My dearest mentor, Professor Joseph Fewsmith, unfortunately passed away this week. I wrote this little tribute with great pain. But no writing is enough to express my love and gratitude for Joe.

ICE shooting a food bank worker in the back is a little on the nose for the current moment

The Democrat Party is a status quo party. That's their reality and that's their vision. We have a conservative party in the Democrats and a fascist party in the Republicans. That's American politics.

Will this Noah Smith protect the rights to criticize Charlie Kirk? If not don’t pretend to be a fan of free speech.

That’s… unsurprising. Salesforce Tries to Help ICE Boost Its Immigration Force www.nytimes.com/2025/10/16/u...

The Trump admin’s offer to give preferential treatment to institutions that toe the party line reeks of bribery in exchange for allegiance to a partisan ideological agenda. This is corruption. Adherence to ‘loyalty oaths’ would usher in a new era of thought policing in American higher education.

I don't expect any fight back from the generals, even if they are ordered to kill their own citizens. Killing citizens may be against the military norm, but disobeying superior order is even more so. Also, civilian government's control over military, right?

Charlie Kirk's killing was the Reichstag fire and this is a call for Kristallnacht. This is an open and explicit call for the killing of dissidents and for establishing a military dictatorship. And there is no sign the military will disobey.

Charlie Kirk's killing was the Reichstag fire and this is a call for Kristallnacht. I know historical analogies are always inaccurate but still.

Got my AAS panel accepted. I have a great panel on women and politics in China with scholars I like and admire. I've been hoping to have a book signed by my discussant. But I do not expect that I'll be able to travel to Vancouver next March due to the H1B visa policies of the American government.

The Ravens are like last season's Bengals. Bad defense and terrible O-line.

Ohio is a state because of the massive theft of Indigenous land through violence and treaties so disgustingly corrupt that they will cause just and honest people to feel shame. THE Ohio State University is self-censoring to satisfy racists and fascists who never will be satisfied. Don’t give in.

Mamdani is feared by Dem elites not because of the “socialism” label or the bullshit antisemitism charges. He’s feared because he’s the first to overcome Dem elites’ opposition & win a primary without their permission. His embodies their loss of power. www.levernews.com/whos-afraid-...

I'm Jewish and I think about antisemitism all the time. I can't tell you how fucking weird it is that Homeland Security posting literal neo-Nazi propaganda generates less discussion about the threat to Jews than a mayoral candidate who believes Palestinians are human beings.

You can't teach U.S. history without "divisive" narratives. Slavery wasn't "unifying." The Japanese incarceration wasn't "unifying." The anti-immigrant Operation Wetback (real name) wasn't "unifying." It's history's job to tell the truth, not cover up past racism to pave the way for future racism.

A new piece on the war in Gaza by my W&L colleague and Middle East expert Seth Cantey. He provides a calm but eloquent argument supported by solid facts. It is sad that so many people still refuse to recognize these facts and try to silence those who do. fpif.org/why-the-gaza...

That’s a great question many are avoiding asking 😂

👇 Thread below on the UK release date for my slim new book on long odds struggles for change in East and Southeast Asia from the mid-2010s through early 2020s (note: a traditional characters Chinese language translation in the works for publication in Taiwan by Acropolis)

trump authoritarianism fundamentally aims to take public money and use it for tech contracts , ethnostate projects and preventing trump from going to jail. Everything else. And I mean everything. Is secondary

I suggest that PUP consider telling the story of the region by providing Uyghur scholars a chance to tell theirs. Rahile Dawut’s studies of Uyghur folklore and culture tell the story of the region better than anyone. Why not start by publishing translations? madeinchinajournal.com/2023/11/13/r...

🧵: It’s worth unpacking how the lines that PUP draws almost verbatim from party-state propaganda— most notably about “telling the story” of Xinjiang, which echoes Xi’s call to “tell the China story well” — have very specific applications to task the denial of abuses against Uyghurs and other Muslims

Elon: Have you said thank you once?

Indiana's governor fired all the elected members of Indiana University's Board of Trustees. Given a recent policy change, he'll be able to fill those seats with appointees. Which means he'll basically have unilateral control over IU decisions, including who gets hired, tenured, and fired.

