iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Paul Starr @starrprospect.bsky.social · 10/05/2026

Perfect Mother’s Day quote, 2026: “I cannot imagine having gone through figuring out how to raise a newborn without ChatGPT,” Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, said recently.

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Paul Starr @starrprospect.bsky.social · 31/07/2025

In “The Premature Guide to Post-Trump Reform,” tinyurl.com/yunb54ab I set out three levels of reform: change in the law, the Supreme Court, and the Constitution. The first, modeled on post-Watergate reforms, calls for efforts to curb presidential aggrandizement through new legislation …

tinyurl.com

The Premature Guide to Post-Trump Reform

American history offers three general strategies of repair and renewal.

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Paul Starr @starrprospect.bsky.social · 31/07/2025

Out today @prospect.org “Trump has shown how vulnerable [we are] … authoritarian rule when the president is contemptuous of [constitutional] norms, Congress is under his thumb, and the Court is an accomplice.” What to do? Here you go: “The Premature Guide to Post-Trump Reform” tinyurl.com/yunb54ab

tinyurl.com

The Premature Guide to Post-Trump Reform

American history offers three general strategies of repair and renewal.

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Paul Starr @starrprospect.bsky.social · 05/04/2025

Read this brilliant article by the historian Tara Zahra explaining how today’s right-wing reaction against trade and immigration recapitulates the first crisis of globalization in the early 20th century. Proud that Tara began her career at @theprospect.bsky.social www.nytimes.com/2025/04/05/o...

nytimes.com

Opinion | Globalization Is Collapsing. Brace Yourselves.

The world was just as intertwined 100 years ago, and its unraveling was a disaster. Can we avoid the same outcome?

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Paul Starr @starrprospect.bsky.social · 23/03/2025

Important article by Aziz Huq on the U.S. following the path of Nazi Germany toward a “dual state”—partly rule of law, partly rule by prerogative (dictatorship). www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc...

theatlantic.com

America Is Watching the Rise of a Dual State

For most people, the courts will continue to operate as usual—until they don’t.

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Paul Starr @starrprospect.bsky.social · 11/03/2025

We need a new #proCanada movement to support Canada, to buy Canadian, to vacation in Canada, to express Americans’ long admiration of Canada, friendship with Canada, appreciation of Canadian decency and neighborliness, in contrast to the imperial lunacy driving the US today.

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Paul Starr @starrprospect.bsky.social · 10/03/2025

Thank you for reminding me about that old piece. It’s still true now. And, yes, it would be great to get new data on public perceptions of Social Security’s overhead costs and the realities.

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Paul Starr @starrprospect.bsky.social · 25/02/2025

Are Denmark’s Social Democrats winning because they made one strategic decision—to keep immigration at lower levels than other European countries and the US? Check out this piece by David Leonhardt of the NY Times. www.nytimes.com/2025/02/24/m...

nytimes.com

How Denmark’s Social Democrats Are Succeeding With Stricter Immigration Policies

Around the world, progressive parties have come to see tight immigration restrictions as unnecessary, even cruel. What if they’re actually the only way for progressivism to flourish?

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Paul Starr @starrprospect.bsky.social · 21/02/2025

Will Trump politicize or privatize the Postal Service? I’ll bet on politicize. Privatization would result in heavy cutbacks and higher rates in rural areas and small towns that vote Republican. They’re just not profitable to serve. But politicizing the post office—that’s the oldest graft in the US.

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Paul Starr @starrprospect.bsky.social · 21/02/2025

Cancel culture with real power.

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Paul Starr @starrprospect.bsky.social · 20/02/2025

Such an adorable poodle. Putin has him well trained for the coming surrender.

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Paul Starr @starrprospect.bsky.social · 20/02/2025

Trump’s polling numbers are slipping as he pursues unpopular policies. It’s what happened the first time around, but this will be worse. Prediction: He will end up the most hated president in American history, a stain on America’s good name. www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

washingtonpost.com

Analysis | Trump’s honeymoon is over

New polling shows Trump’s approval declining — and a number of major warning signs appearing.

