Debt is up, inflation up, affordability down, losing support of allies, increasingly isolated glibally, violence is up, war is raging. Time for change. www.nytimes.com/2026/05/07/b...

We typically think of democracy in terms of winning elections. But increasingly the durability of democracy is the willingness to concede defeat, to lose. Orban's defeat is an important milestone because he conceded his defeat, something we can no longer take for granted in fledgling democracies.

And Hitler had his Brownshirts (SA). www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

Just finished #Murakami's most recent. Capsule review: Classic HM but leans more into the magical / surreal / fantastical side of things. As with all HM novels, the writing is beautiful, alluring & seductive. I can read 50 pages, have no idea what's going on and yet can't put it down!

This makes sense because it totally makes no sense. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/09/u...

Some educators, like @uoft-poli-sci.bsky.social @josephwongut.bsky.social, are embracing AI as a teaching tool which he discusses on CBC radio's Cross Country Checkup with Ian Hanomansing (48:00). www.cbc.ca/listen/live-...

Surely, voters must understand this is inflation and has an effect on affordability for regular Americans. Surely they must. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/07/b...

In most countries, politics is divided along a left-right spectrum. In #America it appears the major divide is between the morally and the immorally evil.

3 questions: what is the goal of this war (i.e. what will end it); can it be contained or will it continue to spread rapidly; and where is Congress? #Iran www.theguardian.com/world/2026/m...

Wow, what a huge honor! Thanks Lev! I look forward to listening, having read your book and know it is timely, empirically rich and critically important as we work to ensure democratic resilience in Taiwan.

An excellent take on why ending an autocracy does not necessarily mean starting a democracy. #Iran www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/arti...

Why is the Canadian ambassador presenting his credentials to Trump in a thrift junk store?

Was it just me or did it seem odd that in the run-up to the men's gold medal hockey game, American commentators, in describing the US Canada rivalry, kept alluding to the 1980 match between the US and the Soviets at the height of the cold war. www.nytimes.com/2026/02/18/o...

Ahead of the State of the Union address on Tuesday, evidence continues to mount that President Trump is facing political headwinds. n.pr/4s3mGQj

Talk about some ambitious post-retirement planning. #Trump #BoardOfPeace www.nytimes.com/2026/01/21/u...

This is Canada's moment. Talking about global leadership with David Ossip, Joannah Lawson and Valerie Pringle at the Upper Canada College Founders Dinner. Leadership that addresses complexity, with empathy and with conviction to the promise of pluralism and inclusion in #Canada.

I cannot believe what is happening in Minnesota. There is no bottom to this. Trump has no incentive to concede as a lame duck president who is clearly out for himself right now. It is like a mob boss on the ropes.

As Dan Slater and I intimate in our book, development and demo do go hand-in-hand. The erosion of democracy today is a reflection of the failure of development, and specifically, I'm convinced, of inclusive development. The JD Vance-ification of politics reflects this.

Headlines like these just seem so wrong. #putin #trump #europeanunion

Reposting for Canada Day! Investing in a Canadian elbows-up strategy. My June op-ed in @thestar.com, on Canada's middle power moment on the global stage. www.thestar.com/business/opi...

Congrats to all @uoft.bsky.social grads! It never rains on convocation day! #uoftgrad25

This is Canada's moment. My Toronto Star op-ed on what Canada needs to do to assert our global leadership amidst huge changes to the international order. www.thestar.com/business/opi...

Strategy to bring back manufacturing to #America: by levying tariffs on #steel and aluminum, key manufacturing inputs, making them more expensive for American manufacturers. Makes total (non)sense. #MAGA www.politico.com/news/2025/06...

Let me get this straight. Trump wants to reassert American dominance by turning away the best, most talented ppl in the world, because #Trump believes those in the #MAGA base who voted for him are the only ones who can make #America great again?

