good piece on Waymo's self driving cars we can reasonably begin to look at self driving as a potential public health breakthrough, Waymo cars are much better and safer drivers than people the problem is the economics of the technology not the technology itself www.nytimes.com/2025/12/02/o...

Boomer liberals imagining an alternative future to Reaganism--less hawkish than HHH; more in tune with the working class than Gene McCarthy--have spent decades pining for RFK. As his son points up unsavory continuities in the family legacy, time for a late-in-life reevaluation.

Makes me so happy, as Ben's friend, that we're on Day Three of discourse about the article where his photo makes him look like, as someone said, "IRA bomber turn negotiator."

Yesterday, Roger Stone announced his partnership with a menswear company, where together they've released a collection of tailored clothing items. Here is my review of those pieces. 🧵

Cranberry mold, slightly modified from the 1933 edition of The Settlement Cookbook.

"Why fill in the hollow parties when you can do much the same thing outside of them?" Not quite sure I buy everything here, but a smart, meaty analysis of Mamdani campaign's civic roots and possibilities. And, I might add, exactly what an author wants to see with a book out in the world.

The Eric Schickler essay in Larry Bartel's symposium on "What Trump Has Taught Us About Political Science" is one of the most insightful pieces I've read in 2025. US institutions turned out to be weak, and we have to rethink conventional wisdom. open access: academic.oup.com/psq/advance-...

Guess what just went live? Our latest #ThisOldDemocracy podcast episode — streaming on Apple, Spotify, and YouTube. @msifry.bsky.social and @daschloz.bsky.social dive into the structural weaknesses plaguing American politics. centerforballotfreedom.org/this-old-dem...

with Pelosi retiring from Congress, there goes the last direct descendant of the San Francisco Burton Machine. but in a sense, it was going the way of the dodo since the Gingrich Revolution of 94. felt this story with Phil Burton’s office chair captured the feeling of extinction well

I always miss Cambridge, Mass., the most on municipal election days. Tomato-basil at Noch's, nocciola and burnt caramel at Toscanini's, a climb up the tower at the Mount Auburn Cemetery. And the chance to give my old friend @marcgov.bsky.social my #1 vote, and to support the @abciepac.org slate.

In a just world, Dick Cheney, war criminal and architect of the contemporary imperial presidency, would have died in a cell in The Hague, but in a just world, felons would vote, so he could have cast his ballot for Kamala Harris all the same.

Take: moderating in swing districts in 2026 highly likely to work; moderating partywide in 2026 has some evidence it will work; moderating partywide for the long term as a strategy to rid off Trumpism has way more perils and risks than proponents acknowledge.

The royalty statements suggest that not everyone read The Hollow Parties, but the paperback edition is out on Tuesday, so you can change that: press.princeton.edu/books/paperb... (Also, Jamelle is right.)

APD as I learned it in grad school/APD as it's happening today

Good noodling here. A part of the Democrats' story, I think, is that the vaunted community organizing model from, in different ways, IAF and the New Left has had trouble adapting to class dealignment and big foundation funding, so it's hard to figure out what real civil society looks like.

Demagogic president seizes money to pay standing army, arrogating to himself legislative power, while his cronies keep Congress out of session is honestly more or less exactly how the Founders thought this would end

I'd rather the next Dem president + Congress put into place a bunch of Court-curbing mechanisms *and* far more strenuous presidency-curbing mechanisms. I don't think left-Caesarism is the best response here.

I think Ezra Klein's take is that America is on the verge of a major step up in terms of sectarian violence, and he is afraid of that, and thinks very major compromises are worth it to avoid that outcome. Admittedly sometimes he says/suggest otherwise, but it's my overall impression.

Barney Frank liked to say that politics was all about working alongside people whom one finds morally repugnant, which seems, if one is going to be clear-eyed and also in the arena, the correct disposition.

Roger Stone is selling sets of Nixon-Agnew buttons (from his "personal collection" lol) that would have trouble commanding $5 on the open market for $45. stonezone.com/product/auth...

Wherever the dateline, "Regulars return once more to beloved local food place before it closes" is reliably the best genre of article. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/18/w...

I just want to say that it gives me great pleasure to answer questions about political buttons, so please send my way. Already this morning, I've replied to Ryan and, via text, identified a fake in a display on the wall at a prominent civic venue.

If the road to democratic renewal runs through better parties, and the formal Democratic Party is run by Jay Jacobs and his ilk, then we need a massive effort to unfuck the state parties and the "Bermuda triangle" of the DNC www.nytimes.com/2025/09/18/n...

