In Hungary, Orban's gerrymandering backfired. He drew many winner-take-all districts where he expected narrow wins—& then added another amplification method. That's how 54% of the vote gave Magyar 69% of the parliamentary seats. Hoping that something similar happens to the GOP in Texas & elsewhere.

NYTimes makes Dr. Robby out as a high-functioning depressive. It's wonderful if a widely seen show highlights that category. I often wrote about how indispensable my depressed patients were to organizations they worked for. But you can be lost & suicidal without being clinically depressed.

Ambiguous hed in @wsj.com? If you judge your hotel roommate to be revolting, you'd better hope that your suite's bathroom has a door. www.wsj.com/lifestyle/tr...

The second half of this March 7 @hcrichardson.bsky.social piece details @whitehouse.senate.gov's theory that Putin has used sexual blackmail to make Trump a puppet. The account echoes themes of my 2023 novel Death of the Great Man. heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/march-7-2026

Re-upping my post from November

Why have the New York Times and Washington Post not covered Judge Boasberg's decision that the US remains responsible for the Venezuelan men deported to El Salvador and owes them due-process hearings? www.npr.org/2025/12/22/n...

I've been remiss in not posting the new landing page for the audio book of my novel Death of the Great Man. More timely than ever... and now, at half price. www.audiobooks.com/promotions/p...

I doubt that @parul_sehgal is following along on X. I try to avoid it as well, but with the Super Bowl approaching, I posted there about a commercial in which skepticism of the overused trauma plot becomes a meme: www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxRe...

In conjunction with Mark Ruffalo's new piece on influential psychiatric medications, Psychology Today has reposted my talk with him in 2021. www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/from...

Dennis Prager had just re-upped my 2007 (speak about timeless!) conversation with him about Sigmund Freud. am870theanswer.com/podcasts/den...

Any chance that the "Drake Maye" nickname got its energy from the "Roy Kent" chant on Ted Lasso? www.bostonglobe.com/2025/12/24/s...

Pretty-convincing small trial finding dialectical behavior therapy more effective than SSRIs in reducing suicidality in highly vulnerable patients with borderline personality disorder. psychiatryonline.org/doi/10.1176/...

A clear test of whether the Supreme Court majority is originalist or merely political & subservient. If the Court rules against unbounded Presidential authority to impose tariffs, democracy still has a chance, despite SCOTUS's willingness to undermine it elsewhere www.nytimes.com/2025/11/04/o...

Quick email to Ramesh Ponnuru on what we know about SSRIs and violence www.nationalreview.com/corner/do-ss...

At last. Today ‪@nytimes.com‬ has an essay describing Trump's routine acts as coming from an authoritarian playbook. That's what's often missing from reporting & opinion both: Reminders that a behavior under discussion not only ruptures norms but also serves in a campaign to undercut democracy.

In 1969, when the Waldorf-Astoria had lost much of its glory, it rented rooms to Newsweek for staff who had to work late into the night. I was put up there when writing on the moonshot for the July 28 issue when "Newsweek beat Time" to the newsstand. www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Not sure why the whole Web isn't saying this. Trump's Brazil tariff is illegal. Presidents can impose tariffs only for limited economic reasons. Interfering with a prosecution abroad is not a permitted rationale. The issue is both legislative & constitutional. Only Congress can levy taxes.

Sad to learn of the death of Anna Ornstein, a yet more influential figure in psychiatry than this obituary suggests—and a sterling person. Oddly, I just quoted her in a talk I gave in Germany last week. www.nytimes.com/2025/07/04/h...

SSA BS. Is this politicization a first? Just got an email from the Social Security Administration patting the President on the back for the budget-busting bill Irony (one of many) is that the bill changes the taxation of benefits in a way that threatens to deplete the fund a year early.

Yesterday, a friend said that last year, when reading my novel, Death of the Great Man, she had found an important section implausible. The protagonist's daughter-in-law, although married to an American citizen & under consideration for a Green Card, is suddenly slated to be deported to a war zone.

Listening to a podcast about the Ortega y Gasset's Revolt of the Masses (1929) which, for my sins, I have not read. He warns that in modern democracy, the masses become spoiled children who enact spiritual barbarism based in a lack of awareness of the history of institutions.

@peterdkramer.bsky.social recent novel is worth your attention www.peterdkramer.com/death-of-the...

Medicare cuts. They're real. 4% per year x 10 years if the House bill passes the Senate unchanged. www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...

I just came across an email saying that three days ago, Psychology Today re-featured an essay of mine from 10 years ago that maybe does still have something to say about (our current whipping boys) antidepressants and the clinicians who use them. Take a look. www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/in-p...

It's possible that in the markets, US corporations have enjoyed a stability premium—up-valuation based on their being housed in a strong, predictable economy. Will they now, due to Trump's impulsivity & wrongheadedness, suffer an instability penalty, lower valuation simply for being based in the US?

