Erica Chenoweth

Terms: www.brown.edu/sites/defaul...

NEW: The Senate just reintroduced the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, which would restore and expand federal protections for our right to vote.

As states continue to pass legislation that makes voting harder, it's time for our leaders to protect this essential right.

Important and timely analysis

Defending the National Education Association's Right to Advocate The American people deserve a government that serves all of us, not one that silences those who dare to speak up.

Powerful letter from @civilrightsorg.bsky.social condemning govt attacks on NEA: "When the govt uses its power to punish orgs for their advocacy, it attacks freedom of speech & freedom of assoc'n, threatening any person or group who wishes to educate the public & make demands of elected leaders."

Baseball coach says ICE agents questioned kids at practice: ‘This can happen to anybody’ Harlem Baseball Hitting Academy founder Youman Wilder became emotional while discussing the incident during an interview on “Deadline: White House.”

Watch this interview with Youman Wilder, a baseball coach who stood up to ICE when they showed up at practice and questioned the kids under his mentorship. www.msnbc.com/top-stories/...

CBS canceled Colbert’s show just THREE DAYS after Colbert called out CBS parent company Paramount for its $16M settlement with Trump – a deal that looks like bribery.

America deserves to know if his show was canceled for political reasons.

Watch and share his message.

Colbert. Legend.

Looking forward to joining @indivisible.org's @leahgreenberg.bsky.social & @ezralevin.bsky.social in conversation today.

Ever-so-slightly corrected version:

Massive solidarity of 600+ American nonprofit organizations defending the constitutional rights of all of us to work, speak, advocate and serve in the public interest in the face of attacks from the GOP Congress and Administration. cfce73f5-6016-42c8-9343-fa96f8863f56.usrfiles.com/ugd/cfce73_a...

YouTube video by Indivisible One Million Rising: One Million Trained, Millions More Empowered

HELLO. If you cannot get into the #onemillionrising training, it is because 130k people registered and we've maxed out, but YOU CAN STILL WATCH ON YOUTUBE: www.youtube.com/watch?v=QoeY...

Office of the Attorney General Washington, A. O. 20530 July 14, 2025 MEMORANDUM FOR ALL FEDERAL AGENCIES FROM: THE ATTORNEY GENERAL PU SUBJECT: IMPLEMENTATION OF EXECUTIVE ORDER NO. 14,224: DESIGNATING ENGLISH AS THE OFFICIAL LANGUAGE OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA I. INTRODUCTION As President Trump recognized in his Executive Order No. 14,224, 90 Fed. Reg. 11363 (Mar. 6, 2025) (Executive Order 14,224), it is in America's best interest for the federal government to have one official language: English.' A shared language binds Americans together, transcending different backgrounds to create a common foundation for public discourse, government operations, and civic life, while leaving ample room for the vibrant linguistic diversity that thrives in private and community spheres. This policy streamlines federal processes ensuring forms, notices, websites, and advisories are consistent, clear, and cost-effective thus reducing administrative burdens and enhancing operational efficiency

DOJ directing government that application forms and processes must only be in English, on the grounds that it reduces administrative burdens.
I wrote the book Administrative Burdens w @pamherd.bsky.social and this policy does the opposite www.justice.gov/ag/media/140...

What I heard at an ICE detention facility Yesterday, I protested outside an ICE detention facility and visited with an Indivisible member detained there. As I covered last week, with the passage of the Big Bullshit Bill, ICE is now the larges...

Some reporting out from my time at an ICE detention center this weekend, and lots of action items as this secret police force balloons in size. open.substack.com/pub/ezralevi...

You need to know what's going on at "Alligator Alcatraz."

It's grossly immoral - no human being should be treated like that.

It's political theater - many of the detainees have no criminal record.

It's a taxpayer funded boondoggle - enriching DeSantis's political cronies.

A State Department employee shared with PBS News an image from inside the department. The image includes a piece of paper taped to a mirror with the words, "Colleagues, if you remain: RESIST FASCISM. Remember the oath you vowed to uphold."

How to Dismantle a Democracy, Legally The unitary executive theory is a masterclass in autocratic legalism.

The "unitary executive theory" is a fancy name for a strategy used by authoritarians worldwide, rebranded for the US. It’s a legal blueprint for a power grab, and my new article explains how it turns the law itself into a tool for undermining democracy:

I think it's in stock, according to the publisher's site: global.oup.com/academic/pro...

Hannah Arendt: Facing Tyranny - About the documentary | American Masters | PBS Discover Hannah Arendt, who transformed her time as a political prisoner during World War II into daring insights about totalitarianism.

Highly recommend @pbs.org's new documentary, Hannah Arendt: Facing Tyranny. www.pbs.org/wnet/america...

Professor @dem8z.bsky.social speaking on the steps of the Rotunda yesterday in protest of the authoritarian takeover of higher education.

Bar chart titled “The Supreme Court vs. The Lower Courts: Rulings on the Trump Administration” showing three horizontal bar charts for May 1-June 23, 2025. Federal District Courts: large red bar (82 cases, 94.3% against) with tiny green bar (5 cases, 5.7% for). Circuit Courts of Appeal: medium red bar (15 cases, 68.2% against) with smaller green bar (7 cases, 31.8% for). Supreme Court: tiny red bar (1 case, 6.3% against) with large green bar (15 cases, 93.7% for). Shows dramatic reversal from lower courts ruling against Trump administration to Supreme Court ruling for it.

Since May:

Federal district courts have ruled against Trump admin 94% of the time.

Supreme Court has sided with the Trump admin 94% of the time.

A judiciary at war with itself.

I’m currently building a dataset on police forces around the globe. No other country has a force quite like ICE (w/ broad enforcement powers, tactical gear, immigration focus); the most apt comparisons are to secret police in authoritarian regimes rather than border/immigration forces elsewhere.

WEEK 19 WEEK 19

@adamprz.bsky.social on ICE's authorities & operating procedures: "The comparativist in me wants to think about other police forces in history which had such broad and ill-defined powers. But such comparisons are too frightening."

ICE agents scatter as SD Bishop Pham, other clergy visit immigration court "Our presence made a difference," one priest said, quoting an immigration lawyer saying their client was given more time to prepare for another hearing.

Michael Pham fled Vietnam at the age of 13. He was named bishop of San Diego a month ago.

Today, he stood watch at a courthouse: ICE agents were “standing there covered with masks as we walked toward the courtroom. Eventually the agents scattered and went away”

timesofsandiego.com/life/2025/06...

Lots of folks asking about the #s at the nationwide June 14 No Kings actions. My team won't have our own estimate for a few weeks; we validate every record to the fullest extent possible. Our current data are updated through the end of May; see the piece below for our report on trends prior to 6/14.

Thanks @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social for the tag.

For anyone interested in these debates, I'd encourage folks to read the many scholars working in this field who have developed important and novel findings beyond WCRW. It's a big field--hard to fully stay on top of, actually! I cite many but not all of them in the 2023 piece linked above.

Many scholars have addressed the questions you raise above and often arrived at different conclusions than the critics you cite. I am very open to being convinced that the underlying consensus is wrong (or irresponsible as you imply), but the balance of evidence seems to be fairly consistent.

This 2023 piece above was not a "concession" that the NAVCO data are flawed, but was a review of the scientific learning that has happened since the 2011 data were first published. e.g., other scholars have also independently collected aggregate datasets and found similar results to us.

As I note in this piece, www.annualreviews.org/content/jour..., there are many other studies that analyze street-level resistance--through observational and experimental studies in the US and elsewhere--that validate the main points found in more aggregate studies like those using NAVCO.