Kris-Stella Trump

I’m so sorry Thomas. I’ve been thinking of you as the news has kept coming. And it keeps occurring to me that what we are seeing from regular people there is exactly what I would expect if most Minnesotans are like you.

Reminder: All it would take to end the murder of American citizens by an untrained government goon squad is 16 Republicans in Congress voting with Dems to defund ICE (or 23 to impeach and remove Trump — 3 in House & 20 in Senate). That’s it. 23 Americans can vote for the public and end all of this.

This law group led by @rickpildes.bsky.social had me write for their 100 Ideas series on US democracy

My idea: the rule of law cannot coexist with this level of wealth concentration. Once Musk, Bezos, Zuck, & a few others bend the knee, the authoritarian consolidates too much power

A country that blows up foreign fishing boats for no reason is one that will shoot its own citizens for no reason.

Infographic titled “2025 Billionaire Gains vs. Grocery Spending.” On the left, a large gold square shows that the top 100 richest Americans gained $995 billion in wealth in 2025, about $7,595 per U.S. household, representing wealth gains for just 100 individuals. On the right, a slightly smaller green square shows total U.S. grocery spending of $775 billion, about $5,916 per household, covering roughly 131 million households. A callout at the bottom reads “The Scale of Inequality,” noting that billionaire wealth gains exceeded national grocery spending by $220 billion. Sources listed: Bloomberg Billionaire Index and Bureau of Labor Statistics.

For the second year in a row, the wealth gains for the 100 richest Americans exceeded what ALL American households spent on groceries combined.

~$995B for billionaires vs ~$775B in total grocery spending.

We have an oligarchy and inequality problem masquerading as an affordability crisis.

In our research on socioeconomic background in academia, we ran a survey. Over 2,000 faculty members responded (thanks if you were one!)

Social & cultural capital showed up time and again as key issues.

A few findings you might be interested in...🧵

Racial Resentment Among White Americans by Birth Year and Demographics This figure presents the same four-panel layout (education, gender, geography, religion) but for White Americans from birth years 1940 to 2000. Education panel: A pronounced divide shows non-college Whites with substantially higher resentment across all cohorts, increasing sharply for older birth years. College-educated Whites rise more modestly but remain distinctly lower, especially among younger cohorts. Gender panel: Male and female trendlines rise together, with women slightly higher in mid-century cohorts. Younger cohorts of both genders start lower and climb with age. Geography panel: Regional lines separate clearly: the South is highest in resentment, followed by the Midwest. The West and Northeast show lower levels, with the Northeast consistently at the bottom. All regions slope upward toward older cohorts. Religion panel: Protestants show the highest resentment, peaking among mid-century cohorts. Catholics sit in the middle. Non-affiliated Whites show the lowest resentment, especially among younger respondents, with a small rise among mid-century generations. The figure notes CES 2024 data with GAM-smoothed trendlines.

Those claiming Dems should retreat on racial justice aren't hard-headed realists, they're pushing against the electoral tide rather than leaning into it. The story of Gen Z isn't about racist backlash or red-pilled young men. It's the most racially progressive generation in American history. 🧵

🚨Elites often warn: taxing the rich hurts everyone.

🤔But do citizens buy that story?

With @bcastanho.bsky.social & Hanna Lierse, we find: They don’t! Most people believe progressive taxes can deliver both — more equality and more growth. @jpublicpolicy.bsky.social #openaccess cup.org/3JVuvHm

So much more informative than the maddeningly common "Arrived yesterday, looks great, can't wait to give it to the child."

Why Centrist Democrats Keep Being Wrong About Elections A new 60-page report insists the party is too radical. But the problem isn’t the party platform. The problem is the broader environment.

“Deciding to Win' also displays little awareness of what winning elections is for. There is an obvious reason why the Democratic Party ought not abandon its commitment to preventing the climate crisis," writes @davekarpf.bsky.social. Excellent piece. newrepublic.com/article/2023...

A guy I used to work with was a tenured psych/CS professor as well as on an elite amateur crew team.

He said "you're never going to make learning easier, just like you're never going to make rowing easier."

I think about that a lot.

I had some coffee and remembered this is a dog. Day is going well.

I need the “this is fine” mouse but with popcorn looking out the window at a different burning house.

"Wealthy, mostly/largely democratic countries" seems to be front-runner for new summary.

Here is a very niche sign of how far the US has fallen.

If you attend a political science conference today, you will hear scholars stumbling over how to introduce datasets that until last year were known as describing "wealthy industrialized democracies".

Wow, wow, wow. This has always been legally possible but the law has virtually never been enforced — and now this is the SECOND case I've heard of in the last month (first involving a person with a green card) of a noncitizen being charged for failure to carry their papers.

What a treat, in every sense of the word, to be in Munich for the #isiwealthconference2025 @isi-munich.bsky.social

“Portland‘s protest frogs are multiplying”

I laughed. But also, completely seriously, can anyone point me to things written on Duverger vs. recent polls out of the UK?

@dpzollinger.bsky.social and I are thrilled "Cleavage Politics in Western Democracies" is out as an SI at @wepsocial.bsky.social!

Its papers explore the foundations of the cleavage pitting new left against radical right parties, and how it compares to the classic cleavages of Lipset & Rokkan:

🧵⬇️

Really excited that after several years of working on it, revising, and getting lots of rejections, our paper (w/ Rune Stubager & Mads Thau) on citizens’ responses to group appeals is *finally* out @ejprjournal.bsky.social

www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

A 🧵 on our findings...

This one neat trick can help you teach US politics during an institutional collapse:

Tell the truth.

That's it. Just tell it like it is. Be radical.

You know what's quaint? Walking into a classroom of 20-yr olds, who have known nothing but the Trump era in politics, and explaining to them that ten years ago we Elders had a Big Debate™ about whether Trump support was *really* about racial attitudes.

I do not regret to inform you that we are going to win (h/t @miriamposner.com)

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Did the Bright Lines survey (yes absolutely a humblebrag) and the rate at which the questions and scenarios are getting darker with each subsequent survey could be its own research project.

I offer up “Borgen” as a tv series that political scientists appreciate for getting politics right.

Warnings From Weimar Why bargaining with authoritarians fails.

A new piece I wrote appearing in FOREIGN AFFAIRS today

www.foreignaffairs.com/germany/warn...

Rituals of Childhood Back in April, in Ireland, my nephew Luke made his first communion alongside his school classmates. I did much the same thing myself in much the same place about forty years ago. My brother tells me that the preparation nowadays is a little more humane than the version we enjoyed. But there is as much anticipation beforehand, and no less excitement on the day. Luke’s little suit lacked the stylish navy-blue velvet panels mine sported in 1980, but in essence the event was the same in its purpose, its form, and in most of its details. A first communion inducts a child into one of the sacraments of the Church, having them take a step towards adulthood in expectation of the regular re-enactment of the event throughout the rest of their lives.

It is the darkest irony that re-sharing @kjhealy.co's "Rituals of Childhood", which analyzes mass shootings as an institutionalized Killing Day, has itself become an seasonal fall ritual. kieranhealy.org/blog/archive...

if we made immigration work how people think it works that would be the biggest liberalization of immigration in American history