Greg Martin

one thing i find crazy-making is the idea that getting rid of the filibuster would make congress a purely majoritarian institution. bicameralism itself is counter-majoritarian! equal state representation is counter-majoritarian! the fact that senate elections are staggered is counter-majoritarian!

I find this distraction discourse unhelpful. Trump's video was appalling and significant and should be analyzed and denounced, and part of the work of politics is to turn it into a major controversy in its own right, as a symbol of Trump's autocratic disdain for the people.

This. The president can't extort corporations to pay essentially taxes to him personally so that he can use that money at his personal discretion to do government work.

Opinion: Why Washington University must not sign Trump's 'compact' Washington University in St. Louis has built its reputation on a simple ideal: excellence wins. For decades, our researchers have competed for and won federal grants based on the quality

New editorial from me and @keithschnak.bsky.social.

“Why Washington University must not sign Trump's 'compact'”

google paid a twenty million dollar bribe to the fucking president to tear down the white house

W/ @genevievelakier.bsky.social, the @aaup.org today released a letter to the Offices of the General Counsel at US colleges & universities. We detail why the Compact violates the Constitution & urge that no one signs it.
www.aaup.org/sites/defaul...

“No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law.”
-Article 1, Section 8, US Constitution

Not a "norm" violation. A legal and constitutional violation.

No Kings in Sonora, CA (pop. 5000).

Not being even vaguely sarcastic:

At some point, a journalist needs to ask Johnson “you regularly claim you have no idea what your own government is doing. If we take you at your word, how are you so poorly informed, and do you this level of ignorance should disqualify you as speaker?”

From the Community | We must refuse the 'Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education' Associate professor Greg Martin writes on behalf of the Stanford's AAUP chapter to condemn the White House's compact on higher education.

Agree 100% @stanfordaaup.bsky.social!

“When it inevitably comes time for Stanford to choose, we must remember that we owe our loyalty not to any executive branch official but to our own foundational principles. We must be ready, when it’s our turn, to walk away.”

stanforddaily.com/2025/10/12/f...

From the Community | We must refuse the 'Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education' Associate professor Greg Martin writes on behalf of the Stanford's AAUP chapter to condemn the White House's compact on higher education.

From @gjmartin.bsky.social (writing for @stanfordaaup.bsky.social) laying out why no university should sign Tr*mp’s “Compact” stanforddaily.com/2025/10/12/f...

or we could just move to proportional representation, make one statewide multimember district for Utah, and stop all this goddamn endless litigation.

At the time, scholars of this topic noted that, in Trump's first term, the independence of institutional media orgs from him went with a surge in trust in the media from Democrats. Major media org's cooption and capitulation in Trump's second term has gone with a drop in Democrats' media trust.

They are stealing taxpayer dollars from blue states because Democrats in Congress refuse to give Trump a blank check for his authoritarianism.

Corruption. Coercion. Blackmail. Lawlessness. 

I won’t bend the knee to a wannabe dictator and his cronies. We will prevail.

Blue cities should tear up the roads in front of ICE facilities and then start decades of community engagement and input sessions to rebuild them. Let's harness our core competencies.

This is a crime. The Supreme Court has foolishly decided that Trump can commit crimes with impunity, but that is NOT true of anyone who works for him. Stephen Miller, Hegseth, Noem and anyone else who declares war on the US and our Constitution must not be let off the hook. Two years in prison

I tried to listen to this but couldn’t make it this far in. Asked to justify the policy, she makes vague, nonfalsifiable claim about universities promoting a “culture of victimhood” (source: 90’s talk radio) and then rambles about social media for a while

Top 10 American Fears of 2024 (Chapman Survey) Horizontal bar chart ranking the top fears of Americans (percentage “afraid” or “very afraid”): 1. Corrupt government officials (65.2%, top fear for years). 2. Loved ones becoming seriously ill (58.4%). 3. Cyberterrorism (58.3%). 4. Loved ones dying (57.8%). 5. Russia using nuclear weapons (55.8%). 6. Not having enough money for the future (55.7%). 7. U.S. becoming involved in another world war (55.0%). 8. North Korea using nuclear weapons (55.0%). 9. Terrorist attack (52.7%). 10. Biological warfare (52.5%). Red bars display percentages; small arrows indicate change from 2023 rankings.

