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Mike Slaven

@mcslaven.bsky.social

2.3K followers 1.9K following 1.2K posts

Author of "Securing Borders, Securing Power" (Columbia UP, 2022) http://tinyurl.com/yeywvdaa Doing migration politics/policy research, currently @colmigproject.bsky.social. Political speechwriter of yore. Obscure academic in provincial England, AZ guy 🌵

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Mike Slaven @mcslaven.bsky.social · May 13

Does calling anti-immigrant policies racist work at opposing them? Much analysis (validly) says no, but I have a new 📖 article 📖 on why this was essential to changing immigration politics in Arizona 🌵. Sometimes the effective arguments aren't already popular! 1/ www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Saying racism: calling anti-immigration policies racist as effective pro-immigrant politics in Arizona

Identifying anti-immigration policies as racist commonly features in political discourse in many majority-white countries. Both behavioralist studies of voter attitudes and studies of party positio...

www.tandfonline.com

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Will Jennings 🗳️ @drjennings.bsky.social · 2h

Anyone writing about the influence of these thinkers really needs to provide detail on what they have actually written. Most of it is incoherent, lacking any substance and often downright weird.

Huw C. Davies @huwcdavies.bsky.social · 3h

Reading Thiel, Yarvin, Peterson et al. makes you realise what passes for intellectual iconoclasm these days is all absolute bollocks. Why anyone gives any of these people the time of day let alone credibility is baffling.

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Chris Towers is in Offseason Mode @cptowers.bsky.social · 5h

How it started: How it’s going:

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Mike Slaven @mcslaven.bsky.social · 3d

Yeah, still though I think it is interesting to see so many Republicans vaguely negative about aspects of the administration.

Mike Slaven @mcslaven.bsky.social · 3d

it can go higher

John Gramlich @johngramlich.bsky.social · 3d

42% of Republicans say Trump has improperly used his office to punish people who say things he doesn't like

40% say he's improperly encouraged federal investigations of his political opponents

31% say he's improperly used his office to enrich himself

www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/...

Dot plot showing partisan differences in Americans' views of how Donald Trump has governed since returning to the White House in January. The chart is based on a September 2025 Pew Research Center survey of U.S. adults.

Mike Slaven @mcslaven.bsky.social · 3d

Though the group chat got significantly more press coverage, I would actually rate it lower in severity than the president doing a version of the Saturday Night Massacre over social media

Mike Slaven @mcslaven.bsky.social · 3d

When it comes to unbelievably serious scandals these guys are always able to outdo themselves

Mike Slaven @mcslaven.bsky.social · 3d

Hey remember when the national security adviser copied the editor in chief of The Atlantic on the war plans group chat? That was this year

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☕️Research&Coffee☕️ @drjbw.bsky.social · 3d

After many years living in the area, my relationship with Chicago is a neutral one at best, but tonight, they are shining.

Regular people are out doing what our elected leaders refuse to do - uphold the Constitution.

Jacob Soboroff @jacobsoboroff.bsky.social · 3d

Michigan Avenue right now.

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mtsw @mtsw.bsky.social · 3d

Wray could've made sure Trump was locked up in early 2021 if he had wanted to. Not replacing him was a huge error by Biden and, as it turns out, for Wray too.

Quinta Jurecic @qjurecic.bsky.social · 3d

incredibly, bleakly funny that trump is going after christopher wray, who spent his entire tenure at the fbi with his head down desperately trying to avoid trump's attention and did nothing to protect the bureau from trump's attacks www.wsj.com/politics/pol...

Other prosecutors are investigating former CIA director John Brennan, another prominent Trump critic, and former FBI director Christopher Wray, who was originally appointed by Trump but enraged conservatives who came to believe he had wielded the bureau’s powers against them. Former officials have received subpoenas in recent days in the Wray inquiry, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter.

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Old White Nepo Hat @kenwhite.bsky.social · 4d

The White House Antifa Roundtable is one of the best displays I’ve seen of this-is-how-bad-it’s-gotten — just a sewer of open fascism, dementia, morons and freaks, and incoherent rage.

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Philip Bump @pbump.com · 4d

Once upon a time, the social media accounts of federal agencies weren't a stream of fascist, white nationalist garbage interlaced with whiny culture-war posts. Earlier this year, even!

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Joe Sudbay @joesudbay.bsky.social · 4d

It's obvious his aides, led by Miller, are feeding him this BS. It's elder abuse on some level. But he's also the President FFS

Media needs to stop pretending this isn't a massive scandal

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 4d

Trump on Portland: "It's like the movies you see for the kids, I guess not only the kids, adults also, where you have these bombed out cities and these bombed out people. It's like, worse than that."

