iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Thomas Zeitzoff @zeitzoff.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

I wrote a new piece: "Why Do Americans Hate AI?" zeitzoff.substack.com/p/why-do-ame...

Picture of tech CEOS at the September 2026 AI summit and their net worth.

Sex and the City Carrie Meme: "I'd automated everything but affection. And I couldn't but wonder: why don't they love us?"

Thomas Zeitzoff @zeitzoff.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Got great feedback at @belfercenter.bsky.social yesterday for a new project on how people think about the political future. 2 highlights from the survey data:* 1) Ds, Rs, & independents are all worried about AI 2) Strong support for reining in Big Tech/AI *Forthright/Bovitz, N=1,405, Aug-Sep 2026

Title slide: "The Coming Storm: Do Future Threats Lead to Support Illiberal Policies?"

Plot showing that among Americans, AI (along with economic collapse, and political violence) is seen as a top-threat.

Horizontal bar chart of support for seven technology policies. Three restriction policies, in blue, poll highest: legal limits on AI job replacement at 79%, breaking up big tech at 61%, and banning AI smarter than humans at 60%. Four acceleration policies, in gold, poll far lower: government manipulating weather at 32%, genetic engineering at 23%, hospitals using AI over doctors at 23%, and government fast-tracking new technology at 19%. Americans are much more willing to restrain technology than to deploy more of it.

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Thomas Zeitzoff @zeitzoff.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Also here's a plug for my conditionally accepted @ajpseditor.bsky.social paper with @janzilinsky.bsky.social "Artificial Intelligence, Social Media, and the Politics of Anti-Technology." osf.io/preprints/so...

Artificial Intelligence, Social Media, and the
Politics of Anti-Technology
Jan Zilinsky
T
echnical
U
niversity of
M
unich
I
nstitute of
E
xperimental
P
sychology at the
S
lovak
A
cademy of
S
ciences
Thomas Zeitzoff
A
merican
U
niversity
Abstract
The growth of new digital technology, in particular new forms of communication and ar-
tificial intelligence, has raised questions about technology’s role in society. Critics argue that
it has increased hate speech, polarized the electorate, reduced deliberation, and coarsened
the discourse. Others have emphasized the democratizing potential of tools facilitating col-
lective action and enabling broader exchange of ideas. To better understand citizens’ general
orientation towards technology, we develop a new anti-technology scale and test it on two
diverse samples of Americans. Our scale measures three distinct areas of anti-technology
attitudes: 1) attitudes towards social media, 2) attitudes towards artificial intelligence, and 3)
concerns about modernity. We show that these areas form a general latent anti-technology
orientation. We then show that this general anti-tech orientation predicts attitudes towards
technology policies and support for contentious actions against tech companies. Finally, we
use a pairwise comparison experiment to understand which pro- and anti-AI arguments are
most persuasive.

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Thomas Zeitzoff @zeitzoff.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Why are Americans more skeptical of AI than those in other countries? I don't think there's a uniquely Americans strain of technophobia. My sense is that many Americans have a rational fear/loathing of the people (CEOs) who will benefit $$ in an AI future.

2025 Pew survey on rise of AI in daily life...U.S. is most concerned country https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2025/10/15/how-people-around-the-world-view-ai/

Stanford AI Index Report on Opinions about AI across countries. https://hai.stanford.edu/ai-index/2026-ai-index-report/public-opinion

NYT: Steve Bannon and Bernie Sanders Condemn Tech ‘Oligarchs’ and Demand A.I. Reforms

At an event in Washington, partisanship took a back seat as elected officials, religious leaders, parents and artists called for reining in artificial intelligence. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/15/us/steve-bannon-bernie-sanders-ai.html

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Thomas Zeitzoff @zeitzoff.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

L’shana tova. Wishing for a more peaceful new year.

Round challah, apples, honey, candles and shofar.

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Thomas Zeitzoff @zeitzoff.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

U.S. chasing shadows out there 😬 🇺🇸⚽️

U.S. vs. Belgium first half https://www.fotmob.com/matches/usa-vs-belgium/1urw5j#4653845:tab=stats

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Thomas Zeitzoff @zeitzoff.bsky.social · 04/07/2026

For xG merchants out there, Canada will feel hard done by the score line.

