If the CDFI Fund stays dead, we will have chosen a particular vision of what government is for, and it is a grim one. Government becomes landlord and cop, the entity that collects and enforces but does not build, says @mattwatkinspolicy.bsky.social.

My new column at @chronphilanthropy.bsky.social

Suicide is not inevitable. It rises when supports are stripped and stigma is reinforced, writes @mattwatkinspolicy.bsky.social: www.commondreams.org/opinion/male...

Our September issue is live! Amid the chaos of 2025, nonprofits are reinventing themselves to survive. Some are looking to partnerships as a lifeline. This month's magazine details how charities are adapting and innovating. Dive into the issue: www.philanthropy.com/issue/current

Sneak peek at the cover of the September issue! Amid the chaos of 2025, nonprofits are reinventing themselves to survive. Some are looking to partnerships as a lifeline. This month's magazine details how charities are adapting and innovating. The issue drops on Tuesday, September 9.

As Matt Watkins writes in @commondreams.org, the delay isn't just about @climateunited.bsky.social or federal contracts or even appeals courts. It's about the EPA gaslighting us about the crisis we're facing, and Trump Administration executive overreach. www.commondreams.org/opinion/cour...

But history will record something else. The money was there. The need was there. The chance was there. And power chose not to use it. That is not oversight. That is abdication, writes @mattwatkinspolicy.bsky.social: www.commondreams.org/opinion/cour...

My most recent article @slate.com

This is not the work of government, but a choreography of fear. slate.trib.al/lBGZ5bB

My latest article in @slate.com : The lesson from D.C. is clear — creeping authoritarianism isn’t stopped by warning the water’s rising. It’s stopped by fixing the leak, by making people so secure in their daily lives they never look to the strongman in the first place. slate.com/news-and-pol...

Quick overview of Trump executive order & how it lines with our housing policy history

Thoughts on #Trump inhumane executive order on #homelessness.

Opinion: Philanthropy has more than its share of trigger words. Thanks to polarization, the strategic plans of nonprofits and philanthropy routinely collapse over a single word or phrase like "equity" or "civility." phlnthrp.com/44yqK29 #TheCommons

trump just signed an executive order that rewards cities for criminalizing poverty. i wrote about it it for @commondreams.org www.commondreams.org/opinion/trum... on vagrancy laws, aesthetic politics, and the violence of being made invisible. read it. share it. let me know what you think.

been writing a lot this year—mostly policy, politics, and nonprofit stuff, especially where it hits working-class and poor communities. started a substack to share more freely: 🔗 mattwatkinsessays.substack.com subscribe if you’re into it. share if you think someone else might be.

If we truly care about making this country great, we could start by making sure our towns aren’t wiped off the map every time it rains, writes @mattwatkinspolicy.bsky.social: www.commondreams.org/opinion/texa...

My most recent article @commondreams.org "The truth is... We now live in a country where a young girl at summer camp must wonder if the river beside her bunk will rise in the night, where families face flood insurance premiums that exceed their mortgage payments..."

#BREAKING: Thomas Massie has switched his vote from a yes to a no. There are now five Republicans opposing the procedural vote.

GOOD NEWS: In a victory for reproductive freedom, the Wisconsin Supreme Court issued a 4-3 ruling declaring the state's abortion ban to be unenforceable. Wisconsinites no longer have to fear the archaic 1849 ban could go back into effect. www.aclu-wi.org/en/press-rel...

My newest article in @slate.com. slate.com/news-and-pol... the Big Beautiful Bill is being framed as a mandate — but no one asked for mass Medicaid cuts, corporate tax breaks, and billions to ICE. #legislation #BigBeautifulBill #Policy #Trump #TaxCuts

My most recent article explores Mamdani's grocery proposal. It's not nearly as radical or impractical as many claim.

Let’s be clear: denying U.S.-born children citizenship under EO 14160 risks creating statelessness. Some argue, “They’re not technically stateless—they can just get citizenship from their parents’ country.” That’s legally narrow and deeply misleading.

law professors have been unable to understand why people are actually concerned about this case. it’s not about nationwide injunctions per se, it’s about a court that waited until the issue hurt the GOP, and then intervened on behalf of one of the most egregious constitutional violations we’ve seen

I am reading essays from liberal pundits and law professors explaining why this decision is very “narrow” and “technical,” and it’s honestly like they finished the majority opinion and thought, “Well this makes sense, surely there is no reason to question its premises or read any further”

This article claims Trump v. CASA won’t set back the fight for birthright citizenship. Bullshit. Just because some are protected doesn’t mean it’s okay. Injustice anywhere still matters. You can debate doctrine all day. But who cares if the people hurt never make it to court?

In an ever-changing, incomprehensible world the masses had reached the point where they would, at the same time, believe everything and nothing, think that everything was possible and that nothing was true.” Hannah Arendt, Origins of Totalitarianism

The 22 states with preliminary injunctions: www.gtlaw-insidebusinessimmigration.com/supreme-cour...

Opinion: Our language is packed with elite-sounding jargon. It is ineffective — and dangerous — amid today's heightened distrust of institutions and growing hostility to the sector, writes Matt Watkins for #TheCommons. phlnthrp.com/4l7Y9pH

Protesters block ICE vans—media calls them unhinged. Students grieve Gaza—called hysterical. Moms demand gun reform—labeled emotional. In 2025, dissent is pathologized. Rage begets diagnosis. Grief becomes dysfunction. Authoritarianism doesn’t just punish protest. It reframes it as instability.

First post here. This week, I published a piece in Slate on the Supreme Court’s ruling—and what it could mean for birthright citizenship, legal identity, and the quiet creation of a stateless generation: slate.com/news-and-pol...

"For the child born this summer in Texas, whose parents receive no documents, whose name never appears in any system, and who grows up asking why she can’t go on field trips, apply for scholarships, or open a bank account, the consequences are not legal theory. They are her life."