More evidence for @mikeduncan.bsky.social’s Great Idiot Theory of history

I really enjoy EB White's take on New York and New Yorkers.

Xi arrives in Pyongyang for state visit to DPRK - Xinhua english.news.cn/20260608/474...

Worth reminding that this began in retaliation to an Iranian ballistic missile strike on Israel which was in retaliation to an Israel strike in Lebanon

Chinese leader Xi Jinping will make a rare trip to North Korea next week to meet with Kim Jong Un, Xi’s first such trip in seven years and a major opportunity for Kim to show Washington that he has powerful friends, even if he is shunned by the West. Gift link: wapo.st/4a1wAeX

has any man ever been more vindicated? x.com/stuartbuck1/...

New paper by Donahue & Reich, forthcoming in AJS. Using 18 years of Florida voter records, they find Republicans significantly more likely than Democrats to shift Hispanic→White. Democrats more likely to shift White→Hispanic. 1/ www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/epdf/10.... HT @mattgrossmann.bsky.social

This piece on the fundamental emptiness of AI art, and how it’s arrived at a time when we are making so much empty art anyway, is so complex, funny, and insightful. I wish more of the people mad at its existence would take the time to read it. So here’s a gift link www.nytimes.com/2026/05/31/m...

It's a great feeling when you follow an account for non-Chicago-related reasons and they turn out to also have correct Chicago opinions.

In political science, I often warn that the electorate is not “a rational God of vengeance and reward,” using V. O Key’s memorable description of the question. One also shouldn’t assume that future history writers are a rational God of vengeance and reward.

PPBE explainers should all use this cube. Congress insists on organizing military budgets by categories on top (roughly, lifecycle). DOD historically and most comfortably, thinks of in terms of "who gets it". McNamara wanted a system tracking "what major *purpose* is it going to?", thus PPBS.

Shrey spelling 32 words in 90 seconds to win the Spelling Bee is the new greatest athletic accomplishment of 2026. I don’t even know how he said the letters that fast. Got a “Holy Mackerel” out of @minakimes.bsky.social

I assumed this was some small offense from an unaware American marketing team - but no, a deep cut of right-wing conspiracist / anti-democratic thinking from a very right-wing Korean CEO. Wild thread.

"...the smaller the margin, the more explanations become mathematically plausible. In a 10-point loss, you need a large, systematic failure to explain the result. In a 1.5-point loss, you don’t."

There is a lot of low-quality survey data out there that's used primarily as a marketing/PR tool with little to no transparency on methods, questions asked, etc. and it is often accepted and written about with far too much credulity.

What do Taiwanese voters think of Trump? Does Taiwan see America as a trusworthy ally? Would voters support more defense spending? Have attitudes changed over time? All of this and more with @poscwty1.bsky.social in our final piece for @brookings.edu 3 part series:

MORE: Police response times dropped in beats that had ShotSpotter even though many of those neighborhoods are among the city’s most violent, especially during the summer months, according to the analysis.

“We hear the story of thousands of Uyghurs who travelled to Syria to gain battlefield experience fighting in the Syrian civil war. Are these people freedom fighters? Or are they the now battle-hardened militants China always feared?” one.npr.org/i/nx-s1-5831...

TAQUITO Trump always questions US Indo-Pacific treaty obligations (Feel like this one has been staring us in the face)

Germany is the epicentre of the China Shock 2.0 reverberating in global markets In a new joint paper, CFR's Brad Setser and I show the shock is a key driver of Germany’s economic malaise. And it's accelerating Berlin needs to stop admiring the problem, and join efforts to fight back 1/many

A bunch of people seem to have been saying the US and China did not establish a new dialogue mechanism this week. Then today USG said the Board of Trade and Board of Investment would come into existence. Are these two things both true? www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/... 1/

Good thread, and especially relevant to the question of why US scholars aren't rapidly exiting.

FT": "Protests erupted overnight in Cuba after the government said it had completely run out of diesel and fuel oil, the energy supplies essential to its power generation." “We have absolutely no fuel [oil] and absolutely no diesel,” said Cuba's energy minister, blaming Trump's" blockade of Cuba

Americans tend to think US military action against Iran has been detrimental to the US economy, national security, and standing abroad. (@global-affairs.bsky.social @ipsosus.bsky.social) More, via Opinion Today: opiniontoday.substack.com/p/260513-top...

Another blockbuster from @pewresearch.org, on whether silicon samples can accurately simulate human survey respondent answers. They can’t.