Canada xG=0.86 to MoroccoxG=0.77

https://www.fotmob.com/matches/canada-vs-morocco/17e1pm#4653843

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Thomas Zeitzoff @zeitzoff.bsky.social · 02/07/2026

It's brutally hot in DC. So I wrote about how politicians, including many Democratic ones, are misreading voters and downplaying the public's appetite for action on climate change. zeitzoff.substack.com/p/let-us-coo...

Al Jazeera map Heat dome to scorch U.S. cities this week.

CNN on drinking water https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/25/health/summer-heat-water-hydration-exercise-wellness

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Thomas Zeitzoff @zeitzoff.bsky.social · 02/07/2026

Trust the process and trust the lemons! 🍋⚽️🇺🇸

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Thomas Zeitzoff @zeitzoff.bsky.social · 01/07/2026

No, but I believe 🍋 🇺🇸 ⚽️

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Thomas Zeitzoff @zeitzoff.bsky.social · 30/06/2026

Soccer is a high-variance sport 🤪

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Thomas Zeitzoff @zeitzoff.bsky.social · 24/06/2026

We got FIFA World Cup 2026 pint glasses as a gift and after 1 wash the paint is cracking and peeling. Right on brand.

FIFA 2026 cup pint glass that is suppose to say “We are 26”

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Thomas Zeitzoff @zeitzoff.bsky.social · 23/06/2026

Just got my copy of “Fires in the Night: The Earth Liberation Front, the FBI, and a Secret History of Eco-Sabotage” by @matthew-wolfe.bsky.social. Highly recommend it! www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/725669...

Book cover of “Fires in the Night” with picture of the 1998 Vail ski lodge fire.

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Thomas Zeitzoff @zeitzoff.bsky.social · 23/06/2026

Left-wing defendants who the U.S. government accused of being part of an “antifa cell” were just sentenced to between 30 and 100 years in stemming from actions at the July 4, 2025 protest at the Prairieland ICE detention center. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

Texas anti-ICE protesters convicted of terrorism charges sentenced to at least 50 years in prison
Activists accused of being part of antifa face harsh sentences in case seen as test of Trump’s crackdown on dissent

“Most often, judges will sentence defendants for separate counts concurrently. Here, it appears that the judge stacked the sentences for each count consecutively. I would have expected lengthy sentences here, more in the ballpark at 15 to 25 years, but nothing like 50 to 100 years,” she wrote in an email.

The punishment for the protesters exceeds the lengthiest prison sentences given out for the attack on the Capitol on January 6. Enrique Tarrio, the leader of the Proud Boys who was convicted of seditious conspiracy, was sentenced to 22 years in prison. Stewart Rhodes, the leader of the far-right group the Oath Keepers, was sentenced to 18 years in prison.

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Thomas Zeitzoff @zeitzoff.bsky.social · 19/06/2026

Pochettino’s leisure suits and 🍋 got me believing

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Thomas Zeitzoff @zeitzoff.bsky.social · 19/06/2026

USMNT starting lineup vs. Australia. -Pepi in 🚂 -Pulisic isn’t available at all Let’s go! 🇺🇸⚽️

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Thomas Zeitzoff @zeitzoff.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

Instead the op-ed is meant to boost their forthcoming book that extols the benefits of return-to-office policies, and is clearly pitched at management. It’s not hard to see how this book will be used, and that’s why claims like “brain-to-brain synchrony ⬆️ 10x” should be treated with skepticism.

Cover of Natalia Emmanuel and Emma Harrington: “In Person: How Working Together Fuels Creativity, Productivity, and Growth.” https://www.amazon.com/Person-Working-Together-Creativity-Productivity-ebook/dp/B0GN6DKXMS?th=1&psc=1

Cover copy: Remote work is good for crossing tasks off a to-do list, but it erodes the quality of our work, stifles creativity, and hurts mental health. When we're together, our brain-to-brain synchrony increases 10x, accelerating creativity, mentorship, and innovation. That’s why Pixar animators, Nobel Prize winners, and Silicon Valley founders have come up with their best ideas face-to-face with one another.

