when the interview goes well: www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a...

New @businessweek.bsky.social feature: On a budget of $1 per American, NIOSH conducts or funds most US research on how to keep workers alive & well. The Trump Administration decided to blow it up. www.bloomberg.com/news/feature... Based on interviews with 40+ current/recent staff throughout NIOSH

Shot/chaser

Over at Can We Will Govern, @awhf.bsky.social explains how social scientists could help to rebuild the federal government.

As I argued earlier this year, businesses have become increasingly incapable of working collectively towards their economic and political interests. Their silence and willingness to cave to the administration will hurt the economy, the rule of law, and democracy. www.promarket.org/2025/05/09/t...

So many immediate horrors right now, but I appreciated the invitation from @donmoyn.bsky.social to reflect on the future and how social scientists could help with the eventual federal government rebuilding. As @sbagen.bsky.social has argued persuasively, we need to start now with that effort! 1/

A free society is not one in which the government can use its power to silence critical speech. Decent people must oppose this.

There’s competition, I know. But threatening to pull the broadcast licenses of the affiliates of an entire “big-3” television network unless they stop their evening talk show host from criticizing the president has to be one of the biggest First Amendment violations in U.S. history.

Removing information about slavery at Harper’s Ferry is like removing information about hydroelectric power at the Hoover Dam. “John Brown went to Harper’s Ferry because he was so infected by the woke mind virus that he had a pathological hatred of states rights.”

I am sooooo tired of Why Is Child Care So Tough to Afford/Find/Staff/Operate stories that center anything other than this fact.

Sure seems like Big Pharma spent way way more energy, money and lobbying capital on fighting Dems on prescription drugs than doing anything about the Secretary of HHS casually, and without any real evidence, telling everyone their products kill kids and give them autism.

📣 Columbia’s Center for Political Economy searching for post docs for next academic year working on labor, firms and markets, and climate change! Applications due 11/3, and I’m happy to talk to folks interested in working with the Labor Lab team! apply.interfolio.com/173083 📣

Student, to professor: "I'm not entirely sure this is legal to be teaching, because according to our president there's only two genders... and I don't want to promote something that is against our president's laws as well as against my religious beliefs" www.kbtx.com/2025/09/09/a...

here's what the federal government should be doing now to support unemployed workers: beyer.house.gov/news/documen... And here's what states can do: www.nelp.org/insights-res...

This would be a good time to upgrade our unemployment insurance system, at the federal level and in the states www.nytimes.com/2025/09/09/b...

One of Bari Weiss’s reporters over at the Free Press was shocked to discover what Columbia students are reading in class: lol wat

John Oliver: "While get the appeal of thinking just one more concession, one more payoff might safeguard your independence or let you live to fight another day, it's worth asking at what point have you compromised so much that the thing you're supposed to be defending is gone."

"Why on earth would we abandon institutions that have genuinely made America great? ... Why would we put at risk laboratories that are working to cure cancers or perfecting artificial limbs or exploring deep space or testing the limits of artificial intelligence?"

I wrote up my thoughts about Abundance Conference publiccomment.blog/p/when-is-a-...

The biggest analytical weakness of Americans in trying to understand the current moment is that their powers of analogy begin and end with US history. The idea that something qualitatively different might be arising simply doesn’t occur to them.

📣 As we celebrate Labor Day, reupping a call for proposals from junior scholars studying labor and work. 📣 Hosted by Columbia's Labor Lab and Cornell ILR, the workshop will pair junior scholars with senior colleagues for discussion. Applications close 9/15. Lodging + travel stipends available!

@sbagen.bsky.social has a somber but timely warning about various 2029 rebuilding efforts. This to me is the key. If future leaders bake imagined political constraints into their planning, there just won’t be much “rebuilding” per se. www.offmessage.net/p/project-20...

Great paper that captures the main effect of US constitutional institutions: minority veto power. "Most representational failures occur because Congress failed to pass a popular bill, rather than because it passed a bill that the public did not want."

Things are clearly worse under Trump, but this is a damning account of the failures of the Biden administration when it came to Gaza. www.npr.org/2025/08/28/n...

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

cc: everyone in a position of power and responsibility

Tonight's quote from Arendt's Personal Responsibility Under Dictatorship. Kudos to Demetre, with whom I was incredibly privileged to serve at HHS.

Lots of change in leadership at U.S. unions. Chance for revitalization? @dskamper.bsky.social breaks it down. forgeorganizing.org/article/labo...