Really extraordinary reporting by @natashabertrand.bsky.social et al. A few observations. 1. You don't appoint a former CIA Ground Branch bigwig ambassador to Mexico without serious escalatory intent. Likely functioning as on-the-ground covert operations general. www.cnn.com/2026/05/12/p...

"According to Japan's Nihon Keizai Shimbun on Tuesday, NATO recently asked South Korea, Japan, Australia and New Zealand to join the Starlift project." en.sedaily.com/internationa...

What did Taiwan actually think of the Cheng-Xi meeting? This week, @poscwty1.bsky.social & I have three reports at @brookings.edu analyzing new survey data on how Taiwan saw the meeting, 92 Consensus, defense spending, Trump, the US, and more. Here is piece #1: www.brookings.edu/articles/how...

we don’t talk enough about how Chicago is the most gorgeous city in the country

To me, Chicago is the most American city - all the good, and all the bad, it‘s all here somewhere. And I feel very, very lucky to have ended up here.

Smart piece flipping on its head the usual analysis of Beijing’s military confidence, arguing instead this means an invasion is incredibly unlikely, bc China “it currently believes that unification will become easier and less costly as time passes.” www.foreignaffairs.com/taiwan/why-c...

A record number of Russians now believe that Russia is on the "wrong track", according to polls. The share of citizens who believe the country is moving in the "wrong direction" has reached its highest level since February 2022, according to a survey by the Levada Center:

now thats an anecdote with a punch, from Gillian Tett www.ft.com/content/c0ae...

“The question, then, is not whether Germany is ready to rearm. It obviously is. The question is whether Germany can transform its material capability into political resolve. Whether this amounts to a European ‘superpower’ is another question…” www.chathamhouse.org/2026/05/germ...

Once again: close an area to cars, business *increases*. Every time. And yet every new proposal to close an area to cars meets the same resistance from business owners. I'm starting to wonder whether business owners really are rational self-interest maximizers, I tell you!

"I'm baffled. College graduates can't find jobs. At the same time, [the govt] is upping retirement age, encouraging childbirth, aggressively developing AI to replace humans, & not allowing people to drop out and take it easy. These 5 things are somehow all happening simultaneously." —Gongzi Ce

New from 404 Media: we've obtained a copy of the Chinese-language realtime deepfake software powering scams around the world. For weeks I spoke to these scammers, sent them photos of my face to build a deepfake. We reveal how it works. Impacts WhatsApp, Teams, Zoom www.404media.co/hello-boss-i...

In the US for SelectUSA Investment Summit this week and one takeaway is how hard Chinese firms — across industries — are finding it hard to grow here. My interview with Nebraska's governor Jim Pillen reveals the sentiment among some leaders. www.fdiintelligence.com/content/7b6d...

Yo, anyone want to be a Bird Identification Machine Learning Software Engineer for the wonderful Cornell Lab of Ornithology, home of the Merlin app?!? It’s remote! I do not have these skills but maybe you do! #jobs jobs.hr.cornell.edu/us/en/job/WD...

Trump White House didn’t bother checking with Gulf partners before trying to run the Strait of Hormuz—which risked resumption of high intensity warfare—and an angry Saudi Arabia forbid use of bases or airspace. Helps explain “Project Freedom” reversal. Nearly every way they can screw up, they do.

just to emphasize again, closing Malacca means 'taking a couple of extra days on a trip.' the economist had a great recent graph on various straits and their relative levels of direness.

The latest installment in @marthawells.com's Murderbot Diaries, Platform Decay, is out now from our friends @torbooks! Hack your governor module and get a copy today 🤖 us.macmillan.com/books/978125...

Have you completed a Japan-related dissertation in the social sciences at a US-based university, or have you supervised such a dissertation, in the past year? If so, please consider the Richard J. Samuels Dissertation Prize Competition of the US-Japan Foundation. Deadline: June 15, 2026. #japan

@jeongminkim.bsky.social is here! bsky.app/profile/jeon...

Nice piece by Jeongmin Kim at NKNews on the trajectory of our North Korea policy debates in DC over the last decade or so www.nknews.org/share/bd4bd2f8

🚨 Now out in @bjpols.bsky.social w @busbyj2.bsky.social @jordantama.bsky.social @ckafura.bsky.social: Do American foreign policy elites know what the public wants? Partnering with @global-affairs.bsky.social, we show that elites systematically misread the room 🧵 www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Partisans have differing opinions about the influence certain countries have in the world – especially the U.S. 🧵

Is this, plus missiles against UAE, Iran avoiding a direct attack on the US by hitting allies instead? They did this in the shadow war (Japanese oil tanker iirc).