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Lee Morgenbesser

@lmorgenbesser.bsky.social
3.7K followers 363 following 343 posts

Political Scientist, Griffith University | Fellow, Australian Research Council | Authoritarian politics, democratization, dictators, election observation, Southeast Asian politics.

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Lee Morgenbesser @lmorgenbesser.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
To defeat authoritarian regimes, opposition parties need to fight a two-level game for the outcome of elections AND the rules of the political system itself. Since the Democrats only care about the result of the midterms, they are doomed. There I said it ok. I will sit down now.
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Lee Morgenbesser @lmorgenbesser.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
American's media was never ready to defend democracy - and still has not learned a thing. Yes, this story is stupid as shit, but the sheer amount of coverage is already disproportionate to its importance. Providing it with oxygen simply aids the Trump administration in its distraction. Focus FFS 😠
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Lee Morgenbesser @lmorgenbesser.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
We can only imagine how the Whatsapp chat between the world's dictators is going...
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Lee Morgenbesser @lmorgenbesser.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
It’s the Manosphere in diplomatic form. Men so unsure of their own identity that they attach themselves to men promoting masculinity (and ultimately violence). It would be funny if it weren’t so catastrophic.
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Lee Morgenbesser @lmorgenbesser.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
The best way to understand America is to think of a late-stage dictator combined with an early-stage authoritarian regime. You get all the madness, corruption, and paranoia of an old man who has been in power 40 years, but combined with a seizure group trying to consolidate power in typical ways.
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Lee Morgenbesser @lmorgenbesser.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
Unless mass protests now emerge in front of the Supreme Court, this is just another Monday in Trump’s America.
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Lee Morgenbesser @lmorgenbesser.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
The importance of this story rests on the antiquated idea that security clearances still have value in Trumplandia. Instead, if we accept that the United States is an authoritarian black knight counteracting global democracy, then *not* getting clearance is actually a sign of in-group loyalty.
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Lee Morgenbesser @lmorgenbesser.bsky.social · 08/08/2026
Despite celebrating itself as a beacon of democracy for more than two centuries, the simple fact is that America was not built to withstand democracy backsliding. I have never seen an aspiring autocrat do it so easy, anywhere.
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Lee Morgenbesser @lmorgenbesser.bsky.social · 01/08/2026
Corrupt man scraps corrupt plans so that he can devise another way to be corrupt. www.abc.net.au/news/2026-08...
abc.net.au
Breaking: FIFA scraps World Cup sell-off plans
FIFA has scrapped plans to sell a stake in the World Cup after the move caused a major backlash.
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Lee Morgenbesser @lmorgenbesser.bsky.social · 25/07/2026
I never understood why this guy had such a following. His understanding of authoritarian politics was almost always wrong. He was part of a cottage industry of scholars who made up concepts to advance their public profile, but those concepts had no grounding in academic scholarship.
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Lee Morgenbesser @lmorgenbesser.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
Last year when I wrote about the passivity of the resistance movement to Trump's authoritarianism, I listed political consumerism as one of seven missing tactics. @juddlegum.bsky.social is correct. Hit their corporate earnings and political dominos will fall. theconversation.com/has-the-trum...
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Lee Morgenbesser @lmorgenbesser.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
Only a handful of dictatorships don't hold national elections, and that is because they are monarchies, never institutionalised them, or are in a state of prolonged conflict. Disbanding elections outright means you are betting against the notion that international democratic norms will be enforced.
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Lee Morgenbesser @lmorgenbesser.bsky.social · 12/07/2026
Is this normal for Bluesky? Perhaps I haven’t been paying attention…
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Lee Morgenbesser @lmorgenbesser.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
Do you think there is a ”chance” card in here where the American president corruptly interferes on your behalf? But then that interference inadvertently backfires and you lose the game? It would be quite the flex from the developers!
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Lee Morgenbesser @lmorgenbesser.bsky.social · 05/07/2026
Americans shrugged their shoulders about Trump so far looting two billion dollars in office, so they certainly won’t care about corruption of this kind. They really need to get passed the belief that written criticism is a sufficient response to democratic backsliding.
