iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Michael Cerny

Brendan Nyhan @brendannyhan.bsky.social · 04/10/2025

This is what authoritarians do - use the powers of the state to humiliate and degrade their opponents in public so that others will not challenge them

818863

Reposted by Michael Cerny

Adam Bonica @adambonica.bsky.social · 21/09/2025

Democrats should become the anti-corruption party. 72% of voters think a member of Congress would likely accept a bribe if offered one. 80% say donors run DC. The solution isn’t left vs right, it’s clean vs corrupt. But first, Democrats must reform themselves and reject big money.

open.substack.com

The Democrats' Path Forward: Become the Anti-Corruption Party

But to reform the system they first need to reform the Democratic Party.

31777211

Reposted by Michael Cerny

Brendan Nyhan @brendannyhan.bsky.social · 09/09/2025

Where we are as a country - the president does not make the law

1026650

Reposted by Michael Cerny

Daniel Ziblatt @dziblatt.bsky.social · 28/08/2025

A new piece I wrote appearing in FOREIGN AFFAIRS today www.foreignaffairs.com/germany/warn...

foreignaffairs.com

Warnings From Weimar

Why bargaining with authoritarians fails.

24654294

Reposted by Michael Cerny

Adam Bonica @adambonica.bsky.social · 26/08/2025

I keep seeing the Trump-Intel deal called socialism, but there’s a term for this. This parallels what Mussolini did—the Italian state was one of the world’s largest industrial owners while keeping private companies. Nazi Germany did this too. So did Francoist Spain. It’s called state corporatism.

14398160

Reposted by Michael Cerny

Brendan Nyhan @brendannyhan.bsky.social · 22/08/2025

Authoritarian regimes frequently struggle to govern effectively because accurate information doesn't reach the leadership. Trump is basically designing a system to create this problem.

20539168

Reposted by Michael Cerny

Henry Farrell @himself.bsky.social · 22/08/2025

I suspect the John Bolton thing is less likely a show trial than a show investigation. The powers of the FBI/DOJ/prosecutors provide the ability to systematically persecute people for years, ruining their lives and costing them enormous amounts of money in legal fees with little recourse.

781854469

Reposted by Michael Cerny

ProPublica @propublica.org · 22/08/2025

On the left: Nate Cavanagh, a 28-year-old DOGE staffer and college dropout. On the right: Mohammad Halimi, a 53-year-old exiled Afghan scholar. This is the story of how DOGE targeted Halimi on social media. Then the Taliban took his family. 🧵

Photo of DOGE staffer Nate Cavanagh, a 28-year-old white man in a blue pullover, carrying a black backpack.

Photo of 53-year-old Afghan scholar Mohammad Halimi. He is sitting, wearing white pants and shirt with a brown vest.

15058223235

Reposted by Michael Cerny

Risa Brooks @risabrooks12.bsky.social · 13/08/2025

My take is that senior officers are completely unprepared for this moment. When demo is healthy, there is little tension btw adhering to civilian control & serving democracy Faced w/ the manifest clash in principles these missions present, they are doing what's familiar--following orders.1/

25674177

Reposted by Michael Cerny

Matt Ortega @mattortega.com · 11/08/2025

To reiterate: there is no legitimate justification for this. Violent crime is at a 30-year low in D.C.

23577221

Reposted by Michael Cerny

Ben @franzferdinand2.bsky.social · 04/08/2025

A fun reminder that a loss of 60,000 jobs in and around academia is ~50% more than all coal mining jobs in the entire country.

4953041762

Reposted by Michael Cerny

Adam Bonica @adambonica.bsky.social · 20/07/2025

He's right, and it's not just Brazil. Around the world, at least 31 democratic leaders who committed similar crimes have been jailed or banned from office since 2010. The failure to hold Trump accountable in the US was a unique and systemic failure of our institutions and political culture.

open.substack.com

An Exceptional Failure of Democratic Accountability: How American Institutions Protected Power While Global Democracies Upheld Justice

How Elite Deference Eroded America's Rule of Law, Defying the Global Norm.