Working side-by-side can be a powerful force to supercharge company performance. But many office policies miss this mark, focusing on butts in seats, instead of brains in sync. Emanuel and Harrington offer solutions on how to craft the right policy. Backed with the latest research on the science of work, In Person offers tactical steps to make the most of in-office time, covering:

How to calculate the right number of on-site days for your specific organization
The playbook for preserving employee flexibility without losing the power of being together
Why some RTO mandates fail spectacularly–and how to succeed

After years of confusion, animosity, and conflicting mandates, In Person finally delivers the answers in a clear, evidence-based roadmap for making smarter decisions with your most valuable resource: your people.

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Thomas Zeitzoff @zeitzoff.bsky.social · 13/06/2026

Gio Reyna trending. This is the good timeline, the fun timeline ⚽️😎🇺🇸

Gio Reyna and The Killers BlueSky trending topics.

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Thomas Zeitzoff @zeitzoff.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

Ever since I was a 5-year-old running up and down the field, I've loved soccer. To mark the start of the World Cup tomorrow, I put together a list of 5 of my favorite pieces of social science on how the beautiful game shapes politics and violence. zeitzoff.substack.com/p/peace-viol...

My post. Peace, Violence, and the Beautiful Game
How soccer shapes nationalism, prejudice, and conflict—my 5 favorite studies. Images: Left: April 2022. Ukrainian Fans light flares in Legia Warsaw’s stadium where Dynamo Kyiv begin their ‘match for peace’ series following the 2022 Russian invasion. Photograph: Kacper Pempel/Reuters. Right: FIFA World Cup trophy.

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Thomas Zeitzoff @zeitzoff.bsky.social · 04/06/2026

Watched "2001 A Space Odyssey" (4K Ultra HD), and my mind was blown. Visuals are still amazing, the story is eerie and prescient, and the ending is wild.*

Monolith from 2001 interacting proto-humans

Dr. David Bowman 2001 in red space suit and red light Space Odyssey

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Thomas Zeitzoff @zeitzoff.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

But attitudes towards tech and AI are malleable. In a pairwise experiment, anti-AI arguments edged out pro-AI ones on average. Yet the single most persuasive argument was pro-AI: "AI can speed up medical research." How we frame tech shapes the backlash.

Figure 10: A sample screenshot displaying the structure of the argument evaluation task

Figure 11: Raw performance (win rate) of arguments.

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Thomas Zeitzoff @zeitzoff.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

We also find that anti-tech attitudes predict more than support for "breaking up Big Tech." We ran a vignette about a firebomb attack on a tech CEO's house. 49% agreed with the attacker's grievance; 21% backed the act itself. Anti-tech sentiment strongly tracked sympathy for the justification.

Scenario: A man threw a firebomb into the empty house of a powerful billionaire CEO
of a social media technology company. When asked why he did it, the man said, "Somebody had to do something. These tech CEOs knew that their social media apps divide our country, and hurt our children. They don't care. They just want to make money." Figure 9: Predicting anti-tech extremism: Marginal effects calculated from two logistic regressions (Lucid dataset).

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Thomas Zeitzoff @zeitzoff.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

Across two national samples, worries about social media, AI, and modernity load on a single anti-technology factor (alpha=.85). Who is the most anti-technology? Conspiracy thinking is the strongest correlate by far, stronger than loneliness or partisanship.

Factor loading scores for Anti-technology items (Factor 1 is the anti-tech orientation).

Figure 3: Bivariate relationships between anti-technology attitudes and their possible correlates. With conspiracism having the strongest positive relationship.

Figure 4: Distribution of anti-tech factor scores by conspiracism, loneliness, and ideology (YouGov dataset), and one variable from Lucid respondents (the need for chaos).

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Thomas Zeitzoff @zeitzoff.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

Excited to share my new paper w/ @janzilinsky.bsky.social that's conditionally accepted at @ajpseditor.bsky.social 🎉 Is there a general "anti-technology" orientation among Americans? We built a scale and found that worries about social media, AI, and modernity do form a coherent disposition.

