Adam Lichtenheld, PhD

This is always the plan with authoritarians wielding militaristic power. They create their own enemies to justify their power grabs.

Netanyahu loved October 7th for this exact reason. His failures led to it, and instead of being held accountable, he got more power than ever.

How Can We Live Together? - Boston Review Ezra Klein is wrong: shame is essential.

"Common decency stigmatizes people that do not participate in it—removes them from voluntary association. We indeed have to live with one another, but terms and conditions apply."

me on why Ezra Klein should be ashamed / why shame is Good Actually

www.bostonreview.net/articles/how...

the research is clear: get yourself exposed to female peers

nber semigated version: www.nber.org/papers/w34269

It was an honor to discuss my book at the @thecrs.bsky.social's annual conference, and I am grateful for "Guilt by Location" receiving this year's CRS book award. If you missed the keynote, don't worry, you can still order the book today!
cup.org/4gOE8Cy
www.amzn.com/1009523473

I would especially recommend the political science article referenced in the piece. Accommodation by mainstream parties of far right immigration policies does not win votes by taking the issue off the table, it loses votes for the mainstream parties
www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Can't wait to read!

Civilizing Contention by Rana B. Khoury | Paperback | Cornell University Press In Civilizing Contention, Rana B. Khoury asserts that to understand civilian and refugee activism in war, we must regard the international actors and organizations that enter the scene to help. When.....

The proofs are in. It has a website. It has blurbs from amazing scholars. So I guess my book is real, and @cornellupress.bsky.social must agree!

Civilizing Contention: International Aid in Syria's War is coming out later this year 🤓

www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501...

one of the stranger phenomena in American life is that hate is supposed to flow in one direction (rural people get to hate urban people, Republicans get to hate Democrats) and if the hate goes the other way people pretend as if this is very upsetting.

The White House has ordered the US Dept. of Justice to prioritize denaturalization: voiding the citizenship of US citizens.

Who will it denaturalize? "Any" case that it "determines to be sufficiently important".

Point 10 leaves the criteria opaque and arbitrary.

substack.com/redirect/169...

Q: So I wonder what you think about that, about the phrase “globalize the intifada” and what we've seen as some anti-semitism coming from the left-wing protesters. A: The first thing as you were saying is anti-semitism is a real issue in our city and it's one that can be captured in statistics, the ones that you're citing. It's also one that you will feel in conversations you have with Jewish New Yorkers across the city. And I remember one conversation I had with a friend of mine after the horrific war crime of October 7th. He was telling me that he went for Shabbat services at his temple and he was facing forward when he heard the door open. And he turned back with a chill going up his spine because he didn't know who was coming in. And that's more than a year ago. And then just a few weeks ago, I had a conversation with a Jewish man in Williamsburg who told me that the same door he would keep unlocked for decades is one that he now locks out of a fear of what could happen in his own neighborhood. And I think that this is something that has to be the focus of the next mayoral administration, is not just talking about it, but tackling it. And these are the conversations that have informed our commitment around increasing funding for anti-hate crime programming by 800% in our Department of Community Safety. To the question of language that's being used. I am someone who I would say am less comfortable with the idea of banning the use of certain words and that I think it is more evocative of a Trump style approach to how to lead a country. And-

Q: Does that just make you uncomfortable? Like the phrase globalizing intifada. And like the phrase from the river to the sea, does that make you uncomfortable? Or do you think- A: Okay, those are different. Those are super different. Q: They're not really. A: Those are like different genres. Q: I'm sorry, I'm asking so wrong. Then they're not really different to me. And to some people they are not different. A: I know people for whom those things mean very different things. And to me, ultimately, what I hear in so many is a desperate desire for equality and equal rights in standing up for Palestinian human rights. And I think what's difficult also is that the very word has been used by the Holocaust Museum when translating the Warsaw ghetto uprising into Arabic because it's a word that means struggle. And as a Muslim man who grew up post-911, I'm all too familiar in the way in which Arabic words can be twisted, can be distorted, can be used to justify any kind of meaning. And I think that's where it leaves me with a sense that what we need to do is focus on keeping Jewish New Yorkers safe. And the question of the permissibility of language is something that I haven't ventured.

