Jonathan Ladd
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jonmladd.bsky.social
Jonathan Ladd
@jonmladd.bsky.social
35K followers 1.2K following 3.5K posts
I'm a political scientist in @mccourtschool.bsky.social. I study trust in institutions and media effects on the public.
Web page: https://www.jonathanmladd.com/
Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=J6tt69QAAAAJ&hl

Apologies for typos.
Posts Replies Media Videos
Reposted by Jonathan Ladd
bgrueskin.bsky.social
A thread of two photos, each worth more than 1,000 words:

The Rev. Michael Woolf of Lake Street Church in Evanston, Ill., is detained by Illinois State Police at a protest outside the Broadview ICE facility

Via Freelance photographer Jim Vondruska/Reuters

1/2

www.reuters.com/legal/govern...
November 14, 2025 at 10:51 PM
jonmladd.bsky.social
This is almost exactly the "culture of honor" experiment in Cohen et al. (1996). psycnet.apa.org/buy/1996-017...
November 15, 2025 at 8:25 PM
Reposted by Jonathan Ladd
jonmladd.bsky.social
True. And a good reason why society works better when:
1) Members of the legislature and their staffs are very well paid.
2) The legislature of more professionalized and has lots of staff
3) Society is full of powerful institutionalized groups that represent many interests beyond just corporations.
November 14, 2025 at 3:46 PM
Reposted by Jonathan Ladd
carlquintanilla.bsky.social
Once wasn’t enough. Trump pardons a J6 rioter for a SECOND time.

@politico.com @kyledcheney.bsky.social
www.politico.com/news/2025/11...
November 15, 2025 at 1:12 PM
jonmladd.bsky.social
Overall, younger generations are much more liberal in their racial policy attitudes than older generations. If at least a significant portion of this is a cohort and not an age effect, the public overall may continue to liberalize on these matters.
adambonica.bsky.social Adam Bonica @adambonica.bsky.social · 1d
4/🧵 The generational shift isn't just among white Americans. Young Asian and Hispanic Americans show the same pattern: dramatic declines in racial resentment across education, gender, geography, and religion. This is a broad, multi-racial generational transformation.
Racial Resentment Among Hispanic and Asian Americans by Birth Year and Demographics This figure contains four line charts showing racial resentment scores (standardized 2-item scale) across birth years from 1940 to 2000 among Hispanic and Asian Americans, with separate trendlines for demographic subgroups. Y-axis ranges from low to high resentment; X-axis shows birth year with approximate ages. Education panel: Two lines show that non-college individuals consistently report higher racial resentment than college-educated individuals. Both groups trend upward from younger to older cohorts, with the gap largest among older generations. Gender panel: Male and female lines rise gradually with older cohorts. Males show slightly higher resentment than females across most cohorts, though the gap narrows among older groups. Geography panel: Four regional lines (South, West, Midwest, Northeast) show modest differences. The South and Midwest trend slightly higher than the West and Northeast, and all regions show increasing resentment among older cohorts. Religion panel: Protestants display the highest resentment levels, followed by Catholics. Non-affiliated respondents have the lowest and flattest trend, with little increase across cohorts. Protestants show the steepest age-related rise. At the bottom, the source notes this is from the 2024 Cooperative Election Study (CES) using GAM-smoothed trendlines.
November 15, 2025 at 1:29 PM
Reposted by Jonathan Ladd
helenkennedy.bsky.social
ICE vs the clergy
Faith leader, Michael Woolf, minister at Lake Street Church of Evanston, is detained by Illinois State Police during a protest against immigration actions, outside the Broadview ICE facility in Chicago, Illinois, U.S., November 14, 2025. REUTERS/Jim Vondruska A masked ICE agent sprays David Black, pastor of First Presbyterian Church of Chicago, directly in the face during protests outside the ICE processing facility in Broadview, Illinois. Sept 19 2025 Photo by Ashlee Rezin of the Chicago Sun-Times. Pastor David Black of the First Presbyterian Church in chicago being hit in the head with a pepper ball Sept 19 at the Broadview ICE facility An unidentified federal agent fires a chemical weapon into Rev. Jorge Bautista's face during a protest outside of Coast Guard Island in Oakland on Thursday Oct. 23, 2025. Credit: David Bacon
November 15, 2025 at 1:32 AM
jonmladd.bsky.social
This entire graphic is amazing.
emptywheel.bsky.social emptywheel @emptywheel.bsky.social · 1d
Wild graphic on front page of WSJ.
A graphic from the front page of the WSJ, titled, "The Epstein Email Cache: 2,300 Messages, Many of Which Mention Trump." Using blue does it compares how many of the email threads released by Oversight are about various people. 1,670 are about Trump. 207 mention Michael Wolff. 155 Kathryn Ruemmler, 117 Larry Summers, and 512 Clinton.
November 14, 2025 at 10:18 PM
jonmladd.bsky.social
"We are not to simply bandage the wounds of victims beneath the wheels of injustice, we are to drive a spoke into the wheel itself."
-Dietrich Bonhoeffer
jackjenkins.me Jack Jenkins @jackjenkins.me · 23h
Oh wow @reuters.com got the photo here:
November 14, 2025 at 10:07 PM
Reposted by Jonathan Ladd
anamariecox.bsky.social
From this minister's op-ed: "People wanting to experience God are more likely to meet the Divine trying to shut down the Broadview, Illinois, ICE facility than we ever were in church...God does not live in our houses of worship, but...with those who are bearing the brunt of cruelty in this moment."
jackjenkins.me Jack Jenkins @jackjenkins.me · 23h
Oh wow @reuters.com got the photo here:
November 14, 2025 at 9:38 PM
Reposted by Jonathan Ladd
jackjenkins.me
Oh wow @reuters.com got the photo here:
“Faith leader, Michael Woolf, minister at Lake Street Church of Evanston, is detained by Illinois State Police during a protest against immigration actions, outside the Broadview ICE facility in Chicago, Illinois, U.S., November 14, 2025. REUTERS/Jim Vondruska”
November 14, 2025 at 9:25 PM
Reposted by Jonathan Ladd
robertmackey.bsky.social
It's easy to get inured to the crazy, but this is Trump referring to the main exterior window of the East Room, a part of the White House that has been there since 1800, as "a knock-out panel," a construction term for a temporary part of a wall designed to be easily demolished to allow for expansion
atrupar.com Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 2d
Trump: "Right behind me by the way, in about 2 years from now, is a much bigger room. This will be the entrance. That's a knockout panel. It looks pretty nice right now but it'll look a lot better in a little while... The future entrance to something that's really become very popular, the ballroom."
November 14, 2025 at 1:16 AM
jonmladd.bsky.social
I'm not a hater and generally like Binyamin Appelbaum's writing. But please fact-check your assertions about public opinion. (This is todays lead op-ed in the Times.) Gallup says Democrats currently hold a 47-43 advantage on the economy and historically it has flipped back and forth.
November 14, 2025 at 3:25 PM
Reposted by Jonathan Ladd
dgrand.bsky.social
🚨Out in PNAS🚨
Examining news on 7 platforms:
1)Right-leaning platforms=lower quality news
2)Echo-platforms: Right-leaning news gets more engagement on right-leaning platforms, vice-versa for left-leaning
3)Low-quality news gets more engagement EVERYWHERE - even BlueSky!
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
November 14, 2025 at 2:35 PM
Reposted by Jonathan Ladd
egojunk.bsky.social
November 9, 2025 at 12:49 PM
Reposted by Jonathan Ladd
larryladd.bsky.social
Controversies around free speech within universities arise out of the "civic crisis" where people throughout our culture can't talk productively to each other but rather demonize each other. Colleges and universities didn't create that crisis and shouldn't be scapegoats for it.
Princeton leader defends free speech efforts amid ‘civic crisis’ — Harvard Gazette
Christopher Eisgruber, author of "Terms of Respect," says campus tensions reflect wider divisions in the U.S.
news.harvard.edu
November 13, 2025 at 10:13 PM
Reposted by Jonathan Ladd
jonmladd.bsky.social
To review:
Email #1: Jeff Epstein says he "gave" a 20-year old girl to Trump
Email #2: Epstein says Trump "knew about the girls" he was recruiting at Mara Lago for his pedophile ring and Trump never reported it.
Email #3: Epstein says an underage victim "spent hours" at Epstein's house with Trump
November 13, 2025 at 4:50 PM
jonmladd.bsky.social
Trump's approval rating drops below 40-percent in the FiftyPlusOne average. fiftyplusone.news/polls/approv...
November 13, 2025 at 5:43 PM
jonmladd.bsky.social
To review:
Email #1: Jeff Epstein says he "gave" a 20-year old girl to Trump
Email #2: Epstein says Trump "knew about the girls" he was recruiting at Mara Lago for his pedophile ring and Trump never reported it.
Email #3: Epstein says an underage victim "spent hours" at Epstein's house with Trump
November 13, 2025 at 4:50 PM
Reposted by Jonathan Ladd
datadrivenmd.social
To recap: Jeffrey Epstein offered a NY Times reporter photos taken in Epstein's kitchen of Donald Trump and girls in bikinis *and* implored the NYT reporter to put this information in the public discourse in 2015