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Thomas Zeitzoff @zeitzoff.bsky.social · 17/05/2026

Spending time hiking in Oregon and Northern California and it really makes me appreciate: 1) The US has amazing natural beauty. 2) Public lands are a vital part of our democracy. 3) Both are worth fighting for.

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Thomas Zeitzoff @zeitzoff.bsky.social · 08/05/2026

Why the idea that AI will make higher education obsolete is a terrible take. And why universities, despite their flaws, are still special places worth defending. New on my Substack. zeitzoff.substack.com/p/shaping-mi...

Top, picture of Al Pacino from the Godfather III saying: “ just when I thought I was out, they pulled me back in!” Bottom left a picture of a robot, bottom right picture of a diploma and cap.

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Thomas Zeitzoff @zeitzoff.bsky.social · 01/05/2026

What we got wrong about social media, we're getting wrong about AI. I argue that the most consequential thing about new technology is who gets rich from it. New on my Substack. zeitzoff.substack.com/p/liberation...

Left, graffiti on a wall that says the revolution will be tweeted, right a picture of a tech CEO, holding strings of voters and the ballot box.

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Thomas Zeitzoff @zeitzoff.bsky.social · 28/04/2026

When Michael Lewis wrote "Liars Poker" it was supposed to be a cautionary tale of 1980's Wall Street excess. Instead, young MBA's read it as a blueprint. Now it's tech CEOs and sci fi: they've taken the stories at face value rather than as cautious allegories.

From CNBC article "Michael Lewis, three decades after ‘Liar’s Poker,’ says Wall Street is worse in some ways
Published Tue, Feb 8 20229:55 AM EST

Yun Li" “Liar’s Poker” took the world by storm, but it did have some unintended consequences. Lewis had thought, if anything, the book would discourage the money-minded college generation from working on Wall Street, but it did the opposite. It accidentally served as a career blueprint for business majors and a moral guide of the big money machine.

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/08/michael-lewis-three-decades-after-liars-poker-says-wall-street-is-worse-in-some-ways.html

Sam Freedman The Guardian: The big idea: will sci-fi end up destroying the world?

Skewed interpretations of classic works are feeding the dark visions of tech moguls, from Musk to Thiel

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/apr/14/the-big-idea-will-sci-fi-end-up-destroying-the-world

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Thomas Zeitzoff @zeitzoff.bsky.social · 26/04/2026

When they say the opposition needs to “turn down the temperature” of political rhetoric, I think of 3 core findings from my book Nasty Politics: 1) Trump’s arrival sharply ↑ nasty rhetoric in U.S. politics 2) He used much nastier rhetoric than others 3) He was the rhetorical ringleader of January 6

Dataset of political stories from NYTimes 1851-2019. Shaded vertical regions are red vertical spikes during the U.S. Civil War (1861-1865) and election of Trump in 2016.

Dataset showing that Trump was responsible for more than 1/3 of nasty incidents in my dataset of nasty politics instigators (532 incidents, compared to Pelosi, the next highest who only had 64).

Result of VAR regression show that Trump rhetoric influenced Republican Objector's in the lead up the January 6th, but not vice versa. Results are cumulative impulse response function (IRF) plots from a 3-lag vector autoregression (VAR) following a shock standard deviation of the disturbance term. The Republican Objectors’ time series is the average of the 8 Objectors’ time series that have been standardized. Both the Trump and Republican time series had their minimum values set at 1 and log transformed so the IRF results can be interpreted in percentage terms. Grey regions represent 68% confidence intervals that show the overall shape of the IRF, and dashed lines represent 95% confidence intervals (Sims and Zha 1999).

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Thomas Zeitzoff @zeitzoff.bsky.social · 21/04/2026

Anti-Elon stickers on Teslas. A Molotov cocktail at Sam Altman's house. Gunshots at an Indianapolis councilman's home over a data center vote. In my latest Substack, I argue the future of radical environmentalism likely runs through the anti-tech movement. zeitzoff.substack.com/p/earth-day-...

Top: anti-Elon stickers. Bottom left: Sam Altman. Bottom right: Security camera footage of Molotov cocktail being thrown at Altman's house.

