For no particular reason, a thread of books on presidential power that I recommend. 🧵📚

Genuinely curious if this law censors Indiana University Press from publishing a book on MAGA and white supremacy. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/13/u...

I found my new epitaph: "I was accused more than once by some Board members and the Governor’s office of being stubborn. Perhaps I am. But stubborn and principled often look the same, especially to those who are unprincipled."

It’s been an epically bad couple weeks for the NYT.

Here's a depressing thought: Why would any young far-right extremist in 2025 join the Oath Keepers and *hope* that one day President Trump calls them up as a militia... ...when now they can join ICE instead and do roughly the same exact thing but with federal protection?

Some very good news from the PNW.

This interview about the new Peter Matthiessen biography is a good reminder that the golden age of the American university was in large part the result of the US govt actively pumping huge amounts of money into the system. www.theparisreview.org/blog/2025/11...

my takeaway from this letter is that glenn youngkin, rector sheridan and their flunkies on the board are deeply dishonest people who are engaged, with the trump administration, in a mob-style shakedown against the university of virginia

John Yoo would be proud. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/13/u...

You love to see it.

Juxtaposing these two surveys highlights the way Christian/religious identity and religious participation are increasingly divergent in the United States. To be Christian increasingly has little to do with actual involvement in religious practices and has more to do with your political in-group.

Kansas City church goes beyond merely welcoming young, liberal, diverse worshipers, Andrews said. The church strives to make their congregants’ experiences, including acknowledgment of harms the church may have caused in the past, central to its services.

EPSTEIN SPENT THANKSGIVING WITH TRUMP WHILE HE WAS PRESIDENT? www.msnbc.com/msnbc/news/e...

we need a department of kerning

I love this framing of Rosalía’s amazing new album as “femme Cath.” open.substack.com/pub/beatrice...

Bubble bursting in 3…2…1…

Flooding the zone with damning evidence is one helluva strategy.

spoke with the executive director of my local food bank today and got this really incredible line: "if you donate 1 can of green beans, we can give away 1 can of green beans. but if you donate a dollar, we can give away 6 cans of green beans"

ROSALÍA's LUX is not just the album of the year; it might be the album of the decade. It's jaw-dropping.

it's not that i ever doubted that being a barista was a skilled position, but my year-long effort to try to produce a half-decent latte at home has convinced me that a good barista is easily more skilled than virtually every c-suite executive on the planet

Former ISI guys say Trump is great but Deneen, Yarvin, and Fuentes are bad. Rod Dreher says Trump, Deneen, and Yarvin are great and just Fuentes is bad. They’re all corrupt morons who are totally fine with fascism as long as it’s respectable and includes their personal friends.

The International Olympic Committee is set to ban trans and intersex women from competition. This is despite the fact that for 20 years, the IOC has allowed trans athletes to compete and only 1 has ever competed and none have ever won a medal. www.the-independent.com/sport/olympi...

Exactly. The worst example of this is Rod Dreher bragging about chumming around with JD Vance and Viktor Orbán while also decrying the spread of groyperism among gen z conservatives.

Huh well it turns out I heard from a few federal workers about this and well "We civil servants organized to help our colleagues face the hardship of the shutdown, we put up with the pain and our only request was to not be betrayed like this. Trade our pain, make it count."

Not that he didn’t already know, but now Trump knows for sure he can roll the Dems every time and there’s no need to negotiate for anything

Pluribus is a fascinating political Rorschach test. Is the event portrayed (no spoilers here) terrible or great? I tend to think it’s great, without denying the drawbacks. Ultimately the show poses the question: What are we willing to sacrifice for utopia?

Reductions in Force not required by shutdowns, have never happened in any previous shutdown, and a judge has ruled they are illegal. The shutdown is an excuse, not a reason, for them to do what they wanted to do: destroy government.

This really is brilliant. It’s also masterfully written. A work of art.

Randomly stopped for a hike at Indian Cave State Park in Nebraska and tracked down a remote cemetery listed as “half-breed cemetery,” where people of mixed Native and Anglo ancestry were buried.

Raising a glass for Rosalind Franklin tonight. James Watson absolutely did her dirty. But beware...

I’ve been looking for a political biography of Pelosi for our Congressional Leaders series at Kansas. If you’re interested in writing one, send me an email or DM.

Fomenting civil war is the far-right strategy in every liberal democratic country. They know their only long-term chance of success is to do a fascist version of Reconstruction.

THE HOBBITS SAVE EVERYONE including 'the hard men of Gondor' my god this illiterate buffoon was created in a lab specifically to annoy me

From Steve Bannon's mouth to God's ears.

“Historical fact.” So much bullshit packed into two seemingly innocuous words.

A priest from my diocese where documentation is documented in excruciatingly minute detail. Targeted and detained by ICE.

The arc of history is a foot-long, but it bends towards justice.

BREAKING: JUSTICE DEPARTMENT EATS A LOSS IN 'SANDWICH GUY' CASE AS JURORS FIND DEFENDANT NOT GUILTY www.nbcnews.com/politics/jus...

Trump and DOGE gutted the NLRB and here we are.

Bracing myself for a nightmare trying to get to and from AAR. apnews.com/article/faa-...

I’m assuming these young conservatives have been reading Deneen and Hazony, both of whom make “blood and soil” arguments exactly like this. Nazi ideology is indeed baked into postliberalism.

Helen Andrews’s entire argument about wokeness depends on the utterly fallacious and fantastical claim that campuses and workplaces used to be “politically neutral” spaces. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/06/o...

SCOTUS (and probably most of the GOP today) wants Reagan’s economic policies combined with Trump’s extreme executive authority + anti-immigrant policies. Put another way, they hate taxes and brown people, but love kings.

My take on today’s tariff arguments at the Supreme Court. Short version: LOL slate.com/news-and-pol...

The New York Times quickly sending out Douthat to argue that Mamdani’s victory doesn’t really matter is so predictable it borders on self-parody. Remember, folks: Every time the Right wins an election, it’s an undeniable expression of the will of the people. If a lefty wins, it’s just a blip.

I cannot recommend enough Michael Gorup's new book, The Counterrevolutionary Shadow: Race, Democracy, and the Making of the American People. Gorup was one of many pushed out of New College in Florida. The code COUNTERSHADOW gets you 30% off and free US shipping. kansaspress.ku.edu/9780700639748/

I saw Radiohead on the In Rainbows tour and have been hoping to get another shot ever since.

I’m just a small-town political scientist, & it’s still relatively early, but it appears that The Actual Democrats did not Need To Do any of the Things or Learn any of the Obvious Lessons that Ezra Douthglesias said they Must Do & Learn.

As someone who used to spend a lot of time in Bucks County and still has friends there, this makes me very happy.