So happy to see this out! We caution against excessive optimism that the opposition will restore countries back to their democratic trajectories after electoral victory. Weakened institutions and the memory of repression makes it tempting to continue rather than buck the trend of autocratization.

More evidence of backlash against politicians associated with political violence

🚨 New Bright Line Watch report on state of US democracy brightlinewatch.org/violence-red... -Expert ratings ~= since April but ↓ substantially since January -US now most closely resembles an illiberal democracy -Partisan gap in democracy ratings highest since 2017 Full thread of results below

Here's 90 minutes with @adamprz.bsky.social, Sue Stokes, Steven Levitsky, and @dziblatt.bsky.social on the state of American democracy right now. It was a great honor for me to be able to convene this set of people to speak together at this moment. Please share! open.spotify.com/episode/0F8W...

when your wars are too crimey even for john yoo, boy howdy

We must stand resolutely against political assassination and political violence of all kinds, and just as resolutely against everyone who exploits acts of violence as the pretext or excuse for political repression of political opponents.

Information environment has reached its grotesque conclusion in that there is a very real killer out there who has not been identified, apprehended, or investigated, a detail practically inconsequential to nearly every commentator’s purposes.

I mean what on earth are district court judges supposed to do at this point other than get the message from SCOTUS to let Trump do whatever he wants to no matter what the law says.

🚨🚨🚨Announcing a special issue on “Political Violence in Democracies” published by @jpeaceresearch.bsky.social and edited by @andrearuggeri.bsky.social, U Daxecker, and me. In this very long 🧵, I will introduce the special issue with its 14 articles. doi.org/10.1177/0022...

A new piece I wrote appearing in FOREIGN AFFAIRS today www.foreignaffairs.com/germany/warn...

over the last week, several political scientists i trust have declared trump a dictator and that america is not a full functioning democracy anymore. see here: goodpoliticsbadpolitics.substack.com/p/where-we-a... donmoynihan.substack.com/p/the-author... i think making a list clarifies this:

I am hiring! 1-2 post-docs to join my project on political violence in democracies at @uupeace.bsky.social!

“Conceptualizing Election-Related Violence” in Terrorism and Political Violence www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Now out: new article w/ @niloufersiddiqui.bsky.social - "Conceptualizing Election-Related Violence" - takes stock of the rapidly growing literature on election violence, identifying points of agreement and disagreement across studies on how the concept is defined and disaggregated into sub-types.

Now out: new article w/ @niloufersiddiqui.bsky.social - "Conceptualizing Election-Related Violence" - takes stock of the rapidly growing literature on election violence, identifying points of agreement and disagreement across studies on how the concept is defined and disaggregated into sub-types.

Voyage of the Mimi

The real lesson of the Grok meltdown yesterday is think of the unimaginable power of controlling one of these platform scale LLMs if you don't go as over-the-top as "I'm Hitler 2.0 let's hurry up and gas the remaining Jews". If it's even slightly more subtle immense possibilities for info dominance.

Elon Musk's latest changes to Grok have made the LLM openly antisemitic.

In a June Democratic mayoral primary, Zohran Mamdani received more votes than 22 sitting US Senators received in their most recent general elections.

Netanyahu has spent the better part of two decades trying to strong arm the United States into an unprovoked war against Iran and finally found a president stupid enough to do it for him. Unbelievable.

i just find this so bizarre. searching through texts and doing the reading for myself is how i actually think through ideas! trying to put together a sentence is how i figure out what i actually want to say!

Here's a longer video of Brad Lander's detention just now inside 26 Federal Plaza as he tried to walk a man out of immigration court, by masked federal agents.

See below. The statement is posted as several skeets posted prior to the request.

What will you do when authoritarianism comes to America? Because it's here. Right now.

Candidly, as a civ-mil watcher, this scene at Bragg is freaking me out more than anything else that's happened so far. Just an absolute collapse of professional military norms.

Possible the Gaza protests hurt Ds electorally because they divided their coalition. But the war did that on its own, protests aside. Hard to pin down the electoral impact. But the evidence that American public opinion shifted in favor of the protestors’ cause is pretty clear-cut

State repression of peaceful protests can subject activists to injury and even death but—when broadcast to the world through media—often turns mass opinion against the state. bsky.app/profile/owas...

I don’t think this is consistent with contemporary political science research. See e.g. Wasow 2020 and Enos et al 2019 @owasow.bsky.social @ryanenos.bsky.social

Seems to me like Elon Musk is about the learn the lessons of the Russian oligarchs

😂😂😂

A great Kenyan has rested. RIP.

I'm procrastinating, Stancil is getting dragged over it, and the Rewatchables podcast guys finally covered it, so I guess it's time for what I hope is my last thread ever on Star Wars. Let's do this. 🧵

This was the first semester I taught Democratic Erosion where I taught cases from elsewhere in the world and thought to myself - “that doesn’t actually sound that bad” in comparison to the U.S.

Is anything more perfect than republicans being like, “we are going to ban anti semitism unless it’s from christians, then it’s ok”

A bit late to publicize, but my book is now available in paperback, and at a very good price from Cambridge w. discount code 102323. I know many of you have been dying to get your hands on it, just waiting for the price to come down 😆

A bit late to publicize, but my book is now available in paperback, and at a very good price from Cambridge w. discount code 102323. I know many of you have been dying to get your hands on it, just waiting for the price to come down 😆

Happy to share a new article published in PRQ entitled "Partisan Law Enforcement and Extremist Violence: Evidence from U.S. Sheriffs"

Honestly amazed by the unwavering commitment of this administration to make everything worse for everyone. To quote @jdcmedlock.bsky.social, "Trump has perfected the art of Pareto Worsening, a change in allocation making at least one person worse off without making a single person better off."

One sign that we are living under an authoritarian regime is that a lot of people are acting like they are living under an authoritarian regime.

Ethnic voting: @scrosenzweig.bsky.social‬ examines the subject through the lens of group norms & social pressure using data from Africa. Read in @polstudies.bsky.social - buff.ly/HxOTGnu #polsci @polstudiesassoc.bsky.social @uoypolitics.bsky.social

Funny how he doesn’t mention another key characteristic of this supposed golden era: mass immigration. The foreign-born share of the population peaked in 1890.

Trump: "You know, our country was the strongest, believe it or not, from 1870 to 1913. You know why? It was all tariff based. We had no income tax." (This is nonsense.)

This is competitive authoritarianism

My book, Voter Backlash and Elite Misperception: The Logic of Violence in Electoral Competition, is now available in paperback! And currently 30% off from Cambridge to mark MPSA with code 102323.

“If American democracy is to prevail, pro-democracy forces must follow the handbook that has enabled oppositions to stop would-be autocrats in other countries,” writes @lgamboa.bsky.social. “The alternative may be to find that democracy has slipped away while they wait.”

WASHINGTON (AP) — Cory Booker breaks the record for longest Senate speech, previously held by segregationist Strom Thurmond.

2/ When illness from contaminated food is quite rare, we forget why food inspectors are so important. When air traffic is stunningly safe, we forget why the FAA is so important. When checks always go out on time, we forget why the SSA is so important.

1/ I wonder if there's a complement to Mettler's _Submerged State_ thesis: the successful state thesis. In brief: American government has *in many ways* been so successful for so long that Americans have forgotten why they need it, making anti-government rhetoric more appealing.