To go along with that, we live in an era of low trust voters, and they're just going to keep voting out incumbents over and over because they're mad at "The System" and aren't traditional ideological actors. You can't heal America without making people trust the government more.

among the issues with people not having any knowledge of hybrid regimes in the global South is the fact that everyone assumes contemporary authoritarian governance looks like 20th century totalitarianism

the city I live in is occupied by armed federal agents checking people's papers at random public transportation stops and people are still doing this

In DC today I watched masked secret police detain a brown-skinned man for simply walking on the sidewalk. No warrant. Refused to let him get his id. They shoved neighbors aside, threw him into an unmarked SUV, and vanished. Broad daylight. This is what our city is living with.

A Norwegian friend told me some months ago something to the effect of, look, American friend, you have never had to walk this dark path before. We have walked a very dark path ourselves. We understand. It will be very hard for you, but it is survivable. We are here when you are ready to rebuild.

“.. The news on Israel’s main TV channel had just finished a segment on how hunger in Gaza is portrayed around the world when the anchor looked up and said: ‘Maybe it’s finally time to acknowledge that this isn’t a public relations failure, but a moral one.’” www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

As dangerous as canceling Colbert was for our democracy, it made him infinitely more powerful. I mean, who exactly was watching him before now? Firing him was a signal that what he has to say is REALLY important. I don’t care if he just starts a TikTok, he’ll become one of the key voices in America.

“It took from the invention of the photovoltaic solar cell, in 1954, until 2022 for the world to install a terawatt of solar power; the second terawatt came just two years later, and the third will arrive either later this year or early next.” Moore’s Law eat your heart out. Jesus.

Laughing in front of cages designed to hold migrants and refugees, many of whom came to this country fleeing extreme violence and poverty, and hoping to raise their children in a more compassionate country. And many of whom followed all the legal procedures to enter the country.

i can’t express how much i stan rick steves

IDF soldiers spoke to Haaretz about the military directive to shoot Palestinians seeking food. The on-the-ground soldiers say they are murdering Gazans for no reason and that the Israeli govt and military are hiding behind the idea of a "threat" that doesn't exist." www.haaretz.com/israel-news/...

This is Rhogena Nicholas & Dennis Tuttle. Police shot & killed them—and their dog—during a no-knock raid on their home. A Texas officer claimed an informant had bought heroin there. The problem? That cop lied. The couple hadn’t sold heroin—and there was no informant. A thread.

The Trump administration said on Monday that it would open up 58 million acres of back country in national forests to road construction and development, removing protections that had been in place for a quarter century. https://trib.al/VQXR96o

If we are to do this, we will need very different systems of evaluating and understanding impact

A man with a green card said ICE agents arrested him in #Lynn, Mass then took him to a detention facility—but first made a detour to a cemetery, where they took him out of their vehicle and beat him. #mapoli #Massachusetts

San Diego neighborhood makes ICE agents retreat

"Roughly 1,500 babies have been born HIV-positive every day since January 21, because Musk cut off their mothers’ medication." prospect.org/power/2025-0...

did they just pick the guy most easily able to yell at JD Vance

?! 😳 www.vox.com/the-gray-are...

Hi, I'm the guy who used to oversee the federal government's agency IT telecommunications contracts. This is extremely bad. There is absolutely no need for this. Not only is it a huge security exposure, but the simplest explanation for this is that it is meant to be a security exposure.

The number of “I will never get rich but I will like what I’m doing and it’s meaningful work” jobs under attack right now is staggering.

Evangelicalism is like if you told someone about Christianity and then they got hammered and told someone else.

Sadly, it's pain. Literally, humans remember painful moments more clearly. The generations that survived the Great Depression, WWII are gone. Their fears have been replaced by today's follies. America's elite are so bored they chose this degeneracy. (Immigrants and refugees would never, but…)

Does anyone have suggestions for a gentle de-radicalization along these lines? I wish I had more books, podcasts and YouTubers to send people drifting into the Rogan-verse

We're really just gonna run back ethnic cleansing from the 20th century huh? Maybe it was a mistake to pretend kids didn't need to learn history ...

Our article 'A Crisis of Political Trust?' led by @viktorv.bsky.social is now out in @bjpols.bsky.social! We use >3,000 surveys in 143 countries between 1958 and 2019, finding that trust in representative institutions has generally been declining in recent decades. www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

the main driver of white gen-xers reactionary sentiment is that they’re unable to reckon with the reality that they’re aging out of the main demographic that capitalism is advertising to. it’s a big part of what this last election driven by “wokeness out of control” was about

Netflix needs to release a sexy thriller series that slips some basic civic education into each episode

my fiancé and I have been talking about a house we might want to live in one day. More space and comfort sounds obviously attractive, I like the idea too of hosting. But thinking about ideas in @dkthomp.bsky.social’s piece- a tradeoff to making homes *too* comfortable, sanctuary-like/ entertaining

I have always loved public libraries, but having young children has exponentially increased my gratitude and sense of indebtedness to them. Our local library is such a huge part of our lives. The books, the programming, the very intentionally curated kids’ section. It’s all such a gift.

Self-reported sharing intentions of low-quality news in surveys are predictive of actual sharing of low-quality news on X, finds @arechar.bsky.social @mmosleh.bsky.social @gordpennycook.bsky.social @dgrand.bsky.social doi.org/10.31234/osf...

"People need to know what this war really looks like": Israeli soldiers who served in Gaza describe indiscriminate killing and the routine classification of civilian casualties as terrorists in conversations with Haaretz

The prompt

Sunday afternoon reading

The failure of blue states to build enough housing or take steps to combat displacement is going to continue to lead to population loss that makes winning nationally even harder. www.nytimes.com/2024/12/12/o...

I have this half baked theory that we forgot how to age well and everything bad is downwind of that. We have ancient leadership refusing to make room for the next generation, middle aged tech bros getting Joker pilled by the prospect of their mortality, 30-somethings who think they’re still kids...

Interesting to see Paul Krugman's final article at the Times as basically a history of a decline in public trust

Annual December tradition for me is going thru my fav seed catalog and circling veggies I want to grow next year.

Syrian opposition sources report that they are working with the regime to hand over control of Damascus

"The more extreme their political posts, the less credible they and their research are perceived, and the lower the public’s willingness to engage with their content—particularly among respondents with opposing political views."

As Dems reelect a spritely 74-year-old Chuck Schumer as Senate Leader, this is a reminder that U.S. politicians are the oldest of any democracy, despite the U.S. having one of the youngest populations.

Pretty striking findings! www.parisschoolofeconomics.eu/app/uploads/...

By putting tariffs on fossil fuel imports and allowing LNG exports, Trump will do more to raise the price of US carbon emissions than any environmentalist lawsuit against a pipeline ever did lol

There was a short-term "rally around the flag" moment post-9/11 (and even initially during Covid), but the more curious thing to me--and one that we rarely hear about--is the steady rebuilding of trust in 90s. What lessons might this hold?

Hey #civicengagement folks. Check out this great event that's being hosted by @democracy-notes.bsky.social (via @gabe-lerner.bsky.social) and Connective Tissue. virginia.zoom.us/meeting/regi...

New book on democratic backsliding finds that it's been misunderstood: "Backsliding is less a result of democracies failing to deliver than of democracies failing to constrain the predatory political ambitions and methods of certain elected leaders." www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/mis...

If/when fascism comes to the US, it’s gonna look a lot like a Buckeyes home game