Chloe Mortenson

Almost 90% Of Americans Are Worried About The Cost Of Groceries The cost of food has risen faster than overall inflation in the last year.

The cost of food has risen faster than overall inflation in the last year.

When I was little, the U.S. military came to our home at gunpoint and took me and my family away. We were imprisoned for years in barbed wire camps simply because we were Japanese American. I have spent my life telling that story, hoping it would never be repeated.

We're hiring!

academicjobsonline.org/ajo/jobs/30219

The Cornell Department of Communication is hiring an Assistant Professor in Science, Environment, and Risk Communication!

Applications received by September 15, 2025, will be given full consideration.

The terrific Abby Qin presenting our work with Wil Dubree about local news coverage, roll-off and competitive down ballot elections. #ica25

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

Yay! Go @lyngemoller.bsky.social! 🥳👏
...and @hannescools.bsky.social! Representing the Digital Democracy Centre at #ICA25
😊

This is great!! @polcomm.bsky.social is launching a database for polcom teaching resources! #ica25

Happy to announce that I am ABD and have passed my prospectus defense! I'm officially on the job market for positions starting fall 2026. I'm seeking opportunities in the U.S and Europe for digital media/technology and strategic communication, so please reach out!

Cuts have consequences, illustrated. As seen on TV 📺

Federalism and Democratic Backsliding in Comparative Perspective Federalism and Democratic Backsliding in Comparative Perspective By Robert R. Kaufman, Rutgers University, R. Daniel Kelemen, Georgetown University and Burcu Kolcak, Rutgers University As a wave of backsliding has swept across both new and established democracies, scholars have sought to identify formal and informal institutions that can act as guardrails of democracy. But while informal norms, party structures, and formal institutions such as separation of powers have all been singled out as potential bulwarks against democratic backsliding, the literature has had less to say about what role, if any, federalism might play in stopping democracies from sliding into autocracy.

Federalism and Democratic Backsliding in Comparative Perspective

Federalism and Democratic Backsliding in Comparative Perspective By Robert R. Kaufman, Rutgers University, R. Daniel Kelemen, Georgetown University and Burcu Kolcak, Rutgers University As a wave of backsliding has swept across both…

A Chicago Pope implies the existence of an MLA Pope and APA Pope

There is such a unique kind of anxiety that comes from doing your dissertation on 'understanding of democracy', and most of the reading you do is confirming wild democratic backsliding in the United States.

Harvard professor offers a grim assessment of American democracy under Trump Steven Levitsky studies how healthy democracies can slip into authoritarianism. He says the Trump administration has already done grave damage: "We are no longer living in a democratic regime."

Competitive authoritarianism 🇺🇸

Strongly recommend listening to or reading this @npr.org interview with Steven Levitsky.

Sharp analysis (in part based on the @foreignaffairs.com piece) on why they define the current US situation as ‘competitive authoritarianism’

www.npr.org/2025/04/22/n...

Women, minorities fired in purge of NIH science review boards Scientists, with expertise in fields that include mental health, cancer and infectious disease, typically serve five-year terms and were not given a reason for their dismissal.

Thirty-eight of 43 experts cut last month from the boards that review the science and research that happens in laboratories at the National Institutes of Health are female, Black or Hispanic, according to an analysis by the chairs of a dozen of the boards.

Headline: ICE came for their neighbor so these Tennesseans formed a human chain to protect him

I can't emphasize enough that the most important thing journalists can do right now is publish exactly this kind of article

"Her $60 million contract with the NIH had supported an international network of researchers and clinicians who had produced pathbreaking work on a disease that infects a quarter of the world’s population and kills more than 1 million people per year."

I cannot convey enough how grateful I am to the millions of you all supporting us with your time, resources, and energy.

Your support has allowed us to rally people together at record scale to organize their communities.

All with an average donation of $21.

THANK YOU & Pa’lante 🙏🏽♥️

Twenty Lessons, read by John Lithgow Key selections from On Tyranny, for viewing and sharing

"On Tyranny" is a #1 NYT bestseller again. I wish the moment were different. But I’m glad the book is useful. And grateful for all the kind words about putting the 20 lessons to work.
snyder.substack.com/p/twenty-les...

Federal judge says White House’s punishment of Associated Press is unconstitutional | CNN Politics The White House’s decision to punish the Associated Press by eliminating its access to President Donald Trump’s events, the Oval Office and Air Force One is unconstitutional, a federal judge said Tues...

Democracy requires a free, sometimes adversarial, often irritating, press. Part of the media's job is making elected officials uncomfortable.

www.cnn.com/2025/04/08/p...

In just four days, Dr. Khan Suri was transferred among five different ICE facilities across three states, despite the fact that ICE records indicate there were beds in Virginia facilities. Dr. Khan Suri was fasting in religious observance of Ramadan, but multiple ICE facilities refused him food or water to break his fast. For almost two weeks, he was housed in a room without a bed and with a television blaring 21 hours a day. Dr. Khan Suri was issued used underwear, and a bright red uniform that is usually reserved for detained individuals who have been classified as ‘high security’ based on their criminal history or alleged affiliation with criminal organizations. He is not permitted to work or spend more than two hours per week outside of his dorm.

Georgetown scholar Dr. Khan Suri, who was abducted by ICE, was refused food/water to break Ramadan fast, housed in a room without a bed, and issued *used* underwear.

His child cried for days after he was taken and has since stopped speaking.

ccrjustice.org/home/press-c...

Again, just as threatening 🇨🇦/🇩🇰 violates our NATO/UN treaty commitments that are also part of US law, the tariff nonsense violates our WTO & PTA treaty commitments that are also part of US law. Rampant lawbreaking & a total Article I constitutional crisis. Media coverage should be leading with this.

The "Is it a constitutional crisis yet?!" discussion is so absurd: Of course you can construct increasingly esoteric definitions for why this current moment doesn't meet your exact criteria yet. But meanwhile, this is where we are: Masked agents of the states abducting people for writing op-eds.

This segment from @maryannefranks.bsky.social is an incredibly tight argument that captures the breadth of the Trump assault on free speech perfectly and in less than a minute.

Spread it far and wide.

Individual academic output feels so futile these days—writing silly little articles, giving silly little talks. But the attacks on academia show the continued importance of critical intellectual work as a collective endeavor. Anyone finding ways to work through this tension? I’m struggling with it.

These are (among) the stories that need to be told, by the people who are experiencing them, in ways that their families and communities can understand. If the sound is these attacks on science is silence… then clawing back what we’ve lost will be even harder, possibly impossible.

If you think about how many persons in positions of power have benefited tremendously from the US universities, the degree of public support and resistance towards the current administration’s attack on science and education is … underwhelming

Come on. I also say “fascism” regularly here. If you want to understand what’s happening now in 🇺🇸, then yes, precision & learning from other cases & the real experts like Levitsky & @lucanway.bsky.social is crucial. Quite clearly, the problem isn’t folks listening <too much> to political scientists.

I got laid off today, with the rest of 18F.

18F was an elite federal software shop. We made gov't websites work better, more efficiently for the American people. We saved taxpayers from getting screwed over by contractors. And were fired for it.

We made this website to tell our story:
18f.org