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Paul Starr @starrprospect.bsky.social · 12/02/2025

On the loss of a model of intellectual integrity and courage—Christopher Jencks. He showed us how to wade into troubled waters and come out the stronger for it. @theprospect.bsky.social prospect.org/health/2025-...

prospect.org

The Exemplary Radical Skeptic

Christopher Jencks, one of the Prospect’s founding group, has died.

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Paul Starr @starrprospect.bsky.social · 10/02/2025

Imagine if we had done this to the Hungarians who fled their country in 1956 or the Cubans who later fled Castro. Trump’s decision to end TPS for Venezuelans is a betrayal of the Republican Party’s own traditions. And of the trust Venezuelans placed in him. www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/...

washingtonpost.com

Venezuelans backed Trump. Now some worry he’ll deport them.

Venezuelans in the Miami suburb of Doral have been some of Trump’s biggest proponents. Many feel betrayed after he revoked temporary protected status for thousands.

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Paul Starr @starrprospect.bsky.social · 09/02/2025

@jimrutenberg.bsky.social: Trump’s attacks on media resemble Nixon’s. But the context then was different: a Democratic Congress whose hearings validated reporting on Watergate, and a Supreme Court that reliably defended press freedom. Outcome now much less certain. www.nytimes.com/2025/02/09/b...

nytimes.com

Trump’s Blueprint for Bending the Media Has Nixon Written All Over It

The president’s heavy-handed approach to traditional journalists has the hallmarks of an attempted crackdown 50 years ago.

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Paul Starr @starrprospect.bsky.social · 07/02/2025

The Republican adherence to federalism is like the Republican adherence to balanced budgets. Federalism and balanced budgets just apply to the Democrats, not to themselves. Limits for thee, not for us.

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Reposted by Paul Starr

Michael A. Cohen @speechboy71.bsky.social · 07/02/2025

My first post here at Blue Sky ... Trump is doing terrible things every day, but the wholesale destruction of USAID is by far the worst and potentially catastrophic ... truthandcons.substack.com/p/the-destru...

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Paul Starr @starrprospect.bsky.social · 07/02/2025

Now we can see clearly what should have been clear before: Republican support for federalism and denunciations of federal power have been a matter of expediency rather than principle. With Trump, they gave up federalism without a peep: www.nytimes.com/2025/02/07/u...

nytimes.com

Trump’s Power Grab Defies G.O.P. Orthodoxy on Local Control

New York City traffic. California water rules. Middle school sports. Few local policies are outside the reach of Donald J. Trump’s federal government.

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Paul Starr @starrprospect.bsky.social · 07/02/2025

Day by day, Trump is clarifying things for the many voters in 2024 who refused to take seriously his announced intentions. The opposition will grow. prospect.org/politics/202...

prospect.org

2024’s Foreseeable Unforeseens

What many refused to see in the last election becomes clearer day by day.

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Paul Starr @starrprospect.bsky.social · 02/02/2025

I see headlines like this—“Tariffs will shut down North American auto production within a week, industry warns”—and wonder, just how does the political payoff from Trump’s tariffs work?

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Paul Starr @starrprospect.bsky.social · 02/02/2025

Amid all the bleak assessments, read Ezra Klein’s counterintuitive analysis: “Trump is acting like a king because he is too weak to govern like a president. … He is trying to overwhelm you … to persuade you of something that isn’t true. Don’t believe him.” www.nytimes.com/2025/02/02/o...

nytimes.com

Opinion | Don’t Believe Him

Look closely at the first two weeks of Donald Trump’s second term and you’ll see something very different than what he wants you to see.

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Paul Starr @starrprospect.bsky.social · 01/02/2025

Trump sending Venezuelans given temporary protected status back to Maduro’s Venezuela. Next? Cubans with TPS back to Cuba? Why didn’t Eisenhower and Kennedy think of that when Cubans were first fleeing to the US? www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

washingtonpost.com

Trump to send Venezuelans back to Maduro’s repressive state

An agreement with the government of Nicolás Maduro will allow the deportation of hundreds of thousands back to the authoritarian socialist regime many have fled.