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Reposted by Lee Morgenbesser
Lee Morgenbesser @lmorgenbesser.bsky.social · 14/12/2025
PUBLISHED! My latest piece addresses the inactivity and passivity of the anti-Trump resistance. From my vantage point, it is not doing enough 🫣 I highlight seven lessons from those who have resisted authoritarian rule around the world. theconversation.com/has-the-trum...
theconversation.com
Has the Trump resistance been too passive? Here are 7 ways to effectively protest authoritarian rule
The ‘No Kings’ protests have been important, but smaller, more sustained acts of resistance have proven successful in other countries around the world.
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Reposted by Lee Morgenbesser
Daniel Tavana @danieltavana.bsky.social · 17/06/2026
How many Iranians support the Islamic Republic? In a new working paper, we answer this using a nationally representative survey of 2,000 adults in Iran—and the list experiment, a method for measuring sensitive attitudes.
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Lee Morgenbesser @lmorgenbesser.bsky.social · 13/06/2026
Why do Americans gather in front of the Kennedy Center to watch the letters be pulled off the building, but not in front of Congress, Supreme Court, or Department of Justice when they destroy democracy a little bit more? www.youtube.com/live/aAhm880...
youtube.com
LIVE: See Donald Trump's name come off the Kennedy Center as it happens
YouTube video by MS NOW
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Lee Morgenbesser @lmorgenbesser.bsky.social · 09/06/2026
Just an amazing piece of investigative journalism by @heidiblake.bsky.social. I lost count of how many people need to rot in jail for the rest of their lives. www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...
newyorker.com
Andrew Tate’s Empire of Abuse
How the defining figure of the manosphere built a fortune—and became a political force—by systematically exploiting women.
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Lee Morgenbesser @lmorgenbesser.bsky.social · 05/06/2026
Like I’ve said a dozen times now, America’s mainstream media was never ready for democratic backsliding. It has proven to be woefully inept for this moment. Led by the NYT, it has failed to act as a watchdog, educator, and scrutineer for Trump’s racism, corruption, and authoritarianism.
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Lee Morgenbesser @lmorgenbesser.bsky.social · 25/05/2026
Watching the Australian media gobble Trump’s social media propaganda up without any sense of hesitation or learning from past mistakes is fucking infuriating. If they simply reported nothing, they would be better off. So would we.
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Lee Morgenbesser @lmorgenbesser.bsky.social · 16/05/2026
Equally insane is the complete lack of both condemnation from political elites and spontaneous mass protests from citizens. Indeed, grand corruption is already a fully normalised feature of authoritarian rule in the United States.
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Lee Morgenbesser @lmorgenbesser.bsky.social · 07/05/2026
Waiting to access Canvas to start marking assessment. Waiting to hear from the university's Cyber Security Officer. Waiting to see how my personal data will be sold again. Waiting to be freed from our corporate tech overlords. Waiting to hear how I have to bear the consequences. Waiting 😢
static.klipy.com
Waiting
ALT: Waiting
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Lee Morgenbesser @lmorgenbesser.bsky.social · 26/04/2026
Do anthropologists have a formal set of criteria for a functioning society? Asking as a political scientist, with America in mind of course.
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Lee Morgenbesser @lmorgenbesser.bsky.social · 21/04/2026
America’s mainstream media was never ready for democratic backsliding. It has proven itself to be woefully inept at this moment. Historians and political scientists will write - with ease - about the failure of the fourth estate to act as a watchdog, educator, and scrutineer for what has occurred.
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Lee Morgenbesser @lmorgenbesser.bsky.social · 15/04/2026
I don’t get why people simply accept his professed Catholicism? Surely we can be more cynical in the age of Trump? Maybe, just maybe, his varying faith - look it up! - is a means to a political end… www.nbcnews.com/politics/tru...
nbcnews.com
Vance warns the pope should 'be careful' when talking about theology
Vance, who is Catholic, said the pope was wrong in saying Jesus wasn’t on the side of those who wield the sword, pointing to the U.S.’ helping defeat the Nazis during World War II.