I cannot win this debate against the 20 opponents.

WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE

I know authoritarianism in the US is the new thing, but well, I also continue to study authoritarianism in China. Here's my newest piece, just published in @TheChinaJournal This article traces changes in the intellectual school of New Leftism in China: journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/... 1/

Saw on Chinese social media: A recent Harvard graduate on OPT was told by his employer to go on unpaid leave immediately after Trump’s order banning Harvard from taking international students. Disgusting.

A true libertarian would support abolishing ICE. A true supporter of the Second Amendment should support defunding the police. But now these people think taxing white billionaires is tyranny but randomly killing dark skinned people is justice. I can’t stand this bullshit.

I hope all anti-PRC Chinese, Tibetans, Uyghurs, and HKers start seeing Marco Rubio as the political opportunist & fraud that he is.

Dems and their allies have to get over their fear of setting off a backlash. Do the right thing, demonstrate passion unconstrained by calculations about public opinion, which is not immutable and can be changed. We have ample evidence that pulling punches does not work at all in the age of Trump.

Here's the Bluesky post. This is incredible. Now the goal will be to get him home. And I want to hear what Senator Van Hollen learned from him. What this shows is that Bukele is very much susceptible to pressure. Now we can't forget about the other 237 people sent there on March 15.

Tomorrow at Harvard University Fairbank Center, we will have an all-day event discussing Chinese intellectuals and their political life, inspired by and in honor of the late Prof. Merle Goldman. I'll be one of the speakers. Please join our discussions! fairbank.fas.harvard.edu/events/publi...

In 25 years of covering national security, I’ve never seen a story like this: Senior Trump officials discussed planning for the U.S. attack on Yemen in a Signal group--and inadvertently added the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic. www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc...

Hello. Writing for @cipolicy.bsky.social I wrote a breakdown of the place Marco Rubio occupies in Trump and Musk world and why it matters that mainstream republicans are willing to torch their foreign policy history internationalpolicy.org/publications...

“.. He then essentially explained to me that Mel Gibson has a personal relationship with President Trump and that should be sufficient basis for me to make a recommendation and that I would be wise to make the recommendation,” she said. @nytimes.com www.nytimes.com/2025/03/10/u...

I understand these idiotic conspiracy theories are always going to exist in the world, but I have to believe serving them up via recommendation algorithms to millions of vulnerable people (especially kids) is going to have a serious impact on our ability to survive as a species over a period of time

UPDATE—Mahmoud's attorney says they do NOT know where he is. They were first told he was sent to an ICE facility in Elizabeth, NJ. But when his 8-month-pregnant wife tried to visit him, she was told he's not there. They've received reports he may be sent as far away as Louisiana.

Right, the US increasingly feels like China, but America still has a free internet, a free press, the right to protest, the right to assemble, etc. FIGHT BACK before it is too late, my American friends! — A Chinese friend’s earnest plea.

Again, if they could start with cutting the police force I'd actually say something good about them.

🚨 BREAKING: This is beyond outrageous. Elon Musk, his cranky mother Maye, and one of his young kids were chauffeured in Air Force One and Marine One—straight to the White House, where they’re apparently staying. WTF is going on? It goes without saying, this is not normal. 🙄

Next thing Trump will say is to make Ukraine an America owned Black Sea resort. Maybe America-Russia joint owned.

Again, the richest man in human history personally individually directed this

The idea that Palestine Studies is definitionally antisemitic is abhorrent. The rank dehumanization steals the breath from my lungs. This is how the world allows genocide, by accepting that the existence of one people is anathema to another. The only liberation is a shared liberation.

Folks asking for sources other than NY post, Inside Higher Ed article was published yesterday, link below.

Question to the academic community: If you study Porto Rico, what's your subfield? Are you in American Politics or Comparative Politics?

How about starting with cutting the police force?

I might be wrong, but I think AfD would be considered just moderate right in the US. Europe still has a long way to go!

Bannon, Musk, and the far-right have found that “defending Israel” is the perfect cover for their antisemitism.

It’s like what I have thought. He’s thinking in 19th century mercantilist terms. He’s thinking everything in 19th century terms.