I feel like I'm losing my mind. Here is the transcript of what Zohran Mamdani actually said about the phrase "globalize the intifada." This is his "refusal to disavow it." This is what has people terrified. Just fucking read it.

Source: podscripts.co/podcasts/the...

What Remains of U.S.A.I.D. After DOGE’s Budget Cuts? (Gift Article) The few hundred programs that survived DOGE’s purge reveal the future of foreign aid.

What remains of USAID? Practically nothing ("a shell") and millions will die because of Trump and Musk

Great job everyone

Job Garcia’s kidnapping by the Trump administration is the top story on the LA Times website right now.

www.latimes.com/california/s...

Every time that Elon Musk makes a claim about a near future technological capability, remember he promised people would be on Mars by now but instead his rockets keep exploding

Chatbots — LLMs — do not know facts and are not designed to be able to accurately answer factual questions. They are designed to find and mimic patterns of words, probabilistically. When they’re “right” it’s because correct things are often written down, so those patterns are frequent. That’s all.

My book, "Guilt by Location," has been selected as the 2025 Book of the Year by the Conflict Research Society.

I struggle to muster much delight, given how we're turning our backs on the millions of people affected by displacement. But I am grateful to CRS & everyone who made the project possible.

📰 Read the op-ed: www.thenewhumanitarian.org/opinion/2025...

📄 Read the working paper: osf.io/preprints/so...

At a time when many countries are limiting asylum, Kenya has moved toward greater refugee inclusion. Our results show broad public support for these measures—including granting refugees work rights, access to services, and free movement—driven by humanitarian concerns and perceived economic gains.

What do citizens think about refugee integration? In a new op-ed w/ Mae MacDonald & Tolossa Asrat for @newhumanitarian.bsky.social, we share findings from a nationally representative survey of 3,300 Kenyans on attitudes toward the country's new refugee policy (refugee.go.ke/kenya-shirik...)

Congrats @kaimthaler.bsky.social, can't wait to read it!

Come work with us!

Brain drain

I'm thrilled that my book is a finalist for the #CRSBookPrize2025. Some uplifting news during a dark time. If you haven't gotten your copy yet, order today! 📚📚
cup.org/4gOE8Cy
www.amzn.com/1009523473

Anyone who thinks any university faculty anywhere in the US is full of Maoists, or has more than one or two Maoist cranks, should try organizing a faculty union—or chairing a faculty senate, or a department, or even just a single faculty committee

I get it, but he got 49% of the vote, & the only way to defeat this is for all of these people - the longtime GOP hawks, the university presidents, the CEOs, the societal organization leaders, the religious leaders, etc. - to collectively stand up & speak out. The head-down quiet stuff always fails.

The Trump Administration Said These Aid Programs Saved Lives. It Canceled Them Anyway. The axing of some 10,000 programs has consigned untold numbers of children and refugees to death, officials say. Documents and interviews reveal that the State Department appears to have made the cuts...

The Trump Administration Said These Aid Programs Saved Lives. It Canceled Them Anyway.

"The move consigns untold numbers of the world’s poorest children, refugees and other vulnerable people to death... Local authorities have already begun estimating a death toll in the hundreds of thousands."

Thanks so much @abbeyst.bsky.social!

🙏 share and order today! 📚

cup.org/4gOE8Cy

www.amzn.com/1009523473

3/

I argue that armed groups often use displacement as a strategy to sort, rather than expel or eliminate, the population, inferring “guilt by location."

Many thanks to Stathis Kalyvas, @abbeyst.bsky.social, & @lachlanmcnamee.bsky.social for their kind endorsements. 2/