iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Doug Thompson @dithomps.bsky.social · 10/03/2026

The concept of “after that” is unimaginable. None of us has ever lived in that world. (Of course, it might not last more than a few hours). This should be our 24/7 focus.

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Doug Thompson @dithomps.bsky.social · 10/03/2026

There’s literally nothing to stop it (as far as we know). And we’re supposed to just … get on with our work day.

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Doug Thompson @dithomps.bsky.social · 09/03/2026

The murder half of the proposition would be so awful on its own, it’s hard to imagine what might come after.

Doug Thompson @dithomps.bsky.social · 09/03/2026

I mean that a US strike would carry the risk of immediate global escalation involving other nuclear powers.

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Though Locke’s (Lockes’?) ‘do is a bit more generous here.

National media coverage of “what diversity and demographic change do to a neighborhood” is generally empirically false.

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Can very much confirm. NE Columbia is one of the fastest growing areas in the country. Its social and economic diversity was a strength 15 yrs ago and in-migration (mostly domestic) has only deepened that diversity. As a result, it’s a great place to live.

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Doug Thompson @dithomps.bsky.social · 02/12/2025

Finally, @michaelhobbes.bsky.social is being recognized as part of the “Western canon.” Frankly, it’s his due.

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Cuti saw the Malvinas discourse on Bluesky today and decided, in the shirt of Villa and Ardiles … no màs

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Doug Thompson @dithomps.bsky.social · 29/11/2025

I’m beginning to think we may not be very good.

To revisit the political theory ‘canon’ after immersing oneself in scholarship in history (esp. economic history), comparative politics, sociology, archaeology, and other fields is to see *everything* with new eyes.

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David J. DeVore @devoretext.bsky.social · 11/08/2025

So much of the excellent work that people in my field have done in recent years to expand our geographic horizons has been heavily dependent on scholarship in other fields that began this work much earlier. Interdisciplinary research and even simply reading are truly transformative.

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Reposted by Doug Thompson

Greek & Roman historian here. Fact check: true. Ancient Mediterranean historians worth our salt don’t just read about Greeks and Romans.

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Thank goodness for that! One thing I really should have mentioned is that much of the excellent work that people in my field have done in recent years to expand our geographic horizons has been heavily dependent on scholarship in other fields that began this work much earlier.

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One person's rule of law is another person's lawfare. Impossible to adjudicate between these perceptions. Damn all these radical postmodernists and their post-truth moral relativism!

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Once you see it, you can't unsee it.

... until we bring in data from other regions of Afro-Eurasia that were in close trade contact with W. Europe and then compare and draw connections between them to test whether W. Europe really was the sole origin of every aspect of the concept. Spoiler alert: it wasn't (paper in process...) (fin)

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An example: every political theorist *knows* that the origins of "the modern state" lie in Europe. But how can we *know* this if we *only* look for those origins in Europe? The answer is, of course, that we cannot actually know this in that way. This remains an untested hypothesis in the field...

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Simply reading non-European sources is not enough. We also have to understand how ideas from different regions relate to each other and fit together--through cross-regional *comparison* and by reconstructing direct lines of interregional *connection* in the form of past learning across distance...

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... even if these data are wildly unrepresentative of the phenomena under investigation. Which in my field they very often were. Trying to overcome the deeply distorted picture of the history of political thought that this arbitrary sample enabled is *incredibly* difficult...

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This was a *tiny*, wholly arbitrary sample of globally available texts, a result of pure custom and professional path dependence. The field was a walking embodiment of the ‘streetlight effect’—a form of observational bias where the researcher only considers data that are ready to hand…

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… (2) late republican/early imperial Rome (again, about a century); (3) a handful of societies that developed in the wake of the Western Empire’s collapse (almost all a millennium later, after 1500 CE); and (4) the modern settler colonial societies of North America (not S. America, Oceania, Africa)…

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Doug Thompson @dithomps.bsky.social · 18/07/2025

Until recently, my academic field—political theory/history of ideas—had a ‘canon’ that cut out the *entire* first half of the record of human political thought. This ‘canon’ was arbitrarily drawn from 4 times and places *only*: (1) a single century in the ancient Aegean, almost all from Athens…

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That book made me realize that if southern Democrats and anti-New Deal (esp. midwestern industrialist) Republicans were in the same party in 1932, the US would have probably gone fascist. By 1994, their heirs had sorted into the same party, and presto! In other words, we all need to read this book…

Democratizing “reconstruction” moments only happen in the US when the anti-democratization party is totally excluded (1865, 1932) or when the parties are *both* internally split on “race.” Neither is true in 2025. So what’s the path forward?

