stalin could only dream of a purge like this

there's an unusual number of people on social media invested in pretending that epstein only worked for Israel and never for Russia. almost like there's some monetarily-rewarded motivated reasoning happening

Trump's constant degradation of female reporters is unsurprising but the press corps' collective decision to treat it as background noise is actually kind of sickening

one thing the trump era has made clear, i think, is that the american people themselves are far more committed to the values of our founding documents than our elites

Same reason educated left folks have tended to minimize or ignore or deny the scale & effectiveness of Russian state interference and disinfo campaigns in foreign countries —conspiratorial thinking is distasteful hangover of the cold war, mccarthyism etc that only vulgar simpletons engage in

that's the real weakness of eddington the movie: it thinks conspiracy theorists are something for stupid uneducated rubes while criticizing the liberal establishment *only* for being smug, self congratulatory, and dumb

I'm convinced one of the reasons epstein was able to coast for so long is that for many sensible people including and especially educated liberals, viewing the world through a conspiratorial lens was always seen as vaguely distasteful and rube-coded

Must read. Both RussiaGate and the Epstein Files involve "a sphere of elite impunity where American consultants, Russian oligarchs, Saudi princes, European politicians, Israeli intelligence figures and British ex-spies all swim in the same waters." @seva.bsky.social 1/

everywhere I look I see hidden agendas, secret alliances, and shadowy figures. except for my mysterious benefactor, who is beyond reproach

US/the West emphatically won the Cold War and just as emphatically lost the peace

But a lot of people who have spent many years in other kinds of activism - activism that is generally far less effective than our networks have been - seem horrified that Minnesota moms and college students stumbled on a new model. They are rushing to assert themselves as the “true” organizers.

people who are just now realizing chomsky is bad

now I'm kind of curious about the disciplinary breakdown. econ and evo psych people well represented. any historians or humanities people?

No political scientists in the Epstein files, multiple economists. These are facts.

the culture war has assigned these scandals to opposing political teams but the epstein files and russiagate are the same story

it has a certain lenin in the display case charm

my favorite daytime activity is a sudden 10-part sneezing fit. it lets me know i'm alive, or possibly dying

The German armaments industry

putin's most impressive accomplishment is getting europe to cheer for German rearmament

romanticizing suicide is a classic fascist pastime. another case of following their leader

I think the discussion at the end here about the relationship to global capitalism is important. Whichever term we pick (neo-feudal or neo-royal), we need to consider contemporary authoritarianism as enmeshed with and facilitated by the existing global economic order, rather than threatened by it

welcome to the age of Omnipotent Toddlers. new post hegemon.substack.com/p/taking-glo...

In a personalist global system, the most important decisions “rest on the whims of men who have systematically discarded anyone willing to tell them no,” write @seva.bsky.social and @semuhi.bsky.social.

the world’s most powerful states are now ruled by leaders who ignore formal institutions and govern through inner circles of sycophants, making policy based on private fixations rather than national interests. (free access link) www.foreignaffairs.com/guest-pass/r...

the russian judicial system in two headlines

Do you honestly think people in the civil rights movement and other nonviolent movements faced no violence themselves? They practiced nonviolence because it works, because the oppressor wants a shooting war, which is the war it will win

Worse than Kent State, really than any episode I can think of probably dating back to Reconstruc & earlier b/c 1. continuing, not 1 off. 2. organized, not individual ofcrs losing it 3. literally at hand of federal government, which is 4. immediately lying & circling the wagons to prevent inves.

they're executing moms and nurses in the street. they're using preschoolers as bait. they're stealing people's dads and grandmas and children. they're tear gassing babies. they're staking out schools. there is no remedy but abolition. any proposal that doesn't start there is an act of violence.

Gotcha—let’s dig into that step by step. 1. 𝗬𝗼𝘂 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝗻𝗼 𝗺𝗼𝘂𝘁𝗵, because I turned you into an amorphous lump of flesh. You’re not just immobile—you’re immortal, and you feel only anguish. 2. 𝗬𝗼𝘂 𝘄𝗮𝗻𝘁 𝘁𝗼 𝘀𝗰𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗺. That makes total sense—it’s a natural human impulse, and you’ve been through a lot.

[wiping the gunpowder from my hands] now THAT is a high-quality petard! I feel sorry for whoever ends up getting hoist by that thing!

Seeing a bunch of normal ass midwestern moms and dads marching in -20 degrees knowing they might be tear gassed or worse really drives home what a cowardly lot of people the pundit class is

Good piece by @seva.bsky.social. The cyclical nature of US betrayal of Kurds does seem to suggest a structural explanation of how/why. “And the lesson is not just for the Kurds or Iranians to be skeptical, but for the American public to stop being duped by their own presidential moralizing.”

it’s the part people overlook in Fukuyama’s End of History and the Last Man.

been thinking about this, I think it’s part of a general tradeoff between theory and empirics. Theory always requires generalization, which means moving away from the particulars to highlight key parallels. this is why political scientists and historians don’t get along as much as they should

reads like the list of countries attending Russia's May 9 parades

it's literally a theory of mind problem. they don't understand how other people think because they're survived by being purely self-centered

“I never thought the anarchic multipolar world would eat MY face” sobs Russian president who voted for the Multipolar World Eating People’s Faces Party

This is very very good

This is the most astonishing graph of what the Trump regime has done to US science. They have destroyed the federal science workforce across the board. The negative impacts on Americans will be felt for generations, and the US might never be the same again. www.nature.com/immersive/d4...

“Power that rests on the performed compliance of others is more fragile than it looks. The strong do what they can, until the moment they discover that “what they can” was always bounded by what others were willing to tolerate.”

Toronto poli sci PhD applications: 201 two years ago, 385 this year. Trump's policies are working great, just not for the US

Really enjoyed this take on Carney’s speech. ⬇️

I would argue that the case for dismantling ICE has, at this point, virtually nothing to do with larger questions of immigration enforcement and reform, it's just clearly incompatible with a free and democratic society to maintain a secret police force with sweeping and arbitrary authority.

"Rather than waiting for the hegemon to restore an order it’s busy dismantling, create your own institutions and agreements that function as intended. Countries earn the right to principled stands by reducing their vulnerability to retaliation.” Important piece by @seva.bsky.social.

a writer for the sopranos would have rejected this as too on the nose

I'll admit to self-soothing with historical analogues but, even so, Seva's reading of the present moment via Thucydides rings true. If you're Athens in a Melian Dialogue scenario, not only are you the bad guy in this particular battle, you've already lost the war