Raihan Alam

"Rather than insisting that we can defeat fascism by ignoring fascism and concentrating on economic progress, maybe we need to fight fascism by…actually fighting fascism."

Ok, I'll try it, seems like it could be fun:

One like, one take (anywhere from cold to hot) on the criminal legal system...

Zohran Mamdani Proves We Don’t Understand Rich People Who Want More For Others People on the right and centrists alike are shocked by Zohran Mamdani’s mayoral primary win. Experts say it reveals a lot about the psychology of wealth.

Why is the reaction to Mamdani so heated? For some centrists and those on the right, his policies stink of class betrayal

“The idea that someone rich or privileged would use their social capital to make others’ lives better can cause an intense reaction,” prof Michael W. Kraus said

My story today:

So glad @jakemgrumbach.bsky.social and @adambonica.bsky.social are in this fight and pushing hard for the Democratic Party to adopt a different playbook.

And grateful to @perrybaconjr.bsky.social for using his writing to light fires in the right places.

Read this piece.

Man what a fucking real dude. 'I just got choked by some chud and honestly, anything could have happened in that moment, and now I'm up here talking about the man who isn't as lucky as me.'

Iran Join Rick as he explores the most surprising and fascinating land he's ever visited: Iran. In a one-hour, ground-breaking travel special on public television, you'll discover the splendid monuments of...

In the spring of 2008, I feared America was on the verge of war with Iran — and, believing that it’s good style to get to know people before you bomb them, I made “Rick Steves’ Iran,” a one-hour special that could (and would) only debut on PBS. Sadly, this special has become pertinent again today.

🚨In PNAS🚨
The right often accuses fact-checkers of political bias
But we analyzed Community Notes on Musk's X and found posts flagged as "misleading" are 2.3x more likely to be written by Reps than Dems!
The issue is Reps sharing misinformation, not fact-checker bias...
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Telling people just how much congress makes from Conflict Of Interest stock trading lowers the legitimacy of those congress people.

From @raihanalam.bsky.social & Tage Rai

www.pnas.org/doi/pdf/10.1...

#phdsky #psych

a black and white illustration of 4 ICE agents standing at the other side of an open door. They are silhouetted except for their glowing eyes and bared teeth. The text reads “our dire investigations had led us here. danger is everywhere - it is best to comply. may we enter?”

don’t let them in. fuck ice. fuck fascists

We’re speeding towards the moment when one of these ICE kidnappings ends in bloodshed.

I know Musk is not a serious person, and I know the admin he serves is not serious also.

But, for the thousandth time, places with HIGH levels of violence DO NOT LIKE PUNITIVE POLICIES.

Those who speak "for the victims" rarely if ever really are.

Are here are just a handful of the receipts:

🚨 My op-ed in @thehill.com makes the case for why we need to regulate congressional stock trading. Congressional legitimacy is on the line, and the vast majority of Americans from both parties support reforms:
thehill.com/opinion/cong...

A screenshot of a social media post from Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) dated March 4, 2025, at 4:30 AM. The post states: “All Federal Funding will STOP for any College, School, or University that allows illegal protests. Agitators will be imprisoned/or permanently sent back to the country from which they came. American students will be permanently expelled or, depending on on the crime, arrested. NO MASKS! Thank you for your attention to this matter.”

When Donald Trump threatens student protests, consider why: throughout modern history, student movements have repeatedly been the catalyst that toppled dictatorships. Authoritarian leaders fear campus activism precisely because it works. Below is a list of 36 student-led pro-democracy movements.🧵

Being co-opted by bad-faith anti-science autocratic/fascist regimes absolutely sucks.* Devastating to imagine anyone taking this as win, or even that ppl would think we might.
* Also something we repeatedly fight back against, eg: findanexpert.unimelb.edu.au/news/6026-re...

Here’s a quick radio interview on our new pnas paper looking at downstream negative effects of congressional stock trading on democratic functioning

www.kpbs.org/news/politic...

I actually want to say this really loudly because I am not seeing other non-Jews say it enough.

The Israeli diplomat shooting was an antisemitic hate crime.

Yes, most allegations of antisemitism within the anti-genocide movement are bullshit.

THIS was antisemitism parading as anti-genocide.

The "New York Times" never ran a story suggesting that the entire pro-Israel political movement in the US should be called into question when six-year-old Palestinian American child Wadee Alfayoumi was murdered by an anti-Palestinian racist motivated by the Gaza war.

Thanks Greg!

Knowledge of politician stock trading reduces congressional legitimacy and compliance with the law | PNAS Institutional legitimacy is essential for democracies, yet public trust and confidence in the United States Congress are at an all-time low. A sign...

New fun short paper alert w/@raihanalam in PNAS! Learning about congressional stock trading reduces trust in congress, which in turn reduces citizens' own willingness to follow the law broadly.

Ban it! Hope it helps @aoc.bsky.social @warren.senate.gov
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

🧵here:
bsky.app/profile/raih...

The work couldn’t be more timely with all of the suspicious trading as reported by @unusualwhales.bsky.social

My paper with @tagerai.bsky.social on how politicians engaging in stock trading diminish congressional legitimacy and respect for the law is now out in PNAS @pnas.org
t.co/OhmohnJKL3

🧵here:
bsky.app/profile/raih...

The work couldn’t be more timely with all of the suspicious trading as reported by
@unusualwhales.bsky.social

"he sold between $75,000 and $600,000 of stock two days before Trump’s Feb. 13 announcement, and up to $50,000 more that day."

Author-Paid PublicationFees Corrupt Science and Should Be Abandoned Thomas J. H Morgan & Paul E. Smaldino

As grant money starts drying up, it's more important than ever not to waste it on paying publishers' open access "article processing fees" when we can host PDFs for free. Tom Morgan and I wrote a paper on this, forthcoming at Science and Public Policy. Accepted draft here: osf.io/preprints/os...

BREAKING: A federal court ruled that our client Rümeysa Öztürk must be released on bail immediately. She will return home to New England as her case proceeds.

A video of my talk from UCLA last month on our lab's new papers on why punishment often fails and what it means for theories of cooperation and crime policy. As an aside, I briefly discuss the state of academia and fascism at the beginning, we should make that a habit.
bec.ucla.edu/event/tage-r...

Columbia student Mohsen Mahdawi is free on bail after judge orders his release from federal custody Mohsen Mahdawi, a 34-year-old U.S. permanent resident who was raised in a refugee camp in the West Bank, was detained during his April 14 naturalization interview in Vermont.

ICE illegally arrested Columbia student Mohsen Mahdawi outside his citizenship appointment solely because of his advocacy in support of Palestinian rights.

His release from detention on bail is a win for free speech.

I am delighted that Mohsen Mahdawi has been released from detention.

Expressing a political opinion about the war in Gaza is not a crime.

In the United States of America, you should not be put in a jail cell for exercising your First Amendment rights.