the same redistricting approach as the US, that is, single-member districts drawn mainly by state legislatures: the Federated States of Micronesia, with a population of around 100,000. www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/...

Here is a wide-ranging podcast between myself and Lee Drutman about polling, moderation, spatial voting, electoral reform, and general all things politics and numbers right now: www.politicsinquestion.com/episodes/pol...

Most elections in America aren’t competitive, but Omaha was an exception. @leedrutman.bsky.social and @dustinwahl.bsky.social explain why the real issue is our broken electoral system: riponsociety.org/article/is-t...

This is why I took the under on "NBA coach gets arrested in illegal gambling investigation by 2026." The gambling industry's takeover of sports advertising (to the point of announcers touting betting lines during broadcasts) made this inevitable. The corruption unfolded right in front of our eyes.

The 20th century's mass death events were intentional and hateful. In the digital age, our mass death event is arbitrary and apathetic. If it's true that 14 million die by 2030 without USAID, what do we call that? Neglecticide? Whatever it is, very few of us seem to give a shit

Mills would be 79 when she takes office, 85 when she retires. Says she'll only serve one term, which shows how useless term limits are to bring down the age of Congress. To bridge the age gap, we need serious reform, as @oscarp.bsky.social and I recently wrote: protectdemocracy.org/work/age-div...

Tom Homan took a $50k bribe. Trump killed the investigation. Vance shrugged it off as business as usual. Polls show corruption is THE issue voters care about. The electoral opportunity for Dems to become the anti-corruption party is massive. But first, they must clean their own house to gain trust.

"Why Support for Political Violence Is Not as High as It May Seem" www.nytimes.com/2025/09/20/u...

"the proudest boast of our free speech jurisprudence is that we protect the freedom to express 'the thought that we hate.'" -- noted leftist Justice Alito

I gave a campus talk last night on Trump's first 100 days for the WUD Society & Politics group. A student asked me if I thought that, at some point, we might start to describe the US as a competitive authoritarian regime. I said that we were already there, it's just that most folks haven't noticed:

“He’s not an autocrat because he won an election” is a world historically stupid take. Read a book!

It's true as a matter of perspective, political violence can be much worse than current levels in the US. But neither is it an irrational panic, it's grounded in the less visible but much more widespread reality that getting bombarded with death threats is much more common now than it used to be.

supreme irony that the party of lincoln is now the party of taney

"What made Omaha a weird city in 2024 was that its diversity was visible. To fix our failing politics, America needs an electoral system that makes our diversity visible everywhere."

I spent last summer in the weirdest city in politics. Omaha voted Democrat for President, Independent for Senate, Republican for House. @leedrutman.bsky.social and I explain why places like that are going away, and what we can do about it, in the latest Ripon Forum. riponsociety.org/article/is-t...

it won't happen automatically. but there is very obviously an opportunity for ambitious types who want to quite literally save the American republic to have their names written in history. crowns are in the gutter waiting to be picked up

I’d be really interested in seeing recruitment and retention data for the National Guard over the next couple of years.

Congress is too old! It's not a mystery why that is! Here is my new report about it!

The whole confederacy is getting in on it.

“American leadership is older today than at any other time in history.” Oscar Pocasangre and @dustinwahl.bsky.social explore the depth of the age divide in a NEW REPORT co-published by @protectdemocracy.org and @newamerica.org protectdemocracy.org/age-divide

bat signal for @fixourhouse.bsky.social

what this makes me think about - with regard to right now - is how so much of the information about Trump and Epstein that’s resonated in recent weeks is old stuff, widely and publicly reported. but a lot of it didn’t break through to lots of ppl in their information environments

With Colton's conviction, that makes FOUR pardoned January 6th insurrectionists who have faced charges for solicitation of a minor or child sex abuse of some kind.

"Mr. Murdoch stated that he would take care of it" 👀 Can we take a moment to appreciate how THAT RIGHT THERE is what, in any other age, would have been a presidency-destroying scandal???

straightforward Trump appeasement. a bribe from a company wanting regulatory approval variety.com/2025/tv/news...

Earlier today I talked to Andrew Doty and @dustinwahl.bsky.social about the communication ethics of advocating for political reform. A very interesting conversation and a lot of food for thought. Check it out. www.ethicsinpoliticalcommunication.org/video-conver...

Scoop: Attorney General Pam Bondi has fired her personal ethics chief, Joseph Tirrell. Without explanation, she removes DOJ's career ethics office director who advised the most senior political appointees (such as Todd Blanche, Kash Patel) on conflicts. news.bloomberglaw.com/us-law-week/...

We’re releasing the Epstein Files day one. There are no Epstein Files. Here’s video proof nothing happened. Ok we had to edit it. There are no Epstein Files. There are Epstein Files, but the Democrats made them. Why do you care so much about this Epstein guy? What are “Files”?

The Project on Ethics in Political Communication's occasional conversation series is back - on July 15 we're talking about ethics and political reform with Andrew Doty and @dustinwahl.bsky.social. Details and registration here: www.ethicsinpoliticalcommunication.org/blog/ethical...

Hard to overstate how much I respect MGP www.compactmag.com/article/mari...

Kilmar Abrego Garcia is back in U.S. custody after being illegally deported and will now face federal human trafficking charges in Tennessee.

Exciting new project for “technoprogressives” from @ezup.bsky.social technoprogressives.substack.com/p/welcome-to...

Can't help but feel we're living through an increasingly existential war between spectacle and substance with spectacle winning battle after battle after battle.

The process of inoculation in the 1700’s was scraping smallpox pus out of open lesions from infected patients, making an incision in the person being inoculated, and stuffing the infected pus into the incision. Yet even this was preferable to smallpox. Our vaccines are a million times safer.

New from @protectdemocracy.org: Donald Trump is governing by emergency, pushing both national security and the military to dangerous new levels of politicization. This leads to a dark and scary place. www.ifyoucankeepit.org/p/55-years-a...

NYT Page One: “.. a blitz of moneymaking ventures capitalizing on their father’s name and power, each seemingly trying to outdo the other.” @nytimes.com

Lots of talk about America going in the direction of Hungary. Ironically, one of Orbán’s first big steps toward authoritarianism was making Hungary’s election system *more like America’s.* www.chicagotribune.com/2022/08/03/f...

These guys are about to kick millions of people off their health insurance and they don't have the faintest idea of how these programs work, just throwing out numbers in an incoherent jumble. It's like a football coach saying "We've got a 10-yard redzone in our offside flea flicker so we'll be good"

If you really want to fight for democracy in America, you need to acknowledge that winner-take-all elections are really poor instruments of democracy. @fairvote.bsky.social is out with its Monopoly Politics report, and it's a must read. fairvote.org/report/monop...

Seems like a good time to remind everyone that maintaining our unpopular two-party system is a choice, and we can make a choice to have more choice: www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

If members of the press are worried they didn’t give enough coverage to the cognitive decline of a sitting president, they have an amazing opportunity to make up for it right now.

Turns out you can shape the agenda with dramatic action and maybe even shift public opinion. Crazy.

Four Russian journalists have been convicted of extremism and jailed for working with an anti-corruption group founded by the opposition leader Aleksei Navalny, highlighting the perils of independent journalism amid an intensified Kremlin crackdown on freedom of expression.