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Ben Ansell @benansell.bsky.social · 4d

Spot on from @stephenkb.bsky.social. And the other aspect of this nasty turn is the eliding of British ‘culture’ with ‘white British’, which will shock anyone who has watched TV or football, or listened to music, or read a book, or indeed breathed since 1980.

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Mike Slaven @mcslaven.bsky.social · 4d

bsky.app/profile/sund...

Sunder Katwala (sundersays) @sundersays.bsky.social · 5d

Badenoch both defended Jenrick - for just making observations - but also said: “I don’t think this is where the debate should be, about how many faces people see on the street and what they look like.”
www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Mike Slaven @mcslaven.bsky.social · 5d

She's backing him up I think!

Mike Slaven @mcslaven.bsky.social · 5d

We're a long way from a Reform victory -- the election is almost 4 years away, and even at their current polling lead they would have a hard time reaching a majority government. But what they certainly can do is bury the Conservatives.

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Mike Slaven @mcslaven.bsky.social · 5d

he hasn't always been this way - he broke bad - but is widely considered a Tory leader in waiting, though I don't think he has the right path to bringing the Tories back

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Mike Slaven @mcslaven.bsky.social · 5d

Maybe this is beyond the imagination of the UK's current political hacks but I imagine a campaign against "Racist Robert" is something other parties would embrace, it would be grimly funny for Farage to be hitting Jenrick for being racist but also has a chance to work quite well electorally IMO

Mike Slaven @mcslaven.bsky.social · 5d

I think Jenrick now is more obviously racist than Farage (in terms of what a typical person would see as racism). Farage dislikes immigrants but projects a "maybe it's just banter" irony. Jenrick seems very dour about his racism then doubles down in grave tones www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Robert Jenrick complained of ‘not seeing another white face’ in Birmingham neighbourhood

Shadow justice secretary criticised for suggesting he could tell how integrated Handsworth was based on short visit

www.theguardian.com

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Ian Dunt @iandunt.bsky.social · 5d

Coverage of Jenrick today basically amounts to sane-washing. He didn't criticise judges. He claimed there was a conspiracy by certain judges, who he had discovered and could number, to undermine British law and create open borders.

ʀak @raksky.bsky.social · 6d

“… a sort of mad McCarthyite scream of paranoia and anxiety of the sort which he has now branded himself… he is living entirely inside of his little mind…”

Ian Dunt @iandunt.bsky.social nails Robert Jenrick’s plans for “activist” judges during Sky News’ Press Preview.

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G Elliott Morris @gelliottmorris.com · 5d

at this point you have to acknowledge that there is no way that these guys don't try to mess with the 2026 midterms. there is absolutely no respect for the legitimacy of the opposition

Blue Georgia @bluegeorgia.bsky.social · 6d

Stephen Miller: "Eventually elections don’t carry the day because violence beats votes… When we see a muscular response from the federal government, it’s because we’re not going to let violence beat votes."

Is he implying federal intervention determines political legitimacy, not ballots or courts?

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The Secret Barrister @barristersecret.bsky.social · 5d

This is a lie.

There are many criticisms you might sensibly and truthfully make of the Sentencing Council and the Sentencing Guidelines. I’ve been making them for years.

But this is an outright lie. Pure fabrication. A fraud on the public.

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Mike Slaven @mcslaven.bsky.social · 5d

I'm sure Conservative voters are going to love Jenrick's forthcoming proposals to relocate nonwhite families to rural areas in England so there is not a "preponderance" of one group over another.

Best for Britain @bestforbritain.org · 5d

Wow. Robert Jenrick doubles down by branding a black journalist's questions "ridiculous" and saying that the problem is not his comments, but "journalists like you who pop up and try to knock me down", adding that "this is the reason why terrorist attacks happen". ~AA

Mike Slaven @mcslaven.bsky.social · 6d

private sector temporary contracts in Spain are down by about 2/3, as this account gets into (sympathetic but also pretty accurate - Sanchez has done more than his thin margins would suggest and of course has also held onto power) renewal.org.uk/articles/dar...

Daring to deliver: Pedro Sánchez and the revival of Spanish social democracy

10 Renewal 33.1_Heymann10 Renewal 33.1_Heymann.pdf108 KBdownload-circle Since 2018, Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez has led one of the most successful social democratic governments in the worl...

renewal.org.uk

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Mike Slaven @mcslaven.bsky.social · 6d

Before she was a politician, Chrystia Freeland wrote an essential ethnography of the kind of super-rich we have now. They see their immense wealth as proof of their unmatched talent so they really don't question themselves or their entitlement to run society www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/202849...

Plutocrats by Chrystia Freeland | Penguin Random House Canada

"Studded with numbers and economic data . . . [Plutocrats] is as complete a work of economic journalism as one could hope for. More surgeon than writer, Freeland has dissected the dynamics of power in...

www.penguinrandomhouse.ca

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