8761572091

Reposted by Michael Cerny

Rory Truex @rorytruex.bsky.social · 10/07/2025

The first session of The Civic Forum is today at noon EST! Link is here: www.crowdcast.io/c/civicforum.... Come for a short lecture on democratic erosion in the U.S. Full series info here: www.thecivicforum.com

crowdcast.io

The Civic Forum - S1E2 - Forum Overview and Introduction to Democratic Backsliding - Rory Truex

Register now for The Civic Forum - S1E2 - Forum Overview and Introduction to Democratic Backsliding - Rory Truex on crowdcast, scheduled to go live on July 10, 2025, 12:00 PM EDT.

021

Reposted by Michael Cerny

Adam Bonica @adambonica.bsky.social · 09/07/2025

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:

open.substack.com

How to Dismantle a Democracy, Legally

The unitary executive theory is a masterclass in autocratic legalism.

391172439

Reposted by Michael Cerny

Sheena Chestnut Greitens @sheenagreitens.bsky.social · 30/06/2025

I hope @christiehenry.bsky.social understands that for many in Xinjiang, the “peace” she saw is what scholars have elsewhere termed “the peace of the prison-yard.” (Plenty of good scholars at Princeton who could’ve helped them avoid this. Just embarrassing.)

3347

Reposted by Michael Cerny

Adam Bonica @adambonica.bsky.social · 03/06/2025

It's good to see the OPM hiring memo has started to get the attention it deserves. We're going to sorely miss the smart, hardworking, career federal workers who serve the public--not the party in power--when they're gone. Let's break down what this means and why it's a major concern: 🧵⬇️

319591

Reposted by Michael Cerny

Dani Rodrik @drodrik.bsky.social · 23/05/2025

Three things made the US a rich and powerful nation: the rule of law, its science & innovation system, and openness to foreign talent. Remarkable how Trump has taken a sledgehammer to all three. No enemy of this country could do more.

296113473720

Reposted by Michael Cerny

Senator Chris Van Hollen @vanhollen.senate.gov · 18/04/2025

I said my main goal of this trip was to meet with Kilmar. Tonight I had that chance. I have called his wife, Jennifer, to pass along his message of love. I look forward to providing a full update upon my return.

Photo of Senator Chris Van Hollen with Kilmar Abrego Garcia.

805812268225544

Reposted by Michael Cerny

Larry Glickman @larryglickman.bsky.social · 16/04/2025

Steve Kerr: "I believe in academic freedom. I think it's crucial for all of our institutions to be able to handle their own business the way they want to. And they should not be shaken down and told what to teach, what to say, by our government. That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard."

129110642324

Reposted by Michael Cerny

Brendan Nyhan @brendannyhan.bsky.social · 11/04/2025

This is very bad and why it's so important for people of good faith to speak out. Resistance to authoritarianism is a coordination game.

211324

Reposted by Michael Cerny

Air-Moving Device @airmovingdevice.bsky.social · 23/03/2025

DOGE/Musk preferentially cancelled grants and contracts to recipients in counties that voted for Harris in 2024. Among cancellations with election data available, 92.9% and 86.1% cancelled grants and contracts went to Harris counties, representing 96.6% and 92.4% of total dollar amounts.

7222081094

Reposted by Michael Cerny

Eliot Higgins @eliothiggins.bsky.social · 09/03/2025

🧵 This is a perfect example of what I've be describing as disordered discourse, and it's threat to democracy. Politicians are afraid to speak openly about key issues. Why? Because disordered discourse has captured the system itself—forcing obedience, punishing dissent, and making truth irrelevant.

14829071128

Reposted by Michael Cerny

Adam Bonica @adambonica.bsky.social · 27/02/2025

1/ A reminder: The Supreme Court refused to enforce the plain language of the 15th Amdt. for a century. Southern states openly defied it, and the Court did nothing. There is nothing stopping them from doing the same on birthright citizenship. Plain language means nothing without political power.🧵⬇️

18934

Reposted by Michael Cerny

Joshua Kertzer @jkertzer.bsky.social · 28/02/2025

The 3rd Annual Great CGIS Bakeoff was a triumph! Congratulations to Gabriela Armani for her doubly-winning Brazilian Banoffee, & runner-up Aleksandra Conevska! 🏆 Category winners: 🍪 @marchvidkjaer.bsky.social 🥮 @cerny.bsky.social 🥧 @malpas.bsky.social ☕️ Lucia Mendoza 🏆 @chriskenny.bsky.social

2193

Reposted by Michael Cerny

Joshua Kertzer @jkertzer.bsky.social · 20/02/2025

Happy to review Mearsheimer and Rosato's new book, a spirited takedown of political psychology that claims that political psychologists don’t study how individuals comprehend the world around them, which is rather like arguing that botanists don’t study plants www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1...