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Thomas Zeitzoff @zeitzoff.bsky.social · 10/04/2026

In my new Substack post I talk about the history and pitfalls of the psychological approach to leader behavior. But also why we need it more than ever now. zeitzoff.substack.com/p/the-return...

Substack Post: The Return of the "Great Man" Unfortunately

From Le Monde (https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2026/04/08/the-president-of-the-united-states-is-clearly-insane-donald-trump-s-escalatory-rhetoric-raises-questions-over-his-mental-health_6752200_4.html) with Picture of Trump:

'The US president is clearly insane': Trump's escalatory rhetoric raises questions over his mental health
Members of Congress, stunned by the crude and genocidal language used by the president, have begun to discuss the US Constitution's 25th Amendment, which allows for the president to be declared unfit and for executive powers to be transferred to the vice president."

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Thomas Zeitzoff @zeitzoff.bsky.social · 10/04/2026

Psychoanalysis of leaders has been rightfully criticized. But when one man's psychology is so drastically reshaping global politics, we can't just pretend it doesn't matter. New on my Substack: "The Return of the 'Great Man' (Unfortunately)" zeitzoff.substack.com/p/the-return...

Pictures: Thomas Carlyle (left), Psychotherapy couch (center), Donald Trump (right).

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Thomas Zeitzoff @zeitzoff.bsky.social · 07/04/2026

Just got my copy of colleague, @triciabacon.bsky.social ’s fantastic new book: The Counterinsurgency Dilemma: Foreign Fighter Influence on Insurgencies in Afghanistan and Somalia www.sup.org/books/politi...

Cover of: The Counterinsurgency Dilemma
Foreign Fighter Influence on Insurgencies in Afghanistan and Somalia
By Tricia L. Bacon

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Thomas Zeitzoff @zeitzoff.bsky.social · 07/04/2026

Trump’s unhinged threats against Iran look like Madman Theory bargaining (I hope…). But as McManus (2019) shows, this approach is full of problems. And say what you will about Nixon, he was a better negotiator who financed his first congressional campaign with poker winnings.

Revisiting the Madman Theory: Evaluating the Impact of Different Forms of Perceived Madness in Coercive Bargaining
Roseanne W. McManus See https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09636412.2019.1662482?__cf_chl_tk=LsK0KUltkEwZJ26gTJ_vh9dKUd.EBHhDvO1Erx6GGNc-1775568861-1.0.1.1-5VGS_Kfs265eB9RJFd587qIcTTdOABSVy3wTb2F3H.s

ABSTRACT This article reconsiders the theoretical logic behind the “Madman Theory”—the argument that it can be beneficial in coercive bargaining to be viewed as mad, or insane. I theorize about how we can best define perceived madness in a way that is relevant for analyzing coercive bargaining. I identify four types of perceived madness, broken down along two dimensions. The first dimension is whether a leader is perceived to (a) make rational calculations, but based on extreme preferences, or (b) actually deviate from rational consequence-based decision making. The second dimension is whether a leader’s madness is perceived to be (a) situational or (b) dispositional. I argue that situational extreme preferences constitute the type of perceived madness that is most helpful in coercive bargaining. I illustrate my argument using case studies of Adolf Hitler, Nikita Khrushchev, Saddam Hussein, and Muammar Gaddafi.

How Nixon’s WWII Poker Game Helped Bankroll His First Run for Congress
While the future president saw plenty of action in the Solomon Islands, at one station Nixon found time to master poker—and rake in winnings.

Patrick J. Kiger https://www.history.com/articles/richard-nixon-campaign-funds-wwii-poker

Madman theory
The madman theory is a political theory commonly associated with the foreign policy of U.S. president Richard Nixon and his administration, who tried to make the leaders of hostile communist bloc countries think Nixon was irrational and volatile so that they would avoid provoking the U.S. in fear of an unpredictable response.[1]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madman_theory

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Thomas Zeitzoff @zeitzoff.bsky.social · 27/03/2026

Raw milk, MAHA, and the deep environmental roots of the Great Replacement Theory. In my Substack post today I explore why there's no right-wing climate movement, and if and when that might change. zeitzoff.substack.com/p/why-there-...

Top left: picture of raw milk, top right: RFK Jr. Bottom left: The Passing of the Great Race (cover of book by Madison Grant), bottom right: Picture of Madison Grant.

