Bluesky is irrelevant and dying, so here I am, now posting on Bluesky. You should have stayed at the Nazi bar and had a more positive impact on public debate. Also, you were hysterical for thinking that American democracy faced existential threats.

Far-right thugs rampage in the Hague, attacking police and the HQ of centrist party D66. While parliament condemns the threat of “fascist” antifa. Shame on every politician -including VVD ones - who spent the last year ramping up tensions to win votes. You don’t get to do that and then condemn this.

Nothing is more embarrassing going on right now than all the pundits who made their careers whining about cancel culture trying to explain how the fascism they helped usher in is really just the same thing on the other side ... if you squint just right.

Anti-immigration demonstration in the Netherlands escalates. This is exactly what happens when far-right ideas are tolerated and normalised over an extended period of time. The far right gains confidence and grows, both at the ballot box and in the streets. nos.nl/artikel/2583...

Hi All, I spent much of the week meeting with people immersed in a discussion of preparing European militaries for the future. As part of this, I have developed a six step process that could help determine how militaries should be prepared for the future. open.substack.com/pub/phillips...

The US ceased to be a reliable NATO ally on January 20, 2025. The last week has simply made that undeniable. The only question now is whether European leaders accept it. The USA will not now defend Europe from Russia. That is reality. Everything else is hopes and dreams.

How much does public opinion still matter at this point?

"More professors in the United States have been fired for controversial views in the past week than any other week in all of American history." www.insidehighered.com/opinion/colu...

On this date in 1939, the USSR invaded Poland in cooperation with its ally, Nazi Germany. www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/timot...

Fascinating FT article about how Paris plans to make state-subsidised housing 40 per cent of primary residences by 2035 (gift link) on.ft.com/46L3PAL

Fantastic column by @stephenkb.bsky.social "Racism in the UK remains the preserve of an extreme minority — but one that is emboldened and growing louder. It is the result of a year in which neither the government nor the opposition have been willing to draw red lines." www.ft.com/content/fbbd...

Another professor in Texas is fired, this time after a selectively edited video of a talk he gave was posted on X, with the bogus claim that he was inciting violence www.texastribune.org/2025/09/10/t...

Kind of incredible that you can get a standing ovation for inciting a race riot but that’s where we are

Don’t. Print. Lies. In. The. Newspapers.

www.politico.eu/article/vote... how European voters are more in favour of stronger European integration than its leaders @politico.eu

Also, the last week has highlighted the very different ways the Russians and Ukrainians are undertaking strategic air operations. The Russians are targeting civilians, the Ukrainians are hitting oil refineries. And guess what--oil refineries are actually "strategic".

There was a very failed "breakthrough", which got a lot of airtime, until it failed. Now, there's only crickets from the analyzing community. Phillips put my thoughts to words..

Hi All, Just sent out my free weekend update. Its been less than 3 weeks since the great Russian breakthrough at Pokrovsk (which was no breakthrough). And because it failed we have no reporting. Where are all the analyses once the Russians have failed. open.substack.com/pub/phillips...

If you want to get a sense of how fundamentally ****ed Britain is, read this article where someone reveals how grateful they are to be paying only £2000 per month in rent, with a convenient £30 trip to work www.standard.co.uk/homesandprop...

Today in the casual media normalization of lawless personalist authoritarianism

A very good thread, quite related to Ziblatt’s foreign affairs piece. Autocrats succeed when their opponents grant them legitimacy. Those who deny them legitimacy often have to avoid doing what’s in their apparent short term interest. / (www.foreignaffairs.com/germany/hitl...)

"Democracy is a system in which parties lose elections"

President Trump demanded that top Democratic donor George Soros and his son, Alex, face federal racketeering charges, making an unsubstantiated claim that they are backing violent protests across the country.

Our article "Radicals, Moderates, & Aligned" is out in the latest issue of @ejprjournal.bsky.social. [yes, it's been online for months but we all use this (non)milestone to pretend print editions still exist & re-publicise our articles] So, a thread 🧵 ejpr.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

“Our shared commitment to our country, our oaths of office, & our mission of helping people before, during & after disasters compel us to warn Congress & the American people of the cascading effects of decisions made by the current administration” FEMA employees wrote www.nytimes.com/2025/08/25/c...

