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Thomas Zeitzoff @zeitzoff.bsky.social · 22h

That’s a fair point. I see social media as downstream of these other effects (elite behavior and wealth concentration). And may amplify these things (giving a bigger megaphone), but it’s not the primary cause.

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Thomas Zeitzoff @zeitzoff.bsky.social · 23h

Exactly this ^ 💯

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Tom Pepinsky @tompepinsky.com · 23h

One piece of evidence in favor of Thomas’s argument is that every single other populist movement in human history emerged without social media

Thomas Zeitzoff @zeitzoff.bsky.social · 23h

I think there’s a comfort in blaming our current politics on social media.

When I think a boring but more accurate story is that plutocratic tech elites and right-wingers *made a lot of choices*.

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/14/o...

Edsall from NYT: “ The rise of the smartphone and the fall of western democracy”

In an Oct. 2 essay posted in Persuasion, “It’s the Internet, Stupid: What Caused the Global Populist Wave? Blame the Screens,” Fukuyama, after nearly a decade of examining the causes of rising global populism, wrote, “I have come to conclude that technology broadly and the internet in particular stand out as the most salient explanations for why global populism has arisen in this particular historical period, and why it has taken the particular form that it has.”

The advent of the internet, Fukuyama continued,

can explain both the timing of the rise of populism, as well as the curious conspiratorial character that it has taken. In today’s politics, the red and blue sides of America’s polarization contest not just values and policies, but factual information like who won the 2020 election or whether vaccines are safe.

The two sides inhabit completely different information spaces; both can believe that they are involved in an existential struggle for American democracy because they begin with different factual premises as to the nature of the threats to that order.

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Thomas Zeitzoff @zeitzoff.bsky.social · 23h

I think there’s a comfort in blaming our current politics on social media.

When I think a boring but more accurate story is that plutocratic tech elites and right-wingers *made a lot of choices*.

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/14/o...

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Darin Self @darinself.com · 2d

I am curious what would happen if Dems ran on a plank of creating an anti-corruption agency with stronger independence than the Fed.

I think it would be highly successful because it would show "we will tie our own hands on this".

Darin Self @darinself.com · 2d

One lesson for pro-democracy advocates currently sitting in opposition around the world -- hammer incumbents on corruption and link strengthening liberal democracy (aka accountability) to anti-corruption efforts.

Jay Rosen @jayrosen.bsky.social · 2d

This is what I pay the New York Times for: www.nytimes.com/2025/10/12/w...
[Gift link]

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Thomas Zeitzoff @zeitzoff.bsky.social · 5d

I’m a cautious optimist by nature.

As bleak as things sometimes feel, and as hard as coordination can be, success begets success. More people speak up, more people stand up for democratic values, and it becomes a virtuous cycle.

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Thomas Zeitzoff @zeitzoff.bsky.social · 5d

Coordination is hard. Broad-based, pro-democracy coalitions are really hard.

Yet, I’ve still been deeply disappointed by civil society—especially CEOs who’ve stayed silent even as their core business are threatened.

But I’ve also been encouraged by the boldness of some local and state leaders.

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Thomas Zeitzoff @zeitzoff.bsky.social · 5d

But that focus obscures the most important story right now: the growing willingness of the Trump administration to use state power (the DOJ, ICE, the National Guard, and even the military) to target and silence political opponents

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Thomas Zeitzoff @zeitzoff.bsky.social · 5d

There’s been a lot of talk about political violence, whether left is more violent than right, and whether we’re at the start of a wave of left-wing violence.

www.foreignaffairs.com/united-state...

America’s New Age of Political Violence

What happens when the threat comes from both left and right.

www.foreignaffairs.com

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Thomas Zeitzoff @zeitzoff.bsky.social · 5d

Some thoughts on where we are right now and the state of US democracy.

Trump is both deeply unpopular right now—and yet more politically powerful than during his first term, thanks to a pliant Congress and Supreme Court. That’s an uncertain, and dangerous, place to be.

Approval rating of Trump according to the Economist —he’s at -15%.

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Brendan Nyhan @brendannyhan.bsky.social · 8d

My new op-ed with @lkfazio.bsky.social:

Trump sent a 'compact' to our universities. They should reject this devil's bargain.
Any institution that yields to these broad and intrusive demands would forever be subservient to the whims of the government.
www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnb...