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Paul Starr @starrprospect.bsky.social · 01/02/2025

While Trump’s assaults on the Constitution are the bigger problem, let’s not ignore his assaults on our intelligence. See David Brooks in the NY Times on the “six principles of stupidity.” And look who’s talking about the “dumbest trade war” ever. www.wsj.com/opinion/dona...

wsj.com

Opinion | The Dumbest Trade War in History

Trump will impose 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico for no good reason.

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Paul Starr @starrprospect.bsky.social · 01/02/2025

I have a slightly different take. Trump 1 wasn’t foiled by the deep state; he lacked clear ideas about policy and appointed people to top posts who found him to be unfit. Now he is using the fiction of the deep state to entrench a real right-wing deep state that Democrats will find hard to undo.

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Paul Starr @starrprospect.bsky.social · 01/02/2025

I don’t know why people think DEI began with “diversity, equity, and inclusion.” The original was “domination, exclusion, and inequality." That’s a much deeper tradition.

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Paul Starr @starrprospect.bsky.social · 31/01/2025

Top officials in professional agencies—the FBI director, the FAA director, now the Census director—need to stop resigning before their terms are over. Their resignations validate the idea that they’re political appointees. Make Trump fire you! And speak out! apnews.com/article/cens...

apnews.com

Robert Santos decides to resign as US Census Bureau director midway through a 5-year term

The director of the U.S. Census Bureau has decided to resign. Robert Santos was known for emphasizing inclusivity and outreach to overlooked communities.

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Paul Starr @starrprospect.bsky.social · 31/01/2025

Who’d have thought that higher immigration could boost growth? And that a country might have low energy prices because renewable power now generates 60 percent of its electricity? Check out what’s happening in Spain.

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Paul Starr @starrprospect.bsky.social · 31/01/2025

Yes, not so hard to learn the difference! But perhaps you didn’t grow up a child of privilege with a famous name and come to expect things to be given to you that you didn’t earn. And then try to compensate for your drug addiction and mediocrity by appealing to ignorance and playing on desperation.

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Paul Starr @starrprospect.bsky.social · 30/01/2025

I so hope Deborah Pearlstein is right about the courts, and I love her line that Trump’s order to kill birthright citizenship violates not just the 14th Amendment but “the foundational idea that citizens decide who should be a president, not the other way around.” www.nytimes.com/2025/01/30/o...

nytimes.com

Opinion | The Law Is Not Fully Trump’s Yet

The legal system is not so easily dismissed.

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Paul Starr @starrprospect.bsky.social · 30/01/2025

I look at Gaba’s “psychedelic donut" and, yeah, we shouldn’t be surprised that people find the US health care system incredibly confusing. But I still think the next secretary of HHS ought to know the basics of Medicare and Medicaid.

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Paul Starr @starrprospect.bsky.social · 30/01/2025

When RFK Jr displayed his massive ignorance of Medicare & Medicaid at his confirmation hearings, he also revealed something else. He hadn’t even bothered to get briefed on the basic facts about America’s health programs. You think this child of privilege ever did his homework at school? or Harvard?

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Paul Starr @starrprospect.bsky.social · 30/01/2025

It does matter. Democrats need to take courage. And as Trump’s popularity falls, potential Republican defectors—I think especially of Republican House members from NY like Mike Lawler—have more to worry about if they back Trump on every issue and are thinking about running for statewide office.

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Paul Starr @starrprospect.bsky.social · 30/01/2025

One more point on Trump’s popularity. He starts out with a negative net approval (positive minus negative) of -1, according to Gallup. If his first term is any indication, that is as high as he will go in his second term. Per political scientist John Sides, he averaged -13 the first time around.

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Paul Starr @starrprospect.bsky.social · 30/01/2025

A little historical perspective on Trump’s current popularity: “his latest disapproval rating (48%) is three percentage points higher than in 2017, marking a new high for inaugural ratings.” Gallup news.gallup.com/poll/655955/...

news.gallup.com

Trump's Inaugural Approval Rating Is Historically Low Again

Trump's initial job approval rating is similar to what it was at the start of his first term, reaffirming his position as the lowest-rated new president since 1953.