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Lee Morgenbesser @lmorgenbesser.bsky.social · 12/04/2026
Ruh fucking roh
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Lee Morgenbesser @lmorgenbesser.bsky.social · 11/04/2026
Reposting my own thread in the hope it makes a difference to all those in Hungary who believe in democratic ideas, values, norms, and institutions. Best wishes to them.
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Reposted by Lee Morgenbesser
Lee Morgenbesser @lmorgenbesser.bsky.social · 09/04/2026
With Hungary’s crucial election a few days away, its National Election Office has published a list of accredited international observers (n. 859). Having spent nearly a decade researching the behavior of international observers, I decided to take a closer look 😊 www.valasztas.hu/en/internati...
valasztas.hu
International observers registered for the parliamentary elections to be held in 2026
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Lee Morgenbesser @lmorgenbesser.bsky.social · 09/04/2026
With Hungary’s crucial election a few days away, its National Election Office has published a list of accredited international observers (n. 859). Having spent nearly a decade researching the behavior of international observers, I decided to take a closer look 😊 www.valasztas.hu/en/internati...
valasztas.hu
International observers registered for the parliamentary elections to be held in 2026
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Lee Morgenbesser @lmorgenbesser.bsky.social · 02/04/2026
Every time I go to type something snarky about the dumb shit Trump just said, he says something even dumber. So I delete the post and start again. It is a vicious cycle.
media.tenor.com
donald trump is wearing a suit and tie and making a funny face while speaking into a microphone .
ALT: donald trump is wearing a suit and tie and making a funny face while speaking into a microphone .
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Lee Morgenbesser @lmorgenbesser.bsky.social · 19/03/2026
I asked Copilot to give me a list of closed autocracies and electoral autocracies from V-Dem's latest report. It promptly listed 92 countries, but I noticed a few glaring omissions 😶
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Reposted by Lee Morgenbesser
Edward Goldring @edwardgoldring.bsky.social · 17/03/2026
My book - “Purges” - has a release date (August 15) and a front cover. I started work on this as my PhD dissertation at the end of 2017 - excited for it to finally be coming out! www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501...
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Lee Morgenbesser @lmorgenbesser.bsky.social · 14/03/2026
The Trump-Orban comparison has always suffered from a bunch of different cognitive biases. Trump is both a “playbook autocrat” (like Orban) and a “mad king” (not like Orban) I wrote this duality here. In my view, the mad king persona will always prevail. www.thebulwark.com/p/crazy-or-c...
thebulwark.com
Crazy or Cunning: The Trump Contradiction
Critics’ two big theories explaining Trump are associated with different kinds of autocrats.
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Lee Morgenbesser @lmorgenbesser.bsky.social · 04/03/2026
And so it begins! Watch now as Western media proclaim Khamenei's son to be more moderate/progressive/Western-influenced etc etc than his father. They said the same about Kim Jong Un, Baby Doc Duvalier, Ilham Aliyev, Bashar al-Assad, Hun Manet, and just about every other next dictator ffs.
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Lee Morgenbesser @lmorgenbesser.bsky.social · 25/02/2026
Has it occurred to anyone that competitive authoritarianism has achieved ascendancy as the operative term for the United States, even though a national election has not occurred? Given there are 100s of diminished subtypes capturing authoritarianism outside of elections, should we excercise caution?
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Reposted by Lee Morgenbesser
Adam Scharpf @ascharpf.bsky.social · 16/02/2026
Russia, Venezuela, Iran, China, the Sahel region, the United States ... Want to know why state agents carry out brutal repression — or participate in illegal coups? Our new book "Making a Career in Dictatorship" provides answers — it just got published by @academic.oup.com: tinyurl.com/ystwm3tf
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Lee Morgenbesser @lmorgenbesser.bsky.social · 11/02/2026
If the Trump administration is brazen enough to close a major airport without notification and without reason, just imagine all the horrible things they are not being transparent about. It will take a generation to uncover all their dirty secrets.