Hate to say this, but you've gotta head to X & explore the posts around this clever realization by James Surowiecki. He figured out the formula the While House used, which has nothing to do with reciprocal tariffs—& the Administration inadvertently confirmed his finding. x.com/JamesSurowie...

Not sure how I missed this highly distressing piece by Thomas Edsall in @nytimes.com. It should have gotten more play. Trump is running what, in my novel Death of the Great Man, characters call a thanatocracy, government out to kill its own citizens (& others). www.nytimes.com/2025/03/25/o...

The president has no unilateral power to slash the budget passed by Congress. We cover *every* aspect of the argument for presidential impoundment power and show that nothing in the Constitution, federal case law, or American history supports it. Summarized: www.ifyoucankeepit.org/p/musk-and-v...

Re-upping for the daytime crowd: "Stop saying 'continuing resolution.' Start saying blank check for Elon Musk." @jfallows.bsky.social on why Democratic Senators should vote No. fallows.substack.com/p/the-only-p...

History will remember this day— when an American President and Vice President abandoned all we stand for.

Generations of American patriots, from our revolution onward, have fought for the principles Zelenskyy is risking his life to defend. But today, Donald Trump and JD Vance attacked Zelenskyy and pressured him to surrender the freedom of his people to the KGB war criminal who invaded Ukraine.

@jfallows.bsky.social on how Trump's & Musk's mindless destruction of the advisory system for air safety is a marker for destruction of other systems that make us safe—and economically competitive. open.substack.com/pub/fallows/...

Matt C Kramer (artist) in nytimes agaIn: www.nytimes.com/2025/02/21/w...

@nickkristof.bsky.social effectively says that the "existential" threat to democracy is already being enacted. In the distance, he can imagine a way back. It will be a difficult project, no? Once you have a corrupt bureaucracy, loyal to ideology, stripped of true expertise—how do you reform it?

What would it mean to negotiate with Republicans on a budget bill? The GOP would get spending on some programs & the Democrats on others—& Trump would not release funds for the Democratic initiatives. How can you support a budget that won't be adhered to? www.nytimes.com/2025/02/14/u...

Bravo @kairyssdal.bsky.social

"BREAKING: RFK JR CONFIRMED AS HHS SECRETARY" Quick hed that says it all about our times. Farce as news, news as deadly threat.

Questions of standing are going to complicate these suits against the Administration. Ideally, Congress would ask the courts to make the President obey the law—protecting agencies that the legislature has established and disbursing funds it authorized. It's Congress that has been undermined.

1/ My first real contact with infants involved holding & trying to feed "failure-to-thrive" babies, ones not gaining weight. I would put in time at the end of my clinical pediatrics shifts in med school or, more, at night when I was on-call on the unit. www.nytimes.com/2025/02/07/s...

Reposting my thread from just prior to Trump's inauguration.

I don't know that I've seen anyone comment on RFK, Jr's, collection of concerns (& falsehoods). He focuses on autism via vaccines, mental illness via SSRIs & ADHD meds, gay men via HIV/AIDs, & gays (again) & transgender youth via pesticides. The entire concern is with the marginalized or disfavored.

Confessions of an Ambivalent Psychiatrist A guest essay by the psychiatrist Susan Mahler on her experience of depression (including treatments with ECT) and how she finds herself in a position where both lived and professional experience are failing her www.psychiatrymargins.com/p/confession...

Hornby on 🐝 nickhornby.substack.com/p/my-spellin...

From the rival site:

Another unjustified pro-Trump take by NYTimes. Trump accedes to Colombia's demand that its citizens be treated w dignity & transported on non-military flights. NYTimes frames the result as a victory for Trump & his threats, as if it were Colombia that had backed down. www.nytimes.com/2025/01/26/w...

Let me get this straight. Petro calls for dignified transit. Trump threatens tariffs. Petro smacks Trump in a post threatening his own higher tariffs. And Trump agrees to what Petro asked for. And yet NYT is calling this *Petro* backing down?

1/ Prediction for Trump's first day/week in office: a series of proclamations & proposed laws so numerous & outrageous as to amount to what hypnotists call a confusional induction. The main point will not be the particulars but the overall effect, creating a focus on Trump.

Regarding Douthat's fantasy that Canadians' will be open to joining the States: Merger might be more attractive if we adopted national health care. Our current pitch is, Join the US, and assume the risk that illness will bankrupt you. Not much of a draw.

NYTimes hed watch. Asked how vigorous he might be at 86, Biden said, “I don’t know. Who the hell knows?” I find the response to be a step shy of acknowledgment that he might not have been able to serve out his term. I mean, who among us knows how vigorous he or she will be in four years?