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Thomas Zeitzoff @zeitzoff.bsky.social · 22/03/2026

Just saw Project Hail Mary. Great for kids, and Gosling is so good doing movie star things—highly recommend!

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Thomas Zeitzoff @zeitzoff.bsky.social · 20/03/2026

Elite alienation is the problem. Always has been. More on my Substack: zeitzoff.substack.com/p/why-politi...

Two astronaut meme. First astronaut: "It wasn't social media?" Second astronaut: "It was alienated elites, always has been."

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Thomas Zeitzoff @zeitzoff.bsky.social · 16/03/2026

And there's a darker legacy. Figures like John Tanton took population concerns and fused them with nativism. "Too many people" became "too many of the wrong people." Ehrlich himself sat on the board of FAIR until 2003. Anti-immigration activists capitalized on anxiety about overpopulation.

Environment
The Ghosts of John Tanton
by Abrahm Lustgarten
October 19, 2024, 5:00 am https://www.propublica.org/article/john-tanton-far-right-extremism-environmentalism-climate-change

Pro-publica highlights Reporting Highlights

Tanton’s Network: Today’s contentious immigration debate is the construct of one man’s effort to halt overpopulation, brace for climate change and preserve “European” culture.
Green Hate: Now climate change is amplifying environmental concerns that have always run through the white supremacy and the anti-immigration movements.
Eco-Fascism: Experts warn that extremists who seize on global warming to justify violence are part of a far right trend to reclaim environmentalism as their own.

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Thomas Zeitzoff @zeitzoff.bsky.social · 16/03/2026

But population politics also helped split the movement. Debates over overpopulation drove a wedge between social ecology (Murray Bookchin) and deep ecology (Dave Foreman, Earth First!). It was one of the most consequential fractures in radical environmentalism.

Murray Bookchin and Dave Foreman
Defending the Earth: A Debate

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/murray-bookchin-and-dave-foreman-defending-the-earth-a-debate

Foreword: Turning Debate Into Dialogue
by David Levine, Founder and Director, The Learning Alliance

Introduction: Whither the Radical Ecology Movement?
by Steve Chase

Part I: The Dialogue — Winter 1989

Chapter 1: Looking for Common Ground

Chapter 2: Ecology and the Left

Chapter 3: Radical Visions and Strategies

Chapter 4: Racism and the Future of the Movement

Part II: Closing Essays — One Year Later

Chapter 5: Second Thoughts of an Eco-Warrior
by Dave Foreman

Chapter 6: Where I Stand Now
by Murray Bookchin

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Thomas Zeitzoff @zeitzoff.bsky.social · 16/03/2026

Ehrlich helped create the intellectual foundation for radical environmentalism. The idea that overpopulation was an existential threat gave was a core founding belief of groups like Earth First! If the planet was running out of time and wilderness, working within the system wasn't enough.

Earth First Statement of Principles from Dave Foreman https://www.environmentandsociety.org/mml/earth-first-statement-principles-and-membership-brochure-memo#:~:text=The%20Earth%20First%20Statement%20of%20Principles%20was,Imperialism%20*%20Pollution%20*%20Natural%20area%20destruction

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Thomas Zeitzoff @zeitzoff.bsky.social · 16/03/2026

Paul Ehrlich has died. His 1968 book,The Population Bomb, is mostly remembered for predictions that didn't pan out. But its influence on the radical environmental movement is underappreciated. A thread on Ehrlich's complicated legacy from my interviews with current and former eco-activists.

Paul R. Ehrlich, Who Alarmed the World With ‘The Population Bomb,’ Dies at 93

His best-selling 1968 book, which forecast global famines, made him a leader of the environmental movement. But he faced criticism when his predictions proved premature.

Keith Schneider https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/15/books/paul-r-ehrlich-dead.html

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Thomas Zeitzoff @zeitzoff.bsky.social · 14/03/2026

Yesterday a federal jury convicted 9 anti-ICE protesters on terrorism charges — the first domestic terror prosecution targeting alleged ‘antifa’ under Trump. This is exactly what I wrote about this week: how the terrorism label is used as a tool for repression zeitzoff.substack.com/p/what-happe...

