ICYMI yesterday: I need your help   I re-launched my newsletter at a new platform called “Steady” – and most importantly, I officially started my new life as a full-time independent writer.   I am extremely excited this moment has finally come. And I am utterly terrified.

NEW WIRED led the way in reporting on Elon Musk's efforts to dismantle the US government. My colleagues and I spoke to 100s of employees at dozens of agencies to understand what happened. This is the definitive story of DOGE as told by those who experienced it www.wired.com/story/oral-h...

Putting aside the researchers' inability to identify acts of state terrorism, the number they're using to justify this subhed is five.

For their first project, my Kids and Society students have to create an infographic clarifying a common misconception about "kids these days." I'd prefer that they not use AI to create their projects, so I made my own infographic explaining why : )

Some major personal news:   Things have really changed. Now I need your help.   On why I left academia, why I left America, and why I need your support as I am starting over as a full-time independent writer:   Onward. Forward. Steady:

As I was saying…

Maybe it’s time to start teaching “the basic principles of democracy and how to stand up to authoritarians” in business school.

DJT: I am using the state to punish criticism and extort people WH: this business decision was driven by DJT: No I am using the state to punish criticism and extort people WH: Unitary executive theory implies that DJT: I SAID I AM USING THE STATE TO PUNISH CRITICISM AND EXTORT PEOPLE FOR MONEY

Folks, evil is a *terrible* skincare regime.

Nothing says “land of the free” like armed agents of the state saying “show me your papers if you want your daughter back” bsky.app/profile/nbcb...

When your claims of executive authority to harm people are too broad for John Yoo: "a broad, amorphous military campaign against the illegal drug trade ... would violate American law and the Constitution"

The Third Reich didn't last 1,000 years. Pinochet was ousted with a referendum. And the US isn't exactly dealing with the smartest, most competent fascists. Those of you insisting that 2025 is forever need to read a book, touch grass, go to therapy, anything other than trying to make others quit.

Trump wants to collect data from colleges on race and admissions This will require 740,500 additional hours of work I’m sure the THREE employees left at NCES can handle it https://fedscoop.com/education-department-research-data-college-admissions-layoffs-doge-restructuring-federal-contracts/

Corporations, when feeling under threat from the higher regulations and taxes proposed by Democrats, launched a decades-long multi-billion dollar program of lobbying, donations, and government influence to remove Dems from office and protect their bottom line. Now? Apparently powerless.

“They studied 51 populist presidents and prime ministers who were in power between 1900 and 2020 and found that after 15 years, GDP per capita was 10% lower when compared with a plausible nonpopulist counterfactual.”

We are a country with a violence problem and a political problem, and sometimes those overlap, and we don't always know whether they're overlapping." - Dr. Lilly Mason

Something a brilliant colleague said that I think has gotten lost in the Kirk conversation is that part of how he was able to build a following and inspire young conservatives was precisely *because* of the free speech tradition that IS honored on most college campuses. I recall back in …

To "accelerate high-impact, curiosity-led research and innovation, and to facilitate breakthroughs" - let me tell you my students using genAI are NOT curious and what it is accelerated so far is lying, cheating and data fabrication

I like this. Since under RFK Jr, Covid shots are now for people with underlying conditions that put them at risk, Michigan’s chief medical executive Dr. Natasha Bagdasarian states that not having the most recent Covid shot constitutes such an underlying condition. www.michigan.gov/mdhhs/inside...

“What we’re seeing is an unprecedented attempt to silence disfavored speech by the government,” said Brendan Nyhan, a political scientist at Dartmouth College. “Donald Trump is trying to dictate what Americans can say.” https://to.pbs.org/46AYg7U

Exactly this

Chotiner interview with @lilymasonphd.bsky.social www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a...

“I recently spoke by phone with @lilymasonphd.bsky.social , a professor of political science at the Johns Hopkins S.N.F. Agora Institute and an expert on political violence.” @ichotiner.bsky.social Where Political Violence Comes From www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a...

I'm doing this: publicusaresearchbenefits.com . Join me. Is it the best thing to do? I don't know. If you can think of something that fits you better, then do that! 💪🏼But do something. And don't forget that science thrives on freedom, democracy, and strong institutions. We need to defend those too.