Under the Biden administration, the SSA updated the definition of "public assistance household" to include households receiving SNAP. Trump is preparing to undo this. This simple definitional change can have large implications for how much and whether a person can receive SSI benefits. 🧵below.

One measure of where we are as a country is that Apple's stock is up after this, not down. Investors think this kind of sycophantry and corruption will pay off--and who can say they're wrong? But what's good for Apple's stock is absolute poison for our democracy.

📢 Webinar Today at 4 PM ET - join Columbia colleagues and me to discuss what the new settlements between Columbia, Brown, and Penn mean for the future of higher education and democracy in the United States. 📢

On August 6 at 4 pm ET: @columbiaigp.bsky.social’s Rapid Response webinar examines the impact of university settlements on higher education, civil society, and democracy. 🌐 Ester Fuchs 🌐 @olatij.bsky.social 🌐 David Pozen 🌐 Alexander Hertel-Fernandez @awhf.bsky.social youtube.com/live/WL-XPXo...

This has a lot of truth - government implementation is harder for often excellent reasons - but also butts up against well preserved myths that keep government sclerotic. “We can’t do that” quite often means “a lawyer said no 10 years ago and we didn’t press on the details.”

Since the interviewee must remain anonymous, we are now calling this Moynihan's Law: "The easier a governmental task looks to an outsider, the more likely it has been found to be impossible by many smart people in the past."

it was both *fun* and *deeply depressing* to revisit 2021 and all the arguments @rmabud.bsky.social and I made then for how investing in care would benefit the ENTIRE economy thanks @msmagazine.com @carmenriosss.bsky.social for the opportunity

📣 What do the recent settlements from Columbia, Brown, and Penn mean for universities, civil society, and democracy in the United States? This Wednesday at 4 PM, @columbiaigp.bsky.social is hosting a webinar with Columbia colleagues Ester Fuchs, Olati Johnson, Dave Pozen and myself. Register below!

Wow. A group of top scholars at Harvard just sent a letter to its president, Alan Garber, warning against surrendering to Trump. Signatories include Steven Levitsky, Dani Rodrik, Ryan Enos, Theda Skocpol, and Steven Walt. Someone forwarded it to me. Read it here:

Very happy to announce the publication of Workplace Politics, with @szakonyi.bsky.social and Ora John Reuter. Drawing on data from 8 countries with a deep-dive on Russia, we examine when, why, and how politicians and employers pressure their workers to vote in elections. academic.oup.com/book/60445

❗About to start now! Our final day of the American Political Economy research conference, with a fantastic lineup of roundtable speakers on the US in international perspective -- @himself.bsky.social, @benbraun.bsky.social, Aditi Sahasrabuddhe, and Mark Schwartz -- followed by a paper panel.❗

📣 Starting soon: the second day of the Consortium on the American Political Economy virtual research conference! We'll have a roundtable on plutocracy with @adambonica.bsky.social, Kristin Goss, and @reillysteel.bsky.social and a fantastic set of research papers on business and civil society!

Eliminating multi-language services would make it harder for taxpayers to comply with their tax obligations, set honest taxpayers up to fail and needlessly put tax revenue at risk. The IRS should not move forward with this harmful idea that has no sound tax administration purpose.

I hope Suresh Naidu is wrong, but I’m pretty sure he’s right—Columbia’s settlement with Trump is unlikely to stick: www.nytimes.com/2025/07/23/o...

“Higher education policy in the United States is now being developed through ad hoc deals, a mode of regulation that is not only inimical to the ideal of the university as a site of critical thinking but also corrosive to the democratic order and to law itself.”

It is heartbreaking to see Columbia capitulating to the Trump Administration's attacks on higher education and democracy. Not only does this legitimize the offensive against civil society and pressure other universities to fold, but it feels like madness to trust the Administration to keep a deal.

As the threats to our democracy mount daily, I was grateful for the chance to brainstorm what forward-looking state legislatures can do to bolster community and worker power for the inaugural issue of the @statesforum.bsky.social: statesforum.org/journal/issu... 1/

Catch me at this year's Research Conference on the American Political Economy on 7/29 at 12 pm ET! I'll be on a roundtable called "Plutocracy" with @adambonica.bsky.social and @kagoss.bsky.social, moderated by @awhf.bsky.social. It's virtual, so you can attend from wherever. Sign-up link below.

This is a really important paper in the debate about optimal Social Democratic party strategies and the type of policy positions that are needed to deliver a "progressive majority". A must read!