This piece in the NY Times correctly hones in on why international students are vital to US interests Kicking them out will destroy the research & development pipeline that has propelled the US into global leadership in science & tech

Just came back from visiting Oliver, who's doing an internship in Accra, Ghana. I was his age when I went to Asia by myself. Changed my life: thought I was going to be a lawyer, then decided to devote my life to studying that part of the world. #impact #growingup

Trump's health secretary, the guy who claims a worm burrowed into his brain, ate part of it and then died there. Explains alot. #rfk www.nytimes.com/2025/05/12/u...

Four years ago I wrote a globeandmail op-ed on micro-aggressions and racism. Re-sharing it for #asianheritagemonth #AAPIHeritageMonth www.utoronto.ca/news/call-ou...

My 83 yr old mom lookin' like she's running for the Liberal Party of Canada!

Guns n Roses over cocktails. @uoft.bsky.social

Don't poke the polar bear. #CanadaStrong

A meeting of minds (coauthors and friends), Dan Ziblatt, Dan Slater, and Rachel Riedl, in Boston, conspiring to strengthen global democracy.

I assign #PopeFrancis encyclical in my class b/c in it he makes the simple yet powerful point: unfair inequality and environmental degradation are morally wrong and we need to do something about it. Flawed as popes are, he was a rare one #RIPPopeFrancis

30 years ago we met as first-year PhD students @UWMadison. Spending this past weekend together at my cottage, reminiscing and realizing how our profs back then, who seemed so old, were younger than we are today! Grateful for these guys! #gradschool #phdlife

The notion that Trump defying the courts poses a constitutional crisis is misleading. The fact we have to contemplate that at all is the crisis. His defiance would be the death knell of democracy. #SCOTUS

I talked on @cbcnews-rss.bsky.social about the economic and political implications of the trade war which the U.S. started www.cbc.ca/player/play/...

It's so weird to find myself quietly cheering on #Harvard and #China these days.

The Trump regime is claiming tyrannical powers. Not an exaggeration, not hyperbole, not a partisan statement. The reality we now face.

Political economy 101 -- non-tariff barrier: when a country in the midst of a trade war decides it's just not going to sell you things you need anymore. #TrumpTariffs #TradeWar www.nytimes.com/2025/04/13/b...

China will suffer, to be sure, because it will lose sales and export revenue. The US, however, likely to suffer more because it can't make the things that China makes and #America needs. #TariffWar #China

Tariffs 101: America imports alot, thus huge trade deficits. It's not getting ripped off, just doesn't really make anything Americans want/need. #TrumpTariffs make imports (i.e. everything) cost more, so that Americans will make stuff for themselves. Make sense? Didn't think so.

I find the two 4-letter words that explain much of what's going on with and in the Trump administration are "dumb" and "evil."

"You want to live in TAIWAN?!?" exclaims Parker Posey's character on #WhiteLotus3 ep 5, confusing #Thailand with #Taiwan yet again. Sigh.

Taking Jackie Robinson down from DoD site, then restoring him, but not because of his contributions to combating #racism is like saying ... #JackieRobinson did not break the racial color line in baseball, transforming pro sports & #America forever.

Anything that is not racist is now considered DEI.

Got my burners for China. Got my burners for Russia. Got my burners for Turkey and Hungary. Getting my burners for...the US. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

The Department of Defense deemed a story about baseball hero and civil rights leader Jackie Robinson's time in the Army as "DEI" and deleted it.

Five years ago, almost to the day, I thought my son was going to be off school for 2 weeks and that I'd be teaching online for a while using Skype. #Covid #memories

JD Vance says in 2021: "We have to honestly and aggressively attack the universities in this country. The professors are the enemy." Welcome to America's cultural revolution. #Trump #JDVance #highereducation

America's disengagement from the rest of the world signals its unwillingness to be a global leader; but surely, cutting programs like #fulbright, #USAID, and diplomatic ties will have national #security implications too, from no intel to waning influence.