Fortunately, authoritarians often are defeated because they are bad at governing. Unforced errors: imposes needless tariffs and starts a war because nobody was willing to tell him those are dumb things to do. US taxpayers are stuck with the bill. Punishment at the ballot box will be brutal.

I encourage you to read this by @nickkristof.bsky.social, not only because it is important to understand the systematic terror our government is indirectly supporting, but also because it is a model of investigative journalism, moral clarity, and effective writing. www.nytimes.com/2026/05/11/o...

This is a primary reason (in addition to cognitive decline making it harder for him to hide his racism).

A society awash with guns: 1) man with recent conviction for shooting at police officers obtains an assault weapon, 2) goes to crowded street and randomly fires at cars, 3) is shot by other guy with gun. All in Cambridge, MA, which has low overall gun ownership. www.bostonglobe.com/2026/05/11/m...

A pro-Republican bias of about 4 points isn't even high by the historical standard. Below are my partisan bias calculations for the Electoral College, House, and Senate. The EC, for all its faults, tends to be *the least biased* of the three electoral systems (all of which are bad).

Trump is also solidly underwater with *every* major demographic group. There is no political downside to opposing authoritarianism.

This book is having a moment. www.routledge.com/Redistrictin...

This is how every other country imagines life in America

"So all the people took off their earrings and brought them to Aaron. He took what they handed him and made it into an idol cast in the shape of a calf, fashioning it with a tool. Then they said, 'These are your gods'."

“The name of a man is a numbing blow from which he never recovers.” - Marshall McLuhan www.theatlantic.com/politics/202...

Late Roman Empire

Is there any evidence that this is something that Democrats don't do? Or is it just something politicians say about other politicians in order to signal their own populist bona fides? (notice my use of Latin gobbledygook)

The American constitutional system was not designed so that the President just decides to do something, say knock down a public building or start a war, and then has a subservient Congress decide to pay for it.

having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little

Making the lunacy clear: The 14th Amendment gives Congress the explicit power to legislate to enforce the Amendment. Congress passed the 1965 Civil Rights Act to explicitly enforce the 14th Amendment. The court guts the legislation as a violation of 14th Amendment. www.nytimes.com/2026/05/02/o...

Perhaps the part that is bothers me most about this (and other such statements) is praising Trump for his "courage". It isn't courageous to send other people to kill and die.

NorCal, Central Valley, SoCal

Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut.

As others have pointed out, in other countries experiencing democratic decline, the judiciaries, rather than protecting democracy, have aided authoritarianism. Besides being bad on the merits, the Callais decision gives a major boost to the authoritarian party headed into the midterm election.

This is worth thinking about...

The Supreme Court is essentially constrained only by: 1) a norm that they follow precedent (this isn't written down anywhere, it is merely a norm), and 2) Congressional authority over their jurisdiction, funding, and composition. The second has been entirely abandoned, the first is on life support.

"The point of the indictment is to demonstrate that the United States Department of Justice is wholly an instrument of Donald Trump’s senescent pique" www.popehat.com/p/the-comey-...

Among the many crazy things about Charles III wagging the royal finger at the Republican Congress is that, were he a commoner, he would likely be a Tory.

Disney has a duty to fight this in court - they would almost surely win. Consumers and their employees should pressure them to do so.

Is there any evidence that Trump, as the leader of one of the major parties for 10 years now, has any more attempts on his life per annum than other leaders in modern times?

Apropos of everything, I just wrapped teaching my new course, "Unity and Division" on whether and how diverse societies can be successful. It was perhaps the most the most gratifying teaching experience I have had at Harvard. Syllabus is here: www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/nr2gv...

Even if Kimmel's jokes were in bad taste (and I'm not sure they were given an octogenarian man married to much younger woman), then America's free press still has a responsibility to resist the obviously opportunistic call by Trump to silence dissent. Even more so at this moment.

This is very relevant to discussions about the presumed causes for a decline in public trust in higher education seemingly taken for granted in recent reports. www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

This is really good. www.nytimes.com/2026/04/27/o...

There are things that are very hard for me to understand. He could simply pay the tax and he would be left with about $260 Billion in wealth. More than any single human could every possibly spend across any number of lifespans. www.nytimes.com/2026/04/27/u...

Fortress-building your way to safety (metal detectors in schools, more elaborate missile defense systems, White House ballrooms) is not a way to build a happy and secure society in the long term. It is short-sighted at best.

It is a sign of how little shared perspective there is on the meaning of academic freedom that while this is going on, there are prominent people (including at my own institution) celebrating what they see as a renaissance of academic freedom.

“What has gone missing are the institutional consequences that disapproval used to trigger. Public opinion is working. The machinery that once converted public opinion into accountability is not. The jury came back. The foreman spoke and then everyone went out to lunch, including the accused.”

Your occasional reminder to update your premature claims about "racial realignments" after 2024.

A fantastic example of how our press can't escape their previous frames, even in the face of an authoritarian assault on democracy. Here, the lead is about the Washington insider attempts to cement a cabinet position, rather than the authoritarian weaponization of American justice.

Vietnam: a famous military and political success story.

Can't emphasize enough how alarming this is. Even if it doesn't come to fruition, think of the chilling effect on the exercise of democratic citizenship (voting, protesting, etc) when you are told that you can be stripped of your citizenship for political crimes.

And so did the hours elapse and the Lord heard the cry of his children and said: I will not forsake you, no, you will not languish on the single track between Kingston and Providence, nor linger at Route 128 for I see that you have humbled yourselves before me and will sit in the quiet car next time

Political Science: why voteless decision making produces consensus among Quakers History: the origins of the idea of the Panopticon in the 18th Century British Navy.

If these numbers hold up (and I think we should be cautious about them and replicate), it would signal a significant collapse of support for Trump.

Who reads this and thinks that it is at all responsible to leave him with the nuclear codes?

People need to step back on this Yale report on mistrust in higher education. It is a report on public opinion that does not actually engage in any public opinion research. Rather, they talked to a bunch of elites with strong opinions about higher education. www.nytimes.com/2026/04/15/u...

the head of this Leviathan, in the creature’s living intact state, is an entire delusion