Bart Bonikowski

Me three months ago:

Bullying Universities

"Regulation by deal, precisely because it bypasses general lawmaking procedures, leaves open the possibility that any deal can be supplemented with even more demands in the future. It can provide no legal guarantees of security."

ALWAYS read @kimlanelaw.bsky.social 👈

Faculty Support of George Mason’s President Draws Federal Investigation

Update from the Trump attack on universities, GMU edition...

DOJ now wants to investigate the GMU Faculty Senate for adopting a resolution that simply uses the exact language from the University's strategic plan (approved by the Board!).

Unprecedented interference!
www.nytimes.com/2025/07/28/u...

Hulk Hogan and the Lawsuit That Changed Journalism and America A few days ago I got in a back and forth with...

Hulk Hogan and the Lawsuit That Changed Journalism and America talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/hulk-...

Not even seven months - six. After 186 days, one of America's leading universities and two of its most prestigious news outlets have already capitulated. And Trump's henchmen are just starting to wield the full powers of the federal government.

🧵Introducing the Trump Action Tracker website!

Today I’m launching www.trumpactiontracker.info - a live, searchable list of authoritarian‑style actions from Trump’s second term (over 740 actions so far). 1/14

Opinion | When institutions crumble, strongmen step in Trump wants to be the sole authority. With trust in institutions cratering, he sees his opportunity.

In re: Colbert, my column for The Washington Post today deals with media companies and institutions capitulating in the face of Trump’s authoritarianism. Gift link: wapo.st/3IzN4QA

If you’d told me a decade ago that the NYT and WaPo would roll over for a Republican president going full fascist while the Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal went on the attack — and that Bill Kristol was pressing the attack harder than Nancy Pelosi — well, I’d have had you committed.

There was a time when democratic theorists thought the need for public reason-giving justified a particular role for courts in a democracy…

There are no checks and balances. There is no separation of powers. There is no rule of law. Yet another reminder that we no longer live in a liberal democracy.

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:

if Trump were actively trying to impoverish and deskill the united states for the sake of our competitors, what would he be doing differently?

Collective suicide. Like most of our recent major crises, all self-inflicted, all avoidable.

Hey @democrats.org, how about creating a simple webpage with a checklist of major violations of constitutional provisions and statutes taking place right now? Then do a media press release and keep updating it so media sources have a go to resource when reporting on things?

Title page of "Learning by Evaluating"

Probability of citing manuscript within 3 years, by review status. Reviewers are more than twice as likely to cite reviewed paper in future work compared to invited reviewers who declined due to unavailability.

🏮NEW WORKING PAPER ALERT🏮

Scientists collectively spend tens of millions of hours peer reviewing each year, mostly for no $$. Why??

In new work w/ Charles Ayoubi and @innovation.bsky.social, we observe a private benefit for participating in evaluation: 💡💡Learning💡💡

Harvard sociologist/polisci Theda Skocpol explains how the vast expansion of ICE in BBB may be Trump's secret weapon to overcome the barriers of federalism and complete his autocratic takeover of the American state. (History from Germany & Hungary in 20s/30s.) talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/criti...

This July 4th, Americans will celebrate the freedoms they used to have.

No right is safe in the new legal regime the Court creates. Today, the threat is to birthright citizenship. Tomorrow, a different administration may try to seize firearms from law-abiding citizens or prevent people of certain faiths from gathering to worship. The majority holds that, absent cumbersome class-action litigation, courts cannot completely enjoin even such plainly unlawful policies unless doing so is necessary to afford the formal parties complete relief. That holding renders constitutional guarantees meaningful in name only for any individuals who are not parties to a lawsuit. Because I will not be complicit in so grave an attack on our system of law, I dissent.

#SCOTUS Sotomayor strong dissent on court's decision about #birthrightcitizenship case. 🔥
"No right is safe in the new legal regime the Court creates. ... Because I will not be complicit in so grave an attack on our system of law, I dissent.”

@bartbonikowski.bsky.social: "The media, has sold the public a huge lie about wokeness on college campuses, enabling the extreme right."

It's impressive how SCOTUS managed to eviscerate the rule of law on two independent levels: 1) it rewards lawless disregard of court orders; and 2) makes Due Process optional. And, they did so without even explaining their ruling.

This decision is bad enough on the merits. But it also gives the government relief in a case in which it defied the district court at least *twice.* That’s quite a message to send to the government with respect to the costs of its litigation behavior in other cases—or the complete lack thereof.

Former critics who once demanded Cuomo resign are now endorsing him A POLITICO review of Cuomo’s touted endorsers found that few of them stood by him in 2021.

This whole, "sexual assault and harassment is bad when Trump does it, but ok when our side does it," is sending a really clear message that the old guard of Democratic leadership only cares about women when it's politically advantageous.
www.politico.com/news/2025/06...

'The “war on woke” is the calling card of the global fascist right. Orbán’s attack on CEU for “gender ideology” began his destruction of 🇭🇺 democracy. Putin justified his full-scale invasion of 🇺🇦 by appealing to the supposed dangers 🇺🇦’s liberal democracy poses for traditional gender roles...'

We have entered the "The police is saying that if the police is at your door you are not safe call the police immediately" stage of making America great again

tanks

"It's a republic, not a democracy," say the conservatives as they get very excited for a big display of military force moving across the river into the capital.

You can't understand the behaviour of US elites - Democrats being too timid, Republicans debasing themselves, bureaucrats who behave like pushovers - without reference to the constant threat of political violence that has come with MAGA. Every day is January 6. www.nytimes.com/live/2025/06...

An underappreciated explanation for antitrump politicians’ behavior is that they fear assassination. The more they stand for something, the more death threats they receive. Sometimes they come true. Political systems can’t withstand a constant threat of violence.

This is a central dynamic of GOP politics under Trump. It has also been also a core component of authoritarian, dictatorial, and totalitarian regimes worldwide.

The point is to create a world in which the authoritarians can simultaneously inhabit a position of victim and abuser, creating an imagined threat of persecution and violence in order to persecute and carry out violence.

This is how this always works. We cannot allow this to continue.

There is only one side in American politics that consistently supports and endorses political violence. People need to stop being afraid to say so.