NEW: Now that the Supreme Court has rendered the last remaining pillar of the VRA toothless, Republicans in eight states are free to gerrymander more than a dozen congressional districts that had been designed to remedy discrimination against Black and Latino voters. We catalog them all here -->

A white Mississippi state leader is calling for the elimination of the state’s only majority-Black U.S. House district after the U.S. Supreme Court diminished the Voting Rights Act. "Mississippi might no longer have a district drawn to protect Bennie Thompson," State Auditor Shad White said.

The court has simply recreated the pre-Brown world in allowing racial discrimination across a broad number fields as long as it is “facially neutral,” gutting the Reconstruction Amendments in the process.

NEW: Exclusive research by Democracy Docket finds that the Supreme Court's ruling this morning gutting the Voting Rights Act will derail at least 28 pro-voting lawsuits. The legal challenges aim to stop states from drawing electoral maps that dilute minority voting power.

We can be glib, but the fact is the Supreme Court destroyed the America the Civil Rights Movement built today. And I have no confidence whatsoever that the Dems will react w/ urgency to curb the return of Jim Crow voting. It is a dark day. And requires serious reflection on what is to be done.

It is just pure sophistry to insist that it is not racial gerrymandering when race tracks partisanship. Absolutely insulting in its reasoning.

Given the argument that ended the VRA, I think it’s time liberals did some self reflection about the now decades long obsession with partisan polarization as the problem, as opposed to authoritarianism, extremism, oligarchy, and racism

Very pleased that this special issue festschrift for Joe Carens is now out in CRISPP. Featuring @simonechambers.bsky.social @abizadeh.bsky.social, @melissa1008.bsky.social, Sarah Song, Jim Johnson, Rainer Baubock, Courtney Jung, Tom Malleson, Kiran Banerjee, me, and Joe Carens. Quite proud of this!

"the decline in [academic freedom in] the United States has been more rapid and pronounced, particularly in the last year. It has deteriorated by 50% from 2015 to 2025 and is now evaluated as moderate autonomy by country experts" academic-freedom-index.net/research/Aca...

CNN calling Tom Homan "well respected" and "not as hardline as Bovino" is an interesting choice. The dude took a $50,000 bribe in a fucking Cava bag and says all the same fascist shit as Bovino and Noem.

Protesters in Los Angeles projected an anti-ICE video onto the Twin Towers, an ICE-linked detention facility where the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department actively collaborates with ICE for deportation screenings.

Thank you, President Roth. No official at my university (Harvard) can make a statement like yours as an official because our institutional voice policy forbids it. That’s too bad, because the successful defense of democracy just might require leaders of its institutions to speak up and defend it.

The majority of organizing happening in Minnesota isn’t just peaceful, it’s INVISIBLE. Moms showing up who won’t be interviewed on TV, people whose ICE patrols don’t turn into viral video. The grocery runs, the donations, the people filming bc they happen to be there. Please remember this.

If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine

Two women trained as first responders were abducted by three ICE agents. One of the agents starts seizing. The other two don’t know what to do. The women jump into action and save the agent’s life, only to be re-handcuffed and processed. www.startribune.com/detained-by-...

I spent the morning at the San Antonio immigration court. It’s out of control. Crawling with ICE - arresting legal immigrants showing up for court appearances. I asked one officer who they are prioritizing. His answer: everyone. I need to share with you what I saw.

A YouTube link for those looking for it. No words. youtu.be/btqHDhO4h10?...

Carney’s speech in Davos today was sober, honest, and bracing. I will suggest to my students (who are reading “Politics as a Vocation”) that it is worth reading through the lens of Max Weber’s ethic of responsibility.

Check out this report documenting censorship in higher education in the US. It chronicles record-breaking numbers of state bills that directly or indirectly censor classroom speech and an unprecedented federal campaign to exert ideological control over research, teaching, and campus life.

More information from the guy whose car had smoke grenades and other stuff thrown in it. The baby's heart stopped and EMS was called to the scene. Yeah, ICE may have almost killed a 6 month old baby yesterday

Tonight marked the last broadcast of PBS News Weekend for the foreseeable future. As the show signs off the air, anchor John Yang looks back at some of our top stories and highlights over the years. https://to.pbs.org/4pxYe7W

How it’s going

Across the country, Americans are honoring Renee Nicole Good and mourning all the lives ICE has taken and destroyed. Hundreds of marches and vigils are planned this weekend. Please join us to say ICE Out For Good: www.mobilize.us?tag_ids=2913...

