David Dagan

YIMBYism started as a single-issue movement. It's time to think bigger. New research shows that voters who like cities back denser housing. To make cities more likeable, YIMBYs need to act more like a party.

I want to enthusiastically endorse this piece from @cselmendorf.bsky.social & @profschleich.bsky.social. Thus far YIMBY has been almost entirely focused on More Housing, but ultimately, if you want people to accept density, you have to make it *nice*, and that means more than just housing.

If R's are going to be the working-class party, they'll need to do better than ruinous debt and tariffs. There is a subtle way of thinking about growth that we have lost, this piece shows. 2/2

The great @henrymjtonks.bsky.social cranked up his time machine and came up with really critical lessons for Democrats. But not only Democrats. 1/2 hypertext.niskanencenter.org/p/lessons-fr...

But local and even state politics are much more fluid, which is also why political reform probably needs to start at the bottom. 2/2

When lobbyists have to pick a side Partisan polarization has sucked in the special interests that long kept Congress pragmatic.

As @mattyglesias.bsky.social notes today, certain interest groups certainly built the polarization machine deliberately, but @jmcrosson.bsky.social wrote this great piece for us about how many just got sucked into it, even as single-issue orgs. 1/2 hypertext.niskanencenter.org/p/when-lobby...

Punchcard society. Show your card, get a punch.

YIMBYism needs to become more party-like, @cselmendorf.bsky.social and David Schleicher argue in today's Hypertext. Here's why. Shoutout to @dbroockman.bsky.social & @jkalla.bsky.social.

Hypertext—Niskanen’s intellectual journal—is turning two!

We launched it to tackle one big question: How do we make America’s institutions work for the 21st century?

Now we’re sharpening that mission 🧵

Iran is interesting because there is a hard decision that will commit Trump, period. If the bomb is dropped, it doesn't come back. If two weeks in it is not dropped, it probably won't be. Most of these other areas lack such an obvious focal point so far.

I would not assume they will "chicken out" on any major piece of this. I would assume they are going to carefully evaluate just how hard each constraint actually is and have some kind of negotiation on which one to try and blow through.

Tons of major initiatives are in limbo as other players show Trump their mettle and he (and his court) mulls over/fights over whether to apply more brute force or not. They tried to warp us into a new domestic and political universe and are hitting turbulence in the warp zone.

But since then he has hit some hard constraints that require political tradeoffs even in his narrow authoritarian conception of what it means to hold power. Markets crashed, courts repudiated him, the public got activated, efforts on Israel-Iran-Gaza/Ukraine got stuck, Congress started dealing.

In his first 3-4 months Trump was hyperaggressive on almost every front. He blew through some quasi-law in the form of bedrock norms (think "the presumption of regularity" in court and relations with Congress) as well as a meaningful amount of hard law.

The "TACO" shorthand for thinking about Trump is not just annoying as an acronym - I also think it misreads the moment. I think it grows out of confusion that comes with being in what I'm thinking of as The Warp Zone.

Iraq and Afghanistan from the beginning were conceived as regime-change invasions involving ground troops. A war goal of destroying Fordow aerially is limited and (I think!) achievable. Whether we should do it hinges on nonpublic intel IMO - but that's the question on the table.

MAGA's Massive Ordnance Penetrator Donald Trump's coalition and contradictory worldview faces the Iranian moment as Congress ducks its responsibility. What would a reasonable president do?

MAGA's Massive Ordnance Penetrator - thoughts on the American crisis meeting war in the Middle East. daviddagan.substack.com/p/magas-mass...

What Israelis are going through - and why Like Ukraine, Israel is first in a bully's line of fire - but certainly not last.

Early in the war that began on Oct. 7, a friend said to me: “It’s like Covid, but with bombs.” That's more true than ever now that the fight is directly with Iran. But Israelis know why they are going through this.
daviddagan.substack.com/p/what-israe...

The blockade was a disaster Hamas militarizes the aid. Blocking it for so long was still wrong.

My latest Israel-Gaza post - taking seriously the problem of Hamas diverting aid, and condemning the prolonged blockade that has driven Gazans to the brink.
daviddagan.substack.com/p/the-blocka...

The Trump administration caved on the Abrego Garcia case because the courts did not cower. Now they are using their politicized DOJ to save face with hyperbolic criminal charges. This is at once a big win for the rule of law and a reminder of the danger we still face.

The goal of all these moves is to repel the aspiring American and to redefine the actual American: To mark America as the land not of Pilgrims, but of patrimony. Not Plymouth Rock, but Alcatraz. It will work, for a time. But the Statue of Liberty has a longer gaze.

But it will impose hardship on thousands and use an obvious, though perhaps legally invulnerable, pretext to once again tell aspiring immigrants from everywhere: You are not welcome. The last time wasn't a blip.

The travel ban for the administration is a convenient distraction from reconciliation and infighting, but still worth reflecting on. It's a measure of how far we've fallen that in Trump II, this wouldn't even make a top 10 list of abuses.

Fair enough. Arguably the biggest contribution is a cultural shift that biases progressives toward boldness (a la @pahlkadot.bsky.social) and away from institutional complexity, but working out what that looks like ad hoc. Kind of like the Progressive movement looked different in different places.

I think the smart version of this is not "too much constraint" but "the wrong constraint in the wrong places." But it's hard to be schematic about what those wrong places are - as the well-taken critique of Marc's schema higher in Sam's thread indicates.

They just get different cues and information. Local media has withered, and parties have abdicated to interest groups in the work of telling voters what sets primary candidates apart. So primary voters know LESS. 2/2

This seems to be getting more traction over at The Bad Place but it really needs to resonate here. The usual story we tell about primaries being the source of our woes has looked deeply flawed for a while: Primary voters are not more "extreme" as a general matter. 1/2

claireberlinski.substack.com/p/the-age-of...

Opinion | ‘I Even Believe He Is Destroying the American Presidency’ Trump’s wanton attacks on institutions and individuals have a specific purpose.

"No president in living memory has attacked the sources of American strength and dynamism in the way that Trump already has done."

www.nytimes.com/2025/05/20/o...

Today on Hypertext: the long history of American YIMBYism, and what we can learn from it. hypertext.niskanencenter.org/p/yimbyism-i...

It's still complicated, part I Why I think more Gaza fighting was probably inevitable - but Israel went about it the wrong way

My latest thoughts on the depressing Israel-Gaza situation - hard to put into a social media post, and titled "It's still complicated." daviddagan.substack.com/p/its-still-...