As described in our piece, this figure shows the spikes in protest activity in Trump-leaning counties (above 0 on the y-axis) vs in Harris-leaning counties (below 0 on the y-axis) over time across his two administrations. Since April, the modal protest county voted for Trump.

Every accusation is a confession. This is political indoctrination—the exact kind they accuse the left of.

Ta-Nehasi Coates is doing a lot of things with this essay, but one of the most important is fearlessly using examples of anti-trans hate to describe Charlie Kirk's politics. The contrast between his choices and those of other writers for major legacy outlets is revealing.

Four Al Jazeera staff, including reporter Anas Al Sharif, were killed in an Israeli attack on a tent for journalists outside the main gate of Gaza's al-Shifa hospital aje.io/onll19

It's incredible that this is real.

We can either have billionaires, or we can have democracy. The billionaires know this too, so they have decided to eliminate democracy.

On one of the most unbelievable satellite images I've ever seen, showing hundreds of Palestinians surrounding aid trucks north of Rafah. www.nytimes.com/2025/07/29/w...

Another example of how Chinese information control can be clumsy and prone to popular backlash. The readership of boys love is largely queer-affirming straight women… and the state is revealing its distasteful homophobia and repressive tactics to a demographic unlikely to encounter them otherwise.

Quite a strong final statement: "Descriptive research is important and it is a pity that the general obsession with causal estimates disincentivizes researchers from attempting to publish careful and detailed description."

Absolutely incredible turnout for Budapest Pride! So proud of all the organizers, including some old friends, who estimate hundreds of thousands— major embarrassment to Orban

Zohran! www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

I entered the human rights field 15 years ago, I thought I could contribute to make China a little bit more like America, but it has turned out that America is increasingly like China. It's so depressing.

Congrats to Jesse Singhal and the NYT for achieving a more brutal and vigorous retreat on civil rights than Reagan dancing on the graves of American martyrs in Mississippi to launch his presidency. You certainly will be memorable

Holy crap. The US-UK trade deal is a blank sheet of paper and only Trump signed it. (Genuine screen grab).

Remarkable. MSNC: "I want to reiterate this has been 100% peaceful." Seconds later, LA County sheriffs start firing on the crowd. Yet again, "law enforcement" deliberately escalated.

Any person in uniform wearing a mask and refusing to be properly and reliably identified should be assumed to be the same kind of murderer we’ve seen in Minnesota.

“Trump is using military forces to stop a protest — I want y'all to consider what kind of government it appears to be when every time we exercise our democratic right to protest, the military is deployed against us.” Doechii at the #BETAwards

Amazing view from my room in the School of Journalism’s hotel on the Fudan University campus!

Almost every day I read about some new development that just stuns me with its combination of cruelty and short-sightedness. This is one of them.

Nature ran a piece finding that 25 million people could die as a result of ending USAID. This puts Trump and Musk in the category of the most brutal leaders of the 20th century in terms of unnecessary lives lost. www.nature.com/articles/d41...

In which I have the sinking feeling of boredom. www.nytimes.com/2025/05/28/o...

In anti-authoritarian struggles, criticizing the regime for their blatant corruption is often one of the most important ways to mobilize the public and break through to regime supporters. The Trump regime is the most corrupt in US history—it’s worth repeating ad nauseam

Imagine the brain rot required to threaten to defund our most populous state, with a GDP larger than all but 3 countries on the planet, over a single teenager participating in long jump.

Hilarious paper tasking LLM agents with running a fictional vending machine business. Spoiler: they are often comically incompetent. One emails the FBI to recover $2 in fees, one gives a vendor a “one second notice” for a refund or face “thermonuclear legal annihilation” arxiv.org/pdf/2502.15840

By this standard, the new york times has tortured trans teenagers

“Another is simply the N-word.” Right this way to dinner with the president, sir!

Also: I assume Harvard will try to sue fast and fix things, but the cruelty this letter unleashes *today* will induce lasting fear and panic not just on the 6800 international students at Harvard, but also on all international students in this country, even if there is a swift TRO. Why stay here?

America is in danger of experiencing an academic brain drain  economist.com/science-and-...

I’m actually really glad the anti-trans Republican candidate lost in Nebraska the very same night after a bunch of Very Serious People people spent all day “yes, yes, Dems need to be serious about moderating on social issues to win”-ing across the internet.

2025: Keir Starmer suggests that pressure on housing and public services is because of migrants 2020: Keir Starmer, "Poor housing, poor public services are not the fault of the migrants, they're political failure"

Leo XIV IS brat

jeez this is bleak www.wsj.com/us-news/educ...

A colleague at Stanford’s business school used The Stanford Daily to argue—poorly—against DEI. The piece was riddled with historical errors and left one searching for fact, so I broke my public writing hiatus to respond. I hope you’ll read and share the piece. stanforddaily.com/2025/04/22/w...

Right-wing accounts criticized Musk on X. Their engagement tanked practically overnight. www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

What does it say that many of us never imagined Luigi as anything but Luigi-esque? Or that we never pictured the CEO’s killer as a poor person of color? For me, it’s a reminder to pause—to ask whether sympathy for him depends on him being seen as deserving, both in our imagination and now.

I liveskyed the 2024 Martial Law Declaration of Korea. This is the thread.

My essay “Goodbye, Gibbon” for The Ideas Letter theideasletter.org from the Open Society Foundation. In which I offer non-answers to the question “Is America in decline from a Chinese perspective?”

Highly recommend anyone interested in digital governance and state-firm partnerships in China read this excellent book! Congrats Lizhi!