The real problem with the Biden-era Democratic Party? They pursued policy goals rather than build the party. @johnsides.bsky.social shares insight from @samrosenfeld.bsky.social & Danny Scholzman: goodauthority.org/news/the-rea...

A good time to say, since we're talking about the Biden years, that @samrosenfeld.bsky.social and I wrote a paper for APSA, to be presented Sat. at noon, about why the Biden-era Democrats turned to policy as their salvation, and why it didn't work out. Here's the first paragraph.

“Whether 250 years later, with tyranny again at our door, Boston has still got it.” Right here, right now, at the @wutrain.bsky.social victory party, it still feels like we have a future to build together.

With video like this, Henry George would have won.

Antitrusters and abundists are sniping about their opponents' unsavory dalliances--Lina Khan posing with Steve Bannon; fash-ish speakers at Abundance DC--but the underlying question of what's beyond the pale are the same for both. See @colmpm.bsky.social from June: renewal.org.uk/blog/the-cho...

A nicely wistful appreciation that captures just what Nadler's brand of liberalism meant, just why now feels like the end of the line. Bella Abzug to Ted Weiss to Jerry Nadler in that seat is a hell of a run.

Another brave column in Haaretz by my third cousin, Noa Limone. www.haaretz.com/opinion/2025...

This is a genuinely edifying exchange between @waleedshahid.bsky.social and @mattyglesias.bsky.social, each extracting fractionally tinged lessons from the Republican Party of its founding generation. t.co/zDDSB4pYmK www.slowboring.com/p/your-cause...

This man is being subjected to a real-life version of Kafka’s “The Trial” as punishment for being the embarrassing object of the regime’s own malicious and chaotic incompetence. www.nytimes.com/live/2025/08...

The Zcavenger Hunt is the closest thing we've seen to the torchlight parade in 21st-century progressive politics.

Making politics fun and doing it together, which Democrats regardless of faction haven’t done well.

After all these years, Gøsta Esping-Andersen, Three Worlds of of Welfare Capitalism, is still the best book ever written about the welfare state in rich democracies. With luck, this comprehensive demolition job will win it some new readers.

Last week, Boston received a letter from AG Bondi threatening to prosecute officials and withhold funds unless we cooperate with carrying out mass deportations. The US Attorney General asked for a response by today, so here it is: stop attacking our cities to hide your administration’s failures.

Gallego on Mamdani: "It's okay to say 'I disagree with this, this, and this, but I agree with that.' But the idea that we're just gonna throw out people that are really bringing in new ideas to the fold, exciting people, just because they're slightly to the right or to the left of us is dumb."

Schlozman Thought

A WAR thought from APD/political history: seen from 19th-century party rhetoric, this debate is cramped. If you think any move to the center for a slightly improved margin is bad, say that. If you think it's worth it, say that. If you want to reposition anyway, say that.

I was delighted to blurb Julia's book and you should buy it and read it.

Alan Dershowitz hanging around in front of the pierogi stand getting his picture taken.

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:

I'm talking with Tyler Pager about his 2024 election book at the MV Book Festival on Sunday at 12:30, so if you're on-Island and not working your three jobs to be able to live here, at the beach, or Alan Dershowitz, please come by.

Want to get back at that prof who gave you an A- on an exam? Or maybe you don't think people of color or women should be professors? Make up a story about antisemitism, plop it into an anonymous student evaluation, and watch as your prof's life is upturned faster than you can spell "fascism."

I've had a Walter Mitty-like idea for an Institute for the Study of University Trustees. I assume that even if someone agreed to fund it (lol), no university president would actually greenlight a center designed to investigate what they'd rather--as a class interest--keep quiet.

This pro-Landon poster from 1936, in the current Hake's auction has the same vibe as a lot of Stop Mamdani propaganda, inadvertently making the leftists look like the cool ones. www.hakes.com/Auction/Item...

New Interview: www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a...

A timely and trenchant piece by Suresh Naidu. When future generations sift through the wreckage of our era, they’ll find it strewn with the institutional and personal failures of leaders both great and small. www.nytimes.com/2025/07/23/o...

Looks like the Democrats' "autopsy" will skirt the real question of 2024 (www.nytimes.com/2025/07/19/u...), which is whether the party should choose its strongest nominee or cheerlead for the president. @samrosenfeld.bsky.social and I poked at that issue last summer: www.nybooks.com/online/2024/...