Sam Levine, The Guardian “Anti-ICE protesters accused of being part of antifa found guilty of support for terrorism in Texas
Case was seen as major test of the first amendment and whether the US could use broad anti-terrorism statute to prosecute leftwing protesters” https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/mar/13/texas-terrorism-trial

The nine defendants were convicted on all of the charges they faced, with limited exceptions. Of the five charged with attempted murder and firearms charges, Evetts, Hill, Morris and Rueda were acquitted.. Song was acquitted on two charges of attempted murder and convicted on one. He was also convicted of the firearms charges.

Song faces a minimum of 20 years and a maximum of life in prison, according to the US attorney for the northern district of Texas. Arnold, Evetts, Morris, Rueda, Batten, Elizabeth Soto and Ines Soto each face between 10 and 60 years in prison. Sanchez Estrada faces up to 40 years.

Substack post: what happens when active us are labeled “terrorist”

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Thomas Zeitzoff @zeitzoff.bsky.social · 13/03/2026

In smaller font, sitting below the headlines and major news @nytimes.com. It's emblematic of the fact that the Trump war on climate science and gutting of environmental policy isn't getting as much coverage.

"EPA Moves to Weaken Limits on Cancer-Causing Gas." https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/13/climate/epa-ethylene-oxide-cancer.html "White Readies Plant to dismantle Renowned Science Lab." https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/13/climate/ncar-breakup-plan-nasa-noaa.html

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Thomas Zeitzoff @zeitzoff.bsky.social · 12/03/2026

New on my Substack: What happens when the government labels activists 'terrorists'? I've been interviewing environmental activists about this for years for my book. And it's happening again. zeitzoff.substack.com/p/what-happe...

Head for what happens when activist are labeled terrorist.

Document is from The 2002 Congressional hearing on 'eco-terrorism' that launched the Green Scare

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Thomas Zeitzoff @zeitzoff.bsky.social · 06/03/2026

The co-owner, Leslie Pickering, was one of the spokespeople for the Earth Liberation Front and has been involved in social movements (burningbooks.com/blogs/news/1... ). He also has written his own book on the ELF. See www.pmpress.org/index.php?l=...

Bookstore owners turn tables, question why they were targets of FBI probe - The Buffalo News, 03/18/2016

Earth Liberation Front 1997-2002 (e-Book) https://burningbooks.com/blogs/news/116071299-bookstore-owners-turn-tables-question-why-they-were-targey-of-fbi-probe-the-buffalo-news-03-18-2016?srsltid=AfmBOoqZM0-bI_zauPQtXhxdeUZK_wRyAIbPXpf6fUPCUiOO3T34Mpm0

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Thomas Zeitzoff @zeitzoff.bsky.social · 04/03/2026

Really enjoyed talking activism, democracy, climate change, and my book No Option But Sabotage today at @ucddublin.bsky.social

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Thomas Zeitzoff @zeitzoff.bsky.social · 02/03/2026

And even current activists are now leery of sabotage

Survey data comparing Activists, U.S. general population, and U.S. youth acceptability of Tree Sitting, Demonstrating at CEO's Homes, Leaking Emails, Occupying Buildings, Vandalizing Websites, Damaging Pipelines, and Vandalizing SUVs. Overall, we see that Activists are more supportive of all tactics, but when looking at more extreme tactics like Damaging Pipelines or Vandalizing SUVs the gap between activists and the general public is much smaller.

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Thomas Zeitzoff @zeitzoff.bsky.social · 02/03/2026

Using new data on 1,300+ eco direct actions (1995–2022), surveys, and interviews (N=97) I find: -Repression did two things: 1) Targeted activists willing to use high-risk tactics 2) Disrupted punk/animal rights networks, replacing them w/ climate activists who favor civil disobedience

Yearly counts of eco direct actions (pink region is the Operation Backfire). No the large drop off during this persiod

Diaggregated data on eco direct actions. Shows that vandalism and sabotage, and arson drop during Operation Backfire, while civil disobedience increases.

Pathway into the movent, show that past wave activists were more likely to come from animal right and the punk the punk scene.

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