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Lee Morgenbesser @lmorgenbesser.bsky.social · 06/02/2026
In case anyone is still wondering whether the United States has transitioned to authoritarian rule, I previously listed funding foreign think tanks as 1 of the 20 modern techniques of autocratic innovation. Paper available here - 61eb8c0a-6652-49a6-902e-3063f76b517e.filesusr.com/ugd/ca20d0_a...
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Lee Morgenbesser @lmorgenbesser.bsky.social · 04/02/2026
I give it less than three months before CBP/ICE are authorized to quell mass demonstrations (under the pretext that such demonstrations are disrupting immigration enforcement operations). Many innocent people will die.
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Lee Morgenbesser @lmorgenbesser.bsky.social · 03/02/2026
We had three papers under review in APSR, AJPS, and JoP & every time a new tranche of reviews came in they just magically whittled away until they were rejected. It looks on its face to be fraudulent. Can I prove it? No.
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Lee Morgenbesser @lmorgenbesser.bsky.social · 02/02/2026
The fact there are infinitely more people discussing the Epstein files (which Trump has been removed from) than participating in a spontaneous protest at the Kennedy Center (which Trump is going to destroy and plunder) says everything about the state of authoritarian rule in the United States.
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Lee Morgenbesser @lmorgenbesser.bsky.social · 25/01/2026
Does this also mean the media is going to stop making awful comparisons between Trump’s America and Orban’s Hungary? What about Erdogan’s Turkey? Modi’s India? So much unhelpful analysis of non-democracy in recent years. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...
theatlantic.com
Yes, It’s Fascism
Until recently, I thought it a term best avoided. But now, the resemblances are too many and too strong to deny.
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Reposted by Lee Morgenbesser
Adam Keiper @adamkeiper.com · 25/01/2026
"The media tends to treat Trump's more insane statements as ephemeral, but then turns around and treats his climb-downs as binding....This is a mistake, and a dangerous one....It's a form of sane-washing....It contributes to the authoritarian's progress." www.thebulwark.com/p/how-the-me...
thebulwark.com
How the Media Fails With Trump. Over and Over. (And Over.)
Plus: The people of Minneapolis are amazing.
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Lee Morgenbesser @lmorgenbesser.bsky.social · 24/01/2026
I really think there needs to spontaneous protests against ICE happening right now in front of every federal building in the country and especially in Washington D.C. Otherwise those opposed to the Trump administration will not gain enough momentum or control the narrative.
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Lee Morgenbesser @lmorgenbesser.bsky.social · 23/01/2026
No one told me we were going by country, rather than by individual. I proudly stand by my list! THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION IN THIS MATTER.
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Lee Morgenbesser @lmorgenbesser.bsky.social · 19/01/2026
In announcing the final makeup of the board, Trump highlighted how Putin will be joined by other distinguished individuals, including Genghis Khan King Leopold II Caligula Pol Pot Lucky Luciano Curtis LeMay Tony Blair Sauron Hernán Cortés Count Dracula Benito Mussolini Henry Kissinger Thanos
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Lee Morgenbesser @lmorgenbesser.bsky.social · 18/01/2026
America is afflicted by a rare combination: early-stage authoritarianism, but with a late-stage dictator. Think El Salvador today ruled by a crazy Papa Doc Duvalier. While chaos is the defining feature of this struggle, pro-democratic forces can still prevail… www.thebulwark.com/p/crazy-or-c...
thebulwark.com
Crazy or Cunning: The Trump Contradiction
Critics’ two big theories explaining Trump are associated with different kinds of autocrats.
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Lee Morgenbesser @lmorgenbesser.bsky.social · 15/01/2026
Any far superior writers out there who want to present their Pulitzer Prize to me? Will go to a happy home.
media.tenor.com
a man in a suit and tie with a name tag that says mr bean on it
ALT: a man in a suit and tie with a name tag that says mr bean on it
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Lee Morgenbesser @lmorgenbesser.bsky.social · 15/01/2026
Has any country ever been in both a civil war (say Minneapolis) and a foreign war (say Greenland, Iran, or Venezuela) at the same time?
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