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It's the only way, and Dem leaders can't give up on it, despite the murky future. How they'll respond to the imminent (b/c newly funded) expansion of coercion & detention is another variable...

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Plus the media environment. Will rural GOP voters assign blame accurately for lost healthcare and recession caused by tariffs, immigration labor shock, & public sector cuts? That seems to be to be the biggest obstacle.

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I agree, but It's so hard to see the path forward to building the required supermajority under current conditions. Those constitutional moments are so contingent (on economic collapse, total wars, etc.). 2025 lacks the wrecked opposition of 1865 & 1932 & the internal party splits on "race" of 1965.

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I want to be reassured, but I am not optimistic. The anti-democratization "Jim Crow refounding" took almost a century to reverse. And then the backlash against it (via partisan resorting of voters by attitudes on "race") produced the current moment. What is the path back to democracy? (fin)

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So where's the pro-democratization supermajority going to come from? It's really not clear right now. The BBB perversely attacks the well-being of its sponsors' voters. But there is no indication that those voters will assign blame accurately and switch parties in this media environment. (11/)

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So, here we (very much already) are, in the 5th refounding--not one of the democratizing ones. The problem is that we're not in 1865, 1932, or 1965. The anti-democratization party is not shut out of US politics like 1865 or 1932. And both parties aren't internally split on "race" like 1965. (10/)

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BUT, it shares features with the violent insurgency against the 1st Reconstruction. Today we have 1 party focused on reversing past democratization events (much like the 1870s-1890s). And the other party (so far) isn't willing or able to defend democracy (with many individual exceptions). (9/)

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There were enough *pro-Civil Rights* leaders in both parties to make a majority. Well ... that ship has sailed. The 5th "refounding" is undoing all of the previous 3 democratizing "refoundings." It can't be a return to "Jim Crow + laissez faire," à la 1900. It's something new. (8/)

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The 2nd Reconstruction was different. It was obviously a democratization event (the end of Jim Crow authoritarianism plus an expansion of what we could vote for, e.g., health care in Medicare & Medicaid!). But it was only possible because both parties were internally split about "race." (7/)

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The GOP was so discredited b/c of its dogged insistence on laissez faire. Everyone could tangibly *see* that it wasn't working. Because of this, the GOP would not win consistent Congressional majorities again until the 1990s--60 yrs later (6/)

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The New Deal was also a democratization event. Why? Now majorities of voters could vote for economic policies they wanted (e.g, Social Security), and there was actually the gov't administrative capacity to deliver on them. This was only possible b/c the US was in effect a 1-party state again. (5/)

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Once readmitted, Southern Democrats launched a violent insurgency against this democratization. By the 1890s, they won (after killing ~4,000 political opponents). They were able to win because Northern Republicans didn't want to pay for security to defend the Reconstruction democracies. (4/)

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1st Reconstruction was a moment of democratization--the 1st ever founding of universal male suffrage and civil rights in the South. It was only possible (at first) b/c the 11 states of the defeated Confederacy were not yet readmitted to Congress. The US was a 1-party (GOP) country. (3/)

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They are: 1) 1st Reconstruction; 2) the murder of Reconstruction by "Jim Crow" authoritarian rule (in 11 states, with federal complicity); 3) the New Deal; 4) 2nd Reconstruction (the end of "Jim Crow" authoritarianism + the Great Society). How does 2025's "refounding" compare w/ these? (2/)

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Kevin Elliott @kjephd.bsky.social · 05/11/2024

Until now, the basic structure of how the US Constitution "works" has been "refounded" 4 times. We are now *very* far into the 5th "refounding." Dr. McMillan Cottom is right. There is no easy path toward quickly & peacefully reversing this. Why? Let's look at the other "refounding" moments. (1/)

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Reposted by Doug Thompson

@jamellebouie.net's recent columns advance the view that the US Constitution extends far beyond the brief formal text & those informal & unwritten pieces are central to the character of the constitutional order. I just published an article detailing a similar view, but develop it a bit differently:

doi.org

Folk Constitutionalism, or Why it Matters How Ordinary People Think about the Constitution

A truly inclusive democratic politics must be understandable, or cognitively tractable, for ordinary people busy with the rest of their lives. This extends not only to everyday politics and policy,...

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Doug Thompson @dithomps.bsky.social · 24/06/2025

This looks great—and personally quite timely. I’m finishing a manuscript on Du Bois, representative bureaucracy, and the importance of heuristic historical narrative for publicly legitimating complex institutions. Your article will be a huge help in thinking about the public narrative parts.