Vladimir Putin arrests journalists for spreading “fake news” and “insulting the armed forces.” But Russia doesn’t have a 1st amendment and vociferous defenders of free speech.

The headlines of top 6 stories currently on the NY Times homepage: “Trump expected to announce” “Can Trump Really Give” “Trump Sues…Demands” “Trump Threatens” “Trump Weighs” “Trump Confronts” Good example of the media reinforcing what @donmoyn.bsky.social calls the “personalist presidency.”

There are many frames to analyze the current moment but one repeating theme is the current administration’s preoccupation with bolstering oil and gas, weakening oil alternatives to energy production, and acquiring natural resources.

Interesting post: it suggests that Democartic party activists lost legitimacy during the Biden years by over playing their hand, and the Minnesota collective action is special in part because the solidarity movement is ground up and occurring outside of the Dem party.

Nothing can prepare your soul for the first image ever transmitted onto a television

Kristol holding here on shifting political opportunity structures and opposition mobilization. My polisci heart glows.

Greatest state in the union. MN FTW

"look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping" wrote Weiss in 2018, quoting Fred Rogers. How far this feels.

statistically speaking (and based off the articles) it is a near certainty that thousands of people currently patrolling the streets in Minnesota are people who did not immediately believe the warnings of the left 10 years ago. I see very little criticism of *them* on here

it is probably because they are responding to their earlier errors by taking positive action now, which helps defend their neighbors, rather than by retroactive reputation management in the Atlantic, which does not

is there a point at which the exit of Tory MPs to Reform starts to positively shift the Tory brand, attracting moderates/Remain voters back into the fold? Asking for someone curious to know when Britain will get a responsible rightwing party.

Forget about Trump: the real challenge for US democracy is that with our political system, at some point there will be a president like Vance, and he will employ someone like Miller: that’s what the GOP looks like going forward. And the Vances and Millers are all-in on the Minnesota approach.

I've been trying to write something, entirely unsuccessfully, about sense of place and the geography of the city. This is a poor draft at that. People deserve to live somewhere defined in their mind by places that bring them joy, places anchored by people, connections, and fulfilling experiences.

for example

May his memory always be a blessing. I have forced myself to read every first person account I could find of his killing. I can’t bring myself to watch the video but I can try to honor his memory by being a good neighbor.

The Democratic Party is an organizational behemoth that is out of step with the current authoritarian context. It was built for a certain type of politics and was hugely successful. Its inability to adapt to change is making an ongoing crisis somewhat worse. Very useful thread here:

As an organizational economist, this would be my explanation too: an organization out of step with its current environment, with the wrong people at the wrong places

Great question. First example is rise of MORENA in Mexico. A paper that shows how party organizational method can shift the needle on representation and ultimately electoral success:

At this point two citizen activists are dead and the best Schumer/jeffries can offer is a tweet. Why are they not on the frontlines of the protest.

I think I finally stumbled upon an AI accounts. This one is engineered to seek responses from sensible, fact based audiences but also rile them up in the process by stubbornly not understanding what they are saying. Fascinating

Department of Anthropology with the students working towards a PhD in cultural anthropology. Just astounding on so many levels. Also, good for them!l come for palak paneer, and you will lose.

Hey are we sure it’s hallucinations and not some improved ocular ability and that these tiny elves are actually all around us? Just asking questions..

The story of our times is elite abdication (political, economic, cultural) in face of democratic backsliding. The people on the other hand know who and what they are fighting so much better.

Now more than ever I am convinced that Woke 2.0 is going to be bigger, better and stronger. There will be much winning.

Tbf to the UK electorate we are seeing some early signs of people pretty rapidly adapting to our new reality and strategically voting wisely to keep Reform out. (Also saw this in Welsh election for instance.) This, combined with the sense that Reform really do seem to have plateaued, gives me hope.

If you are: -a leftist -who does not like the DNC -and lives in a red district -that is rural or suburban I encourage you to check out your local Dems and maybe get involved. Red districts are often ignored by national Dems; you may have more influence to push left locally than you think.

Absolutely peak Bluesky here. Chef's kiss.

Agreed

We have reached a point in prestige journalism when opinion columnists are doing the reporting. The upside down of print journalism.

One way to think about this is that senate democrats are increasingly comfortable being the minority opposition & have no stomach for winning power. Lots of electoral authoritarian regimes have opposition parties where elected officials keep winning seats to be a pretty comfy minority party.

These two paras next to each other in the story. Just no words 😂

There are more of us than them & when we heard “taco trucks on every corner” we saw it as an aspirational dream of deliciousness rather than something to fear. I too feel so very lucky that I have been able to live in several multicultural cities in three different continents. It is a blessing

Excellent essay that raises the prospect of what becomes possible for Starmer and Co if the republicans lose midterms badly and democrats place restrictions on Trump on trade and transatlantic relations. Tying Trump to Farage becomes easier

This is fascinating. Younger people are more optimistic about the economy because they have some faith in the new government’s efforts after years of right wing mismanagement. Older people, indoctrinated by right wing propaganda are actively holding back growth. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

I am just a girl standing in front of a party-system asking for a responsible right wing party.

look, with the US media ecosystem going rogue, someone must step in to provide authoritative and truthful foreign news to the world

ICE has escalated from Arresting undocumented migrants with criminal records to Arresting undocumented migrants without criminal records to Arresting legal migrants to Arresting US citizens who 'look' like migrants to Arresting US citizens protesting ICE to Arresting random bystanders. Who's next?

everyday a demonstration that the current government is built on ethnic patronage politics.

If there's one empirical insight I'd want everyone to understand about American politics, it's this: America's problems are solved problems. Just not here. What would change if the US simply matched the average of 31 peer democracies? Not Denmark or Norway. Just the middle of the pack. 🧵

This is a needless dig on central bank independence in emerging market. India takes immediate offense.

I'm with Jake here: in fact I'm very surprised that anyone can see it otherwise. From where I am (given the information I am seeing etc) it seems *obvious* that the talk of a vibe-shift was dramatically mistaken and Americans have both in response to polling questions and on the street been furious.

Where is the London version of this?? We need it asap!

Many are arguing that they wouldn't be acting this way if they thought they were subject to free & fair elections. Plausible. But another explanation is that they see the writing on the wall--generational backlash--and they're attempting increasingly desparate hail marys

Compares to Lab 30, Ref 20, Greens 13, Cons 14, LD 14 from BES in May 2025 - so pretty constant tbh

kind of darkly funny that "gender studies" is the stereotypical "useless degree" because gender studies will help you understand a large and important chunk of the current psychosis in american life

honestly wild that I, a citizen of the United States, do not know if we have conquered Venezuela or not, and I have no confidence that the print or broadcast media are capable of telling me the answer

Maybe that was the point? A step so far out that it gives permission to consolidate specific geo powers

I wish I could believe that even this admin couldn't be this dumb Fiona Hill's testimony during Trump's 2019 impeachment hearing: “the Russians at this particular juncture were signaling very strongly that they wanted to somehow make some very strange swap arrangement between Venezuela and Ukraine"

Venezuela may seem like a tactical loss for Russia, but in fact it's a strategic win for Putin's vision of the world. new essay: hegemon.substack.com/p/venezuela-...

The USSR invaded Czechoslovakia in 1968, kidnapping the country’s leaders. In 1956, the Soviet Union invaded Hungary and had its leader executed. Of course, the Soviet Union was not a democracy, but a single party regime ruled by elderly hypocrites.