Top Public Worries in the U.S. (Yale & GMU poll, May 2025) Stacked bar chart of worries among U.S. adults. Categories ranked by share “very worried”: • Government corruption (54% very worried, top issue). • Other leading concerns: cost of living (48%), the economy (47%), state of democracy (44%), disruption of federal services (44%), cultural/social divisions (36%), treatment of immigrants (35%), global warming (29%), crime (26%). • Lower worries include job security (17%), health (16%), and being targeted because of identity/beliefs (15%). Green shades show “very/somewhat worried,” yellow/orange shades show “not very/not at all worried.

Perceptions of Federal Government Problems (AP-NORC poll) Bar chart showing the percentage of U.S. adults who consider various issues in the federal government to be a major problem, minor problem, or not a problem. • Corruption: Overall 70% major, 22% minor, 7% not a problem. Higher among Republicans (78%) than Democrats (63%). • Inefficiency: 65% major overall, with Republicans (81%) much higher than Democrats (55%). • Red tape (bureaucracy): 59% major overall, with Republicans (73%) higher than Democrats (47%). • Civil servants unwilling to implement president’s agenda: More partisan split—Republicans 56% major problem, Democrats 20% major problem; overall 34% major, 36% minor, 28% not a problem. Title: “Majority of the public believe corruption, inefficiency, and red tape are major problems in the federal government.

Word Cloud of How People Describe American Government (Berkeley Democracy Policy Lab) Large central word: “Corrupt.” Other prominent words: Broken, Chaotic, Dysfunctional, Shit, Clueless, Divided, Inefficient, Crooked, Hijacked, Justice, Woke, Bloated, Untrustworthy, Hopeless, Frustrated, Disastrous, Messy, Sneaky, Turmoil, Delusional. Smaller scattered words include both negative and neutral terms such as Crap, Important, Poder, Resilient, Unfocused, Needs Help. Visual emphasizes “Corrupt” as the dominant public perception.

I’m starting to notice a trend in the polling data…

—Top Public Worry: Corruption

—Biggest problem in Fed Gov: Corruption

—Top fear: Corruption

—What one word would you use to describe American government?: “Corrupt”

It’s almost like voters are trying to tell us something.

The political implications of this cannot be overstated. One of the most important media platforms, now under direct control of the current government and its allies.

In all seriousness, I'd love to see a reporter try to get comments from all of these people about their initial impulse to declare a literal war on half of their fellow citizens and to see if any of them regret it, apologized for it or learned anything at all from it.

“awful people don’t deserve to be killed, but they don’t deserve to be praised, either” is apparently a thought too complex for the pundit mind

Delighted to discover that "Candidate Positions, Responsiveness, and Returns to Extremism" is now available online from JOP 🧵
@thejop.bsky.social

Gated: journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...
Ungated: mellissameisels.com/files/MM_PCP...

Call for papers for the conference

Brandice Canes-Wrone, Markos Kounalakis and I are co-hosting a conference next spring on “American Political Institutions in a Changing Media Environment” at the Center for Revitalizing American Institutions at Stanford. Submit papers / abstracts here by Nov 1st: forms.gle/iC2RXAsBhwa9...

My least popular (and most correct) view is that cars should be automatically limited to the local speed limit. Put the pedal to the floor and you still can't go over 25mph in a residential area.

(15 in Manhattan btw)

Peter Temin, economic historian at MIT, has passed away. He worked both on problems of understanding the past (e.g. "Did Monetary Forces Cause the Great Depression?") and how how the past shapes the present (e.g. "The Vanishing Middle Class.") Terrific scholar and mentor, generous critic.

for what it’s worth - the public’s descent into insanity, i believe, is because the stagnate legislature has prevented the democratic mechanism’s primary function, which is trial and error, from informing the voters of the consequences of their choices. the solution is still democracy

My NYC election hot take (from 4 hours away) is that the rent is too damn high, owning a house is too hard, and that is a winning issue in any election in the USA right now where young people exist.

The establishment commentariat, all property owners, is materially divided from the electorate.

they’re saying kill the boer. they’re saying it, lots of people actually. my people say Mr Trump we can’t possibly kill the boer. but i say hang on. hang on. [turns to the side, performative shrug] I can kill the boer, right? [pause for applause] but we’re gonna do it and it’ll be bigger than ever

This is the dinner bell being rung for political consultants.

All across the country, they have started salivating without knowing why.

The more sensitive among them have suddenly felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if billions of dollars have suddenly cried out "some take me."

Econ’s disciplinary imperialism coming back to bite it in the ass. Imagine seeing an offhand one liner in a chemistry paper saying “I use the method of Berry, Levinsohn and Pakes (1995) to measure price elasticities for my sample of 1000 chemical compounds” with no further explanation