Test run for 2026. Here's what I wrote in the NY Times about the federal government potentially interfering with the 2026 elections and what we need to do about it. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/20/o...

🧵Let's talk about the obvious: Where in the fuck did all the historic artwork and priceless furnishings go, including the gold leaf Steinway piano that was presented to FDR from the Steinway family? Did Trump steal all this when he demolished the East Wing? Why aren't Dems demanding to know?

Pritzker: "People of Illinois, we need your help. Get our your cell phones, record and narrate what you see. Put it on social media. Peacefully ask for badge numbers and identification. Speak up for your neighbors. We need to let the world know that this is happening and that we won't stand for it."

I fully understand how difficult it is to remain focused on any one particular atrocity but this really ought to be a serious scandal and people need to pay heavy prices for this

I was assured these interactions would be “brief” and easily resolved.

Yes

Read this. Seriously, read it. The Trump regime is declaring open season on its critics - NGOs, philanthropists, activists. They will be harassed, arrested, jailed. The silencing effect on others who might speak out will be huge. This is authoritarianism. www.whitehouse.gov/presidential...

Bernard Harcourt with a helpful analysis of different conceptual frameworks and theoretical models trying to make sense of what is happening in the US:

I have approximately zero following on this app, sharing in the hopes it can get in front of the right person. A man I went to college with’s wife was kidnapped by ICE at a green card hearing, and he’s trying to find a reporter who will speak to him about the situation

The South Korean Ministry of Defense has awarded medals of merit to 11 officers for disobeying direct orders of superiors during the martial law fiasco, orders that they deemed to be contrary to the constitution and endangerment to democracy. www.chosun.com/english/nati...

I feel like this needs to be said, as I don’t feel many Americans get this: THIS IS NOT NORMAL!!! No, not even for authoritarian leaders in nominally democratic regimes. In Hungary, Poland, even Turkey*, authoritarian leaders do/did not regularly send the military into its peaceful cities!

Sure seems like the president just instructed the military to use lethal force against US citizens.

the president just said the military should start shooting american civilians if they want to

Who are the political scientists talking most insightfully about Israel/Palestine?

This is, without any exaggeration, exactly how Putin and Orbán proceeded — using antisemitism to discredit the idea of civil society and political opposition, and as an excuse to undo the rule of law. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/25/u...

You know things are rough when the AAUP's advice on how to use social media is just "set all your accounts to private."

Judith Butler:"It is important to refuse the notion that this is just how things are..invoking a feckless realpolitik that justifies complicity with a brutal & rising authoritarianism. It is time to resist the injustice that now threatens to be normalized" www.chronicle.com/article/when...

Here's a partial list of university faculty who have been fired or suspended this week. 🧵 How are free speech and academic freedom doing at your university? #academicsky #edusky #aaup #freespeech 1/x 1. A tenured Professor at Florida Atlantic:

new from @emmettmacfarlane.com emmettmacfarlane.substack.com/p/u-of-t-pro...

Post now updated with a note at the top, and with a slightly changed headline, because apparently almost every media outlet also may have gotten the story wrong.

Yeah, you can call it fascism

Full text of the International Association of Genocide Scholars Resolution on the Situation in Gaza: genocidescholars.org/wp-content/u...

Israel committing genocide in Gaza, world’s top scholars on the crime say

Hirsch, the daughter of Holocaust survivors, is now thinking of leaving the classroom: “A university that treats criticism of Israel as antisemitic & threatens sanctions for those who disobey is no longer a place of open inquiry … I just don’t see how I can teach about genocide in that environment.”

Almost a year ago, Israel’s finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, lamented that while “it may be just and moral” to starve Gaza’s two million residents, “no one in the world would let us.” What an incredible shame on us all that he was wrong.

"Much of it is the unspeakable stuff nobody admits to but is clear to anyone who reads or observes: ... that it’s more expedient to be against evil after it’s over; that western countries preach justice and democracy, but act to protect wealth and power."