I know a lot of people are being doxxed by the far right because they were too honest in public about how they felt about the Kirk assassination. I wrote a quick guide about the first things you should do if this is happening to you. (Not paywalled) www.patreon.com/posts/85220523

This Economist article could’ve had a much better/less incendiary headline, but the commentary from @lilymasonphd.bsky.social is very good, imo archive.is/iALcQ

I wrote about the groypers and the Fuentes-Kirk fight years ago, in Hate in the Homeland. Cautioning here that there is still a lot to know about the shooter’s motivation, I’m sharing these two paragraphs here to set the history of this fight in context:

You’re think *you’re* depressed? Try being at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association right now with 5,000 political scientists presenting their work on the state of democracy, public opinion, and media. They are also drinking heavily.

Extremist murders by ideology, 2013 to 2022. www.pbump.net/o/reassessin...

/2 See, a significant part of the "Free Speech Culture" movement is about saying "this person is standing up for the right to say things they agree with, therefore they are a free speech hero," even if they manifestly aren't in favor of free speech for other people they disagree with.

1. We do not know the motive of the shooter. The man who shot at Trump was after attention. 2. The man who murdered MN legislators WAS motivated by politics, and I didn’t hear any Dems calling for reprisals against all Repubs. 3. It’s easy to start a cycle of violence. Not easy to end one.

By @lilymasonphd.bsky.social and i last year. www.foreignaffairs.com/united-state...

"Democracy is a system in which parties lose elections"

This is a great ad and also - it makes me think that the tech bros have made a tactical error. When tech guys were mainly Dem donors, Dems were reluctant to attack billionaires. Now there’s much less reason for Dems to protect them.

Correct. The difference is that it used to be that the professor could reply “good luck with your campaign to prove this empirical evidence is illegal” and basically trust that the student would quickly come up against an administrator who would confirm.

This is what you do when you’ve given up on competing for elections

I argue that early support for radical-right parties isn’t led by the “left behind.” When stigma is high, poorer voters are more inhibited by social pressure. Higher-status individuals face fewer social sanctions and are often seen as trendsetters, giving them the capacity to challenge norms.

We didn't stop them, but we slowed them down. They got hundreds of us, but we kept them from getting hundreds more, and it wasn't violence or graffiti or insults that did the job, it was regular people getting involved. It was my neighbor the speech therapist, it was my friend the life-coach. 8/

“Dems cannot pretend this is a normal Republican administration. They cannot ignore masked agents in the streets, armed troops in the cities, billions of dollars of money going into the Trump family’s pockets… If Dems cannot make an issue out of all that, then they are screwed and so are we.” 🎁🔗

How is this not a screaming massive headline across every news site? This is insane, a virtual declaration of civil war. We fought a revolution to not be subjected to this kind of tyranny

This is what democracy looks like! A people united will never be defeated. We want federal forces out of DC NOW! #WeAreAllDC #FreeDC

Here's something I post from time to time. My answer to a reader who asked me: what could journalists do NOW to break with some of their more corrosive habits.

Couldn’t get a more clear example of Wilhoit’s theory of conservatism: “There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.”

Every time I teach research methods to undergrads in the future, you bet your ass I am going to tell them that it's Jessica Chastain's favorite subject, so they should give it a chance:

A decade ago, the Heritage Foundation went full meltdown about how Obama was an imperial president when he had issued about the same number of executive orders -- though he had reached it after six years, not six months.

Just like Tucker told them www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

please apply to our Princeton CSDP fellowships! Due *October 20th* Post-Doctoral Associate: puwebp.princeton.edu/AcadHire/app... Visiting Scholar: www.princeton.edu/acad-positio...

Students, there's no need to use ChatGPT to draft emails to your professors. Just be polite and direct. No need to stress over the style.

Radical right accommodation really does not work. New paper out with this exceptionally talented team @katharinalawall.bsky.social @robjohns75.bsky.social @drjennings.bsky.social @sarahobolt.bsky.social @zachdickson.bsky.social @danjdevine.bsky.social & @jack-bailey.co.uk doi.org/10.31235/osf...