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Xu Xu @xuxupolitics.bsky.social · 9d

Why do authoritarian states charge political opponents with non-political crimes? In our @thejop.bsky.social paper with Jennifer Pan & @yiqingxu.bsky.social, we examine how *Disguised Repression* undermines opponents’ moral authority and mobilization capacity. doi.org/10.1086/7342...

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Meredith Conroy @meredithconroy.bsky.social · 11d

Democrats and Republicans distrust mass media for different reasons. For the GOP, hating the media is an in-group identity signal. The media is part of "the establishment," so they hate them.

Still, the dip in younger Dems trust in media is important to watch, too.

Brendan Nyhan @brendannyhan.bsky.social · 11d

Really striking data point from @gelliottmorris.com on Substack

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Brendan Nyhan @brendannyhan.bsky.social · 14d

🚨 New Bright Line Watch report on state of US democracy
brightlinewatch.org/violence-red...

-Expert ratings ~= since April but ↓ substantially since January
-US now most closely resembles an illiberal democracy
-Partisan gap in democracy ratings highest since 2017

Full thread of results below

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Risa Brooks @risabrooks12.bsky.social · 15d

It's easy to see this speech as just weirdly performative, but there's a lot more—and a lot worse—going on here.

The meeting & speeches are part of a larger project aimed at promoting the military leadership’s partisan alignment with the administration.

How? 1/

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 15d

Hegseth: "If the words I'm speaking today are making your heart sink, they you should do the honorable thing and resign."

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Adam Bonica @adambonica.bsky.social · 17d

Kept thinking about the debate between Klein and Coates and wrote down some thoughts.

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Brendan Nyhan @brendannyhan.bsky.social · 18d

No one outside the U.S. is confused and no one here would be confused if they saw this happening in another country.

Bill Kristol @billkristolbulwark.bsky.social · 18d

Hegseth fires general officers and JAGs, cracks down on dissenting views in military, orders killing civilians at sea without legal rationale, calls generals to Quantico to demand loyalty.

Trump deploys troops to U.S. cities.

"What are Trump and Hegseth up to? It's a mystery!"

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tim frye @timfrye.bsky.social · 18d

So many echoes from this article for US politics....

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Brendan Nyhan @brendannyhan.bsky.social · 19d

"for now, we’re stuck in a ratchet, where violent losers copy one another, and their deeds become an excuse to oppress the rest of us."

Michelle Goldberg @michellegoldberg.bsky.social · 19d

www.nytimes.com/2025/09/26/o...

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Thomas Zeitzoff @zeitzoff.bsky.social · 19d

Two things are true:

1. Trump has amassed extraordinary power in the presidency—thanks to a compliant Congress and a pro-executive Supreme Court.

2. Trump is increasingly unpopular.

These twin dynamics will define U.S. politics through the 2026 midterms.

Buckle up.

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Thomas Zeitzoff @zeitzoff.bsky.social · 22d

L’shanah tova!

🍎 🍯

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Thomas Zeitzoff @zeitzoff.bsky.social · 25d

Just awful

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PBS News @pbsnews.org · 26d

“What we’re seeing is an unprecedented attempt to silence disfavored speech by the government,” said Brendan Nyhan, a political scientist at Dartmouth College. “Donald Trump is trying to dictate what Americans can say.” https://to.pbs.org/46AYg7U

Trump's moves against media outlets mirror authoritarian approaches to silencing dissent

Since taking office in January, President Donald Trump has waged an aggressive campaign against the media unlike any in modern U.S. history, making moves similar to those of authoritarian leaders that...

to.pbs.org

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Thomas Zeitzoff @zeitzoff.bsky.social · 28d

Watching too—Redford, Akroyd, Phoenix, Strathairn, McDonnell, Kingsley, and Earl Jones. The cast is 🔥

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Thomas Zeitzoff @zeitzoff.bsky.social · 29d

Two things to add to this:

1) I am much more concerned with party elites and leaders encouraging and stoking violence than shifts in the public from vaguely worded questions.

2) These public shifts in support for violence are almost always downstream of elite rhetoric and narratives.

Brendan Nyhan @brendannyhan.bsky.social · 29d

These estimates of public support for violence (from www.nytimes.com/2025/09/16/o...) are inflated - *much* higher than what we and others have found using question wording that reduces acquiescence bias: brightlinewatch.org/accelerated-... The vast majority of Americans reject political violence.

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