Scenes from a personalist regime

One of the most blatantly authoritarian threats in a Trump term full of them

A must-read. Argues that once we take into account how much life as a family of 4 actually costs (health + child care, housing), the source of public economic rage is clear. "As income rises from $40,000 to $100,000, benefits disappear faster than wages increase"- working literally does not pay off.

Our online special issue, The Future of Global Governance and World Order, is out! It features 15 short essays plus the editors' introduction, all #OpenAccess. www.cambridge.org/core/journal... #IOFoGG

Step 1: Use the attached imagery to recruit a certain kind of ICE officer. Step 2: Unleash them on US cities w/few restrictions. Step 3: Call in the national guard to "protect" them from the resulting "insurrections". Having read some things about dictatorships, pretty sure I know what Steps 4+ are.

Sign here!: forms.gle/pwB8bG7AjgJ8...

Alumae: please help us appeal the Journeys termination! Thank you @christinaboyes.bsky.social @sbmitche.bsky.social

BREAKING: NSF has frozen all grant funding, as of yesterday. It's unclear when they will resume funding awards, or why the pause has been put in place. www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Finally, they’re getting rid of the woke scholars that populate the field of … diplomatic history?

Excellent article, w/ cause for both fear and hope. Fear: Things "may feel basically normal...but...this is the way it often feels, even after things have already spun out of control." Hope: Under competitive authoritarianism, "an autocrat, even one who has already stacked the deck, can still lose."

Research universities have propelled innovation and bolstered American power since World War II, writes Sarah Kreps. The Trump administration’s assault on academia is not a principled move—it is a self-defeating one.

I tend not to be too alarmist - but it is *extremely* alarming that decisions about U.S. national security are being made in a decisionmaking structure that is starting to look more like a personalist dictatorship than a democracy.

It's hard to find the words. NSF just terminated the grant for Journeys, a mentoring workshop that tried to tackle underrepresentation of women in international relations. Future scholarship will be the worse for it. But this photo from our last gathering will motivate me to keep fighting.

Poli sci peeps - I'm finalizing an undergrad class session @ the current state of U.S. democracy. What readings would you assign? I'm thinking, a few scholarly writings on backsliding/defending democ, plus some commentary on current events. I have ideas but... the stakes are high and I'd love input.

The trope that universities are "dependent" on the federal government fundamentally misunderstands how vital this partnership has been for the US. The private sector can't replace it. If we kill it, we're all worse off. From @donmoyn.bsky.social and me: donmoynihan.substack.com/p/are-univer...

This is not a drill. Existential threats to both higher education & 🇺🇸 democracy. And already devastating for my colleagues, their students, & research on our campus.

Just a reminder how classic what we're seeing is: 1. redefine a group as a threat to civilization 2. reduce legal protections that they enjoy 3. abuse, threaten, harm, and/or relocate them 4. dismiss/ignore concerns about abuses and harms from the process 5. repeat steps 2-4, escalating each time

Please spread to your poli sci / IR networks!

Information for the 2025 Journeys in World Politics workshop: www.saramitchell.org/journeysflye... Applications due on 5/30 for the workshop held at the U of Iowa on 8/24-8/26. Our senior mentors are Kathleen Cunningham & Leah Windsor, along with Kelly Kadera, Jessica Weeks, Christina Schneider.

I had been doubtful that we were going to have a "this is the crisis moment" with Trump, as opposed to "everything about this is a destructive catastrophe." But the Abrego Garcia case is the crisis moment. 1/

Absolutely not an exaggeration. High crimes and misdemeanors committed and endorsed in the Oval Office on live television.

No one has worked harder to protect & restore democracy in Wisconsin these last years than my dear friend @jeffmandell.bsky.social. We are very lucky to have him on the front lines.

One sign that we are living under an authoritarian regime is that a lot of people are acting like they are living under an authoritarian regime.

"...I was looking for guidance about inflation and instead found the telltale signs of an incipient financial crisis. Others, looking at other indicators, from the basis trade to junk bonds to struggles to refinance private loans, are seeing the same thing." I'm no economist but this sounds bad.

Today’s episode of The Ezra Klein Show. The political scientist Erica Frantz describes the regime change the second Trump Administration represents. open.spotify.com/episode/3TPI... youtu.be/fP77tAIkRvA?...