In the 1990s, cable news networks discovered that viewers were less likely to click away from coverage of culture war issues than coverage of economic matters. TV news started giving social issues greater priority - and caused voters to do the same, a new study suggests www.vox.com/politics/475...

How cable news broke US politics: www.gelliottmorris.com/p/how-cable-...

very cool to have our new paper about cable news and the culture war covered by @jburnmurdoch.ft.com www.ft.com/content/5060...

cultural over economic coverage on cable news mobilizes viewers who would otherwise watch entertainment programming, so cable news emphasizes cultural politics much more than politicians trying to maximize vote share www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/27v4x...

🚨 new working paper with Aakaash Rao (his JMP!) Why has American politics become engulfed by a "culture war" in recent decades? We trace the culture war back to changes in the media environment in the 1980s/1990s and to the distinctive economic incentives of viewership-maximizing news outlets

I had been doubtful that we were going to have a "this is the crisis moment" with Trump, as opposed to "everything about this is a destructive catastrophe." But the Abrego Garcia case is the crisis moment. 1/

Unidentified men grabbing someone off the street and putting her in a car because she wrote an op-Ed. This as flatly authoritarian as anything we’ve seen in this country in a very long time.

Heartbreaking to contrast the great 20th century lineage of American Jewish intellectuals, academics, and activists with the behavior of American Jewish institutions over the past two years. An irredeemable disgrace. www.gsa.gov/about-us/new...

Also, who cares if you get small-bore reforms on your issue of concern if in the process you help bring authoritarianism to America? But in the absence of coherent civil society opposition, reformers and advocates are in a prisoner's dilemma and are choosing to defect right now.

time to flip a coin for the fate of the free world 🫠

From Levitsky and Ziblatt: We are sleepwalking toward a crisis. The time for civil society to get off the sidelines is now - 12 days until Election Day, 88 until Trump could retake power.

my “no guns at the Cheesecake Factory” sign is raising questions already answered by the sign

model railroad in a toy store, ft a police officer trying to disrupt a railroad workers’ picket

nominative determinism in action?