The right, along the Roberts Court, is trying to nullify the Reconstruction amendments guaranteeing equality under the law, in order to restore the Antebellum Constitution, which envisions “liberty” as an eternal aristocracy of race and class (gift link) www.theatlantic.com/politics/202...

Shout out to all the fools who fell for the free speech grift. You helped this along.

This project is using very big data to show what @jamellebouie.net keeps saying: the yglesias types aren't standing in reporting about some silent majority backlashing against CRT, DEI, and progressive racial ideology. They ARE the backlash.

More from the important research by @lachlanmcnamee.bsky.social @salmamousa.bsky.social & @kylepeyton.bsky.social: The backlash to CRT and DEI was concentrated among educated & professional class centrists & Republicans. Working class, who Yglesias says backlashed, didn't actually care

Just as the right is currently undergoing a civil war between the "MAGA can include Jews" and the "We hate Jews" factions, it would not surprise me if there is a civil war to come between the traditionalist Catholics and a revived Know-Nothing anti-Catholic faction.

Mass deportations don’t protect working people—they weaken labor standards, silence organizing and empower bad employers. An attack on immigrant workers is an attack on ALL workers. @jimmy-iupat.bsky.social

Klein and Thompson rightly recognize the overly litigious legal system is part of the problem. But it should be front and center. The path forward isn’t deregulation; it’s legal reform. Who can sue. Where disputes are heard. What happens when plaintiffs lose. Who can afford legal representation.

When environmental groups do sue, they target ecosystems, water, and climate—not urban housing. The Sierra Club fights groundwater extraction. The Center for Biological Diversity protects endangered species. They’re almost never in court over apartment buildings or affordable housing.

The Abundance movement often points to environmental groups as the obstacles to building. But who actually files the lawsuits blocking projects? It’s not environmental groups. It’s been lawyered-up HOAs protecting property values all along. Regulation by litigation is the problem.

Labor market was so awful in the 1980s that real wages fell for the bottom fifth of workers and didn't bounce back for over a decade

Nothing cures bad taste like a wealth tax

This stuff really happened! And it really crushed workers. It's so odd see a kind of whig economic history re-emerge in the last few years

The 1980s were the decade of decline for the working class *and* the rise of top incomes. Relying on measures of central tendency misses the whole point of why we remember them poorly.

Working on the syllabus, I probably won't assign this, but I really appreciate how Duncan Foley just slices through the Gordian Knot of the labor theory of value here

Anti-DEI whining is the trade unionism of fools

A few notes on organizing: mattdpearce.substack.com/p/an-unsenti...

Lots of people sharing this clip because it's funny and cathartic but I also genuinely believe it's important. We have to win the narrative battle between "I live in a corrupt society and that's just how it is" and "I live in a corrupt society and we are going to defeat and humiliate these ghouls."

Teaching a class this week on CBA and I have to say, this lovely symposium by @lpeblog.bsky.social is excellent. Particularly loved @marksilverman1.bsky.social's take. lpeproject.org/blog/the-val...

Children run this country

A state doing the bidding of private capital effectively is a Marxist superstructure, not a state with strong "capacity"

This is the root of Klein's misappropriation of the concept "state capacity" from poli sci. State capacity is govt imposing policies of its own choosing *over the objections of powerful social groups.* I.e. dominant social classes, not shoestring non-profit "groups" fighting environmental racism

"maybe government should work better" is not an original, interesting, or particularly useful argument, much less any serious ideology

Good. Great, even. Big part of why I voted for him. Thank you Thomas Sowell fan account. Minor point: all left-of-center candidates would be well advised to never utter the word “critique” again as long as they live unless in a soundproofed seminar room

One of my boring theories is that a successful progressive movement needs way more union presidents in public life.

It's almost like fiscal health reflects economic growth and investment rather than German morality tales about fiscal austerity vs. profligacy

A bipartisan note of appreciation to the folks at the Bureau of Labor Statistics, from folks who value honest data www.friendsofbls.org/updates/2025...

Economists when they see a policy change

no see using these photos would be beneath the Times, which would never take material from a dubious source, unless it was, say, hacked documents showing that a guy born in Africa had put 'African-American' on his application form for a university he didn't get into. You know, something important.

I don’t have much hope that the economics discipline is willing and able to reform itself from the inside but here’s a pretty damn freaking obvious place to start.

🚀 I'm on the #EconSky Job Market! My JMP asks a classic question: Do large, dominant firms foster or hinder innovation? To study this, I turn to the Great Merger Wave (1895–1904), when >2,600 U.S. firms combined into corporate giants like U.S. Steel and DuPont. A JMP 🧵👇 (1/13)

The people who empower Trump would never countenance any man being held to account for hurting girls. That would offend their whole notion of justice (the strong get to eat the weak)

Honestly, we could have used a lot more cancel culture.

"Deregulate and just let Sam Altman and his investors build whatever they want" may not be the best, most efficient, or socially optimal way to build out infrastructure

Somehow James Talarico following porn stars got covered before this

I often think about how the government hounded Aaron Swartz to death for scraping Jstor, yet all these AI companies scraped almost literally all of human knowledge (and continue to do so even when they're told to stop) and have had no criminal consequences.

he won an absolute majority in a 3 person race. the 100k or so people in those neighborhoods don't all have substacks.

The world’s first trillionaire initiated a move that has left more than half a million people dead, most of whom are children.

One analytical model shows that, as of November 5th, the dismantling of U.S.A.I.D. has already caused the deaths of 600,000 people, two-thirds of them children. https://newyorkermag.visitlink.me/jUzNSc

"you will recognize here precisely the same clipped, decontextualized, link-free, moronically breathless style of tweeting deployed by “financial news for low-trust illiterates” accounts like Unusual Whales or ZeroHedge (or, for that matter, in a slightly different arena, PopCrave)"

Public servants should make a LOT more. But I think this also illustrates an overlooked corrosive effect of inequality. If private CEOs make millions, then non-profit directors, union presidents, and governors feel like should make $500k for similar work.

Bidenomics: Truly Transitory Inflation, Remarkably Successful on Employment & Growth—But Unable to Break Through the Media Misinformation Machine My attempt to set forth a balance sheet: Bidenomics was an extraordinary success. The economy healed fast; the… braddelong.substack.com/p/bidenomics...

Incredible

Taking part in this next week. Should be a good conversation. "Activists and the Academy: Bridging the Divide."

Earlier this week I came across a book with this dedication page (from 1938).

Friar is right, she was calling for derisking state not for backstops - an important nuance that should be considered together with Jensen Huang claiming China ‘will win’ AI race with US at the same time. Capital wants Trump to activate subsidies, invoking China card that worked so well w Biden.

Y'all ever notice how nobody can ever actually point to any *specific thing* that Mamdani *actually said* that was antisemitic, and how people are just baldly asserting it anyway

Right wing masculinity experts are viewing the Zeteo stream and weeping at the left's masculine dominance

“How did you receive the foreigner? And did you receive him and welcome him or not?” Pope Leo XIV challenges us to reflect on the moral cost of policies that target deeply-root immigrants and families.

previous increases in immigration enforcement caused child care centers to simply shut down