4239

Reposted by Michael Cerny

Adam Bonica @adambonica.bsky.social · 20/02/2025

The DOGE firings have nothing to do with “efficiency” or “cutting waste.” They’re a direct push to weaken federal agencies perceived as liberal. This was evident from the start, and now the data confirms it: targeted agencies overwhelmingly those seen as more left-leaning. 🧵⬇️

Scatterplot titled “Empirical Evidence of Ideological Targeting in Federal Layoffs: Agencies seen as liberal are significantly more likely to face DOGE layoffs.”
• The x-axis represents Perceived Ideological Leaning of federal agencies, ranging from -2 (Most Liberal) to +2 (Most Conservative), based on survey responses from over 1,500 federal executives.
• The y-axis shows Agency Size (Number of Staff) on a logarithmic scale from 1,000 to 1,000,000.

Each point represents a federal agency:
• Red dots indicate agencies that experienced DOGE layoffs.
• Gray dots indicate agencies with no layoffs.

Key Observations:
• Liberal-leaning agencies (left side of the plot) are disproportionately represented among red dots, indicating higher layoff rates.
• Notable targeted agencies include:
• HHS (Health & Human Services)
• EPA (Environmental Protection Agency)
• NIH (National Institutes of Health)
• CFPB (Consumer Financial Protection Bureau)
• Dept. of Education
• USAID (U.S. Agency for International Development)
• The National Nuclear Security Administration (DOE), despite its conservative leaning (+1 on the scale), is an exception among targeted agencies.
• A notable outlier: the Department of Veterans Affairs (moderately conservative) also faced layoffs despite its size.

Takeaway:

The figure visually demonstrates that DOGE layoffs disproportionately targeted liberal-leaning agencies, supporting claims of ideological bias. The pattern reveals that layoffs were not driven by agency size or budget alone but were strongly associated with perceived ideology.

Source: Richardson, Clinton, & Lewis (2018). Elite Perceptions of Agency Ideology and Workforce Skill. The Journal of Politics, 80(1).

251106234758

Reposted by Michael Cerny

Felipe De La Hoz @felipedlh.bsky.social · 19/02/2025

I think most people are intuitively aware of this but something like the official White House account posting an “ASMR” video of shackled immigrants is not just cruel for its own sake, it’s intentional envelope-pushing to ramp up to desensitization over inhumane detention, camps, and deaths

361171255019

Reposted by Michael Cerny

Daniel Drezner @dandrezner.bsky.social · 16/02/2025

I know Stathis. He was a colleague of mine at the University of Chicago. He is a pretty buttoned-down scholar. For him to tweet this out is… something.

7946981469

Reposted by Michael Cerny

Brendan Nyhan @brendannyhan.bsky.social · 16/02/2025

Another expert who is beyond alarmed. Not a drill; happening right now.

316663

Reposted by Michael Cerny

Brendan Nyhan @brendannyhan.bsky.social · 15/02/2025

Openly defining the rule of law as whatever he says it is. Happening right in front of us.

461596297

Michael Cerny @cerny.bsky.social · 09/12/2024

Very pleased to share this working paper with @rorytruex.bsky.social, where we examine attitudes towards China among over 500 Washington foreign policy and national security professionals through a survey and interviews. rorytruex.com/underpressure We report three major findings: 1/n

rorytruex.com

Featured Paper: Under Pressure — Rory Truex

11913

Reposted by Michael Cerny

Alex Dukalskis @alexdukalskis.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

📖 To celebrate the migration to Bluesky I will put everyone who reposts this before Dec 2nd into a random drawing & send the winner a free paperback copy of my 2021 book Making the World Safe for Dictatorship anywhere they happen to be in the world. 📖

37797

Reposted by Michael Cerny

Fiona Cunningham @fiona-cunningham.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

My book “Under the Nuclear Shadow” is out in just over a month! For a deep dive on China’s decision-making about cyberattacks, counter-space and precision strike (and some nuclear), pre-order your copy from Princeton University Press for 30% off with code P327: press.princeton.edu/books/paperb...

57720