even the most tenacious autocrats have a difficult time denying a landslide result against them

Trans friends, thank you for being you, and for, when you can, sharing yourselves with a world that is so frequently undeserving of the light you bring to it. I love and support you, always. 🏳️‍⚧️🫂🫶

the Spectator accidentally recycled a subhed from a previous day’s article about Tehran

Apparently "Democracy Dies in Darkness" was just Bezos's mission statement.

The Stories from the Field podcast is now back with a second season!

Rhode Island, write to your state senators about this ASAP:

Hopeful thread.

Ok, I couldn't stop thinking about this. Apologies to the literally dozens of people I've lifted from... I want to do a fully credited version, but I'm sitting here sobbing and, well, maybe you'll feel some release, too.

Abolish and prosecute ICE. They did a murder in broad daylight today. Imagine what they're doing in the closed facilities we're somehow not even allowed to see.

Some top-notch Rhode Island reporters to follow: @tednesi.bsky.social @iandonnis.bsky.social @amandamilkovits.bsky.social @fitzprov.bsky.social @waveelection.bsky.social @antoniafarzan.bsky.social @steveahlquist.bsky.social

Please follow official updates and only share confirmed updates. This keeps us all safer. www.brown.edu

On this Trans Day of Remembrance, we remember the bright and courageous trans people whose lives were stolen by hatred. Their absence is felt across our city. We will honor them by building a New York where every trans person can live safely, fully and freely.

1/x For no particular reason, a thread of books to remind you that gender matters to international security. #polisky @oraszekely.bsky.social, Jessica, and I wrote Insurgent Women to highlight the involvement of women in multiple conflicts. press.georgetown.edu/Book/Insurge...

A free and democratic society cannot silence comedians because the President doesn’t like what they say. This is an attack on free speech and cannot be allowed to stand. All elected officials need to speak up and push back on this undemocratic act.

wrote on charlie kirk for the newsletter this weekend

A protest against ICE in the Park Avenue neighborhood appeared to provoke the federal agents to leave a roofing job site. www.wxxinews.org/local-news/2...

6 days after Soviet troops invaded Czechoslovakia in 1968, a Prague paper published these “10 Commandments”: ‘When a Soviet soldier comes to you, YOU: 1. Don’t know 2. Don’t care 3. Don’t tell 4. Don’t have 5. Don’t know how to 6. Don’t give 7. Can’t do 8. Don’t sell 9. Don’t show 10. Do nothing’

Are there any civ-mil scholars who are not alarmed by this? Anyone?

Faculty who wrote to defend their president and object to a DOJ investigation of their university...are now being investigated by the DOJ. The most banal defense of free speech and academic freedom will trigger the full wrath of the US government now. www.nytimes.com/2025/07/28/u...

During McCarthyism, they went after individuals to force their agenda, now they're going after entire institutions. The Trump administration is doing everything they can to reverse all progress toward creating a higher education system assessable to all. We must fight back. #DefendHigherEd

it is genuinely insane that we have just kind of acclimated to the fact that we have masked secret police now

Faceless government goon arrests public official for refusing to hand over a vulnerable person without a warrant. Guess the country.

Why, it contains no king.

This phone interview contains a detailed description of the wildest fucking shit I've ever heard on television news, hands down

I don't generally give out life advice but one suggestion I have is to not take or remain in a job that requires you to hide your face from your fellow citizens in shame while you do your fucking nazi cosplay on behalf of a paste-brained tyrant

congratulations to Donald Trump on losing the Canadian election

Political Science and IR people are going to be extremely annoying about star wars for a few weeks. You cannot stop it, so I recommend you shelter in place.

Good.

to all who celebrate...

"Hell is realizing that most of the people you voted for, even those you really admired, were not built for a crisis like this and are not coming to save you."

This is excellent. I'm proud to be a member of the AAUP.

I know this first hand. When I was a child, my entire community was branded as spies and sabateurs, justifying our internment inside barbed wire camps for years without due process, trial or charge.

Please read this.

Cannot stress Amy's second point enough. It's both morally wrong and unbelievably dangerous for Jews to allow ourselves to be used as the wedge to overturn basic civil liberties in this country.

The way it works is that you strip fundamental rights from targets with less political support that people will turn their consciences off to justify persecuting and then eventually the state can do it to anyone, that’s always been the plan bsky.app/profile/pbum...

Here’s the reality: This government—despite what they’d have us believe—cannot simply do whatever it wants. The moment we accept that bullshit, we become complicit in this blatantly authoritarian move by the president and his administration. With a loud, collective voice, we must say: fuck this!

Ripping a student from their home, challenging their immigration status, and detaining them solely based on political viewpoint will chill student speech and advocacy across campuses nationwide. Political speech should never be a basis of punishment or lead to deportation.

"Let's understand who our true enemy is. Is it a virile, often shirtless man on horseback who poisons political opponents and journalists and who’s causing the deaths of countless innocent people? Or is it a children’s book about a kid with two dads?"

Lots of folks are asking what they can do to be helpful in this moment. I like the short list of action items that @choosedemocracy.bsky.social lists on their site. Democratic civil society is about being stronger together. Any effective strategy flows from that. choosedemocracy.us/what-can-i-do/

Political scientists are really, really worried about the United States right now: drive.google.com/file/d/1lGk2...

I hope America is as lucky as the delta jet - everyone survives but the right wing explodes

I know Stathis. He was a colleague of mine at the University of Chicago. He is a pretty buttoned-down scholar. For him to tweet this out is… something.

“Trump’s orders are about controlling ideas that can be discussed in the classroom, limiting & censoring faculty & students, & codifying into law the prejudices of the past. This nation has overcome attempts at authoritarianism before. We will do so again.” www.insidehighered.com/news/governm...

This is why every political scientist you know has been in a state of panic for the past week. This isn't about policy disagreement, it's about the Constitution being destroyed before our very eyes.

More of this please. cc: @whitehouse.senate.gov, @reed.senate.gov