Pritzker does have a sense of the lessons of the twentieth century. Mitläufer should be told now that they will be held accountable.

This. Exactly this. This is sensible. This is an appropriate sense of urgency. This is defending democracy. This is defending the rule of law. This is how prosecutors should be responding everywhere.

Pritzker: To the members of the press who are assembled here today and listening across the country, I am asking for your courage to tell it like it is. This is not a time to pretend here that there are two sides to this story.

The Federal Reserve Board of Governors has been around for 111 years. In that time it has had more than 100 members (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal...). No president has ever fired (or claimed to have fired) one before.

Dear journalists: The President has not fired Lisa Cook. The President is *trying* to illegally fire her. Your words shape people’s reality. Please be accurate in your reporting.

Yep. This is where we are. Same as with hyper-gerrymandering. The only other way is for the far right authoritarian party to go back to honoring the grand bargain that is democracy. Otherwise, <both> sides get to fully unravel the entire ball of string: bsky.app/profile/mcop...

To make the stakes clear, potential Dem Presidential candidates should say that if SCOTUS allows this they will fire any Trump Fed appointees in 2028. Because that is the logical endpoint.

Extraordinary new detail about the FBI purge. *Senior officials were asked to fire lower level officials tagged by online right wingers as being anti-Trump. *When they asked for a reason - required by law - they were not given any. They refused. Then they were fired. www.cbsnews.com/news/politic...

"What in particular the US is doing is keeping #Ukraine from attacking Russia with any US-produced #ATACMs (directly protecting the Russian war effort and damaging Ukraine’s)" "So #Trump has been arguing that Russia will win—and actively trying to make that happen." #Putin bsky.app/profile/phil...

Hi All, Happy Ukrainian Independence Day. As Ukraine's future will determine much of Europe's, all Europeans should be celebrating today and doing their damndest to see a free, democratic and strong Ukraine emerge from this war. For my weekend update, a few stories. open.substack.com/pub/phillips...

”According to the anti-extremist groups Hope Not Hate and Stand Up to Racism, the apparently spontaneous campaign has in fact been organised by well-known far-right figures.” www.theguardian.com/news/ng-inte...

The only newsworthy aspect of the far-right anti-migrant protests currently is how pathetically small they are. Last summer 60,000 people came to the Restore Nature Now protest in London, and the BBC didn’t even report on it. bsky.app/profile/sund...

Today in life under competitive authoritarianism

Things delusional authoritarians do. They create the self-serving reality they need for their ego. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/22/u...

DEFCON 1 impeachable offenses happening hourly now

Authoritarian regimes frequently struggle to govern effectively because accurate information doesn't reach the leadership. Trump is basically designing a system to create this problem.

Wake up to what is happening and don’t sugarcoat reporting of it.

Sure, they are openly using federal agencies to investigate and potentially prosecute their opponents, but maybe someone filled out a form wrong?

Reminder: It does not matter if Lisa Cook filled out a form wrong or if the raid finds some document in a file folder in John Bolton's house. These actions are wrong no matter what because they selectively target opponents of the government. The rule of law is under attack.

How has Donald Trump’s “big lie” about the 2020 election being stolen reshaped politics? In POQ, Levendusky at al. show that citizens who believe the false claim are more skeptical of future elections — especially when their candidates lose. Read more: doi.org/10.1093/poq/...

You can tell yourself we are not living under a personalist authoritarian regime or you can listen to the spokesperson for that regime

You can repeat this for almost any issue: It's of course true that US democracy can survive {improper pressure on the Fed, changes to executive branch staffing, spending disputes with Congress, etc.} in normal times. But we have an authoritarian president trying to consolidate autocratic control!

Good to see growing support for abduction or 'inference to the best explanation', recently by Spirling and Stewart in @thejop.bsky.social. This is... www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10....

Luttig is communicating vastly more clearly and honestly about Roberts and Scotus than most Democratic officials are. It’s absolutely flabbergasting.