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Paul Starr @starrprospect.bsky.social · 29/01/2025

Trump’s violations of law are coming so fast that this story reported by Harold Meyerson is not getting the attention it deserves: prospect.org/blogs-and-ne...

prospect.org

Trump’s Lawbreaking Also Aimed at Workers

Today on TAP: Neutering the NLRB and targeting janitors, even as his billionaire backers stomp on workers’ rights

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Paul Starr @starrprospect.bsky.social · 20/01/2025

The call for territorial expansion in Trump II is a big shift. We force Panama to give up the canal, Denmark to give up Greenland. And if we can do that, Russia can take Ukraine, China can take Taiwan. The strong do what they can, the weak suffer what they must. That’s our glorious new golden age.

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Paul Starr @starrprospect.bsky.social · 20/01/2025

What a terrific piece by Chrystia Freeland about what ought to be the basis of US-Canadian relations. Once sat next to her at a dinner when she was a journalist, before entering politics. She’d make a great PM, don’t you think? www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/202...

washingtonpost.com

Opinion | America, don’t doubt Canada’s resolve

Our relationship has always been neighborly and mutually beneficial. So why are you threatening us?

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Paul Starr @starrprospect.bsky.social · 19/01/2025

Liza Gotein’s analysis of presidential emergency powers and Trump’s #deportation plans is an indispensable reference for what’s coming. Main takeaway: don’t count on the courts. (And be careful about resistance: Trump wants a fight in Democratic cities.) www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

theatlantic.com

Emergency Powers Are About to Be Tested

Trump’s potential use of extraordinary authorities may be the first signal of how he intends to govern the second time around.

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Paul Starr @starrprospect.bsky.social · 16/01/2025

The Associated Press has a story about the research Christina Pao and I published last month on how a U.S. Census algorithm has distorted racial data since 2020. It’s going to take a while for people to figure out that this is a pretty serious problem. apnews.com/article/2020...

apnews.com

Multiracial boom in 2020 census was mostly an illusion, researchers say

When 2020 census results were released more than three years ago, they showed a 276% boom in the number of people classified as multiracial in the United States since 2010.

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Paul Starr @starrprospect.bsky.social · 16/01/2025

And I don’t want to have to say “fuckin” to make a point.

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Paul Starr @starrprospect.bsky.social · 16/01/2025

Thank you, Jesse Wegman and Lee Drutman. Yes, let’s start talking about proportional representation, but if PR is ever going to happen here, it will have to happen first in a state. And it will probably be easier to move to a hybrid system, personal PR (like New Zealand).

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Paul Starr @starrprospect.bsky.social · 15/01/2025

Are policies to be counted a success only when a party wins the next election? Was Medicare a failure after being enacted in 1965 because Democrats lost in 1968? Many policies with long-run benefits take time to prove themselves—and win elections.

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Paul Starr @starrprospect.bsky.social · 12/01/2025

So now we’re supposed to believe that Trump’s cabinet appointees are just opportunists instead of true believers: www.axios.com/2025/01/12/t...

axios.com

Trump's Cabinet disruptors soften key views as hearings loom

Blockbuster confirmation hearings will begin next week.

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Paul Starr @starrprospect.bsky.social · 09/01/2025

California and Florida both face home insurance crises—one by fire, one by rain, in states where it always seemed the sunny days would never end. And we know which state will get Trump’s sympathy and support.

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Paul Starr @starrprospect.bsky.social · 08/01/2025

Jon Chait, can’t we at least, for a little while, enjoy the thought of Canada’s voters being added to the U.S. electorate and tipping American politics to the left? www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc...

theatlantic.com

The Political Logic of Trump’s International Threats

Renaming the Gulf of Mexico is a lot simpler than building the wall.

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Paul Starr @starrprospect.bsky.social · 07/01/2025

Trump says he’s going to turn the economy around on January 20. Since the economy is doing well now, that might worry people. Trump himself is a massive storm on the horizon.

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Paul Starr @starrprospect.bsky.social · 07/01/2025

When Generals Mark Milley and John Kelly called Trump a fascist last year, you might have pointed out that Trump hadn’t threatened aggression against other countries. Forget that objection. Now he’s got the Panama Canal, Canada, and Greenland in his sights.

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Paul Starr @starrprospect.bsky.social · 24/12/2024

Why doesn’t Trump just use the German word, Lebensraum?

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