What did the NY Times editors know about this offer?
aridrennen.bsky.social Ari Drennen @aridrennen.bsky.social · 3d
“would you like photos of donald and girls in bikinis in my kitchen?” -Jeffrey Epstein
November 12, 2025 at 8:05 PM
jonmladd.bsky.social
Good Lord, why?
November 13, 2025 at 4:27 PM
jonmladd.bsky.social
This comes as part of an extended chat between Epstein and Larry Summers, in which Summers is defending Trump, and notorious pedophile ring leader Jeffrey Epstein says no, Trump is a very bad person.
macfarlanenews.bsky.social Scott MacFarlane @macfarlanenews.bsky.social · 2d
Still working our way through approx. 23,000 pages of Epstein related documents released by House Oversight Cmte.

In another email.. this one from Feb. 2017.. Epstein references Trump

==>
November 13, 2025 at 1:54 PM
Reposted by Jonathan Ladd
chrisgeidner.bsky.social
Fall 2017: Then-NYT reporter literally warning Epstein that someone is "digging around again."
From: Thomas Jr., Landon Sent: 9/27/2017 2:47:47 PM To: Subject: Got another call from Connelly.. Importance: High Jeffrey Epstein [jeevacation@gmail.com] He is digging around again -- not clear if its another book/or expanded paperback version. Was asking me all sorts of questions about why you hired Ken Starr. I told him I had no idea - I think he is doing some Trump-related digging too. Anyway, for what its worth... Landon Thomas, Jr. Financial Reporter New York Times http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/t/landon_ir thomas/index.h tml
November 12, 2025 at 10:05 PM
Reposted by Jonathan Ladd
andycraig.bsky.social
Historically in the US, liberals being more secular is something of an aberration. It was more often the opposite right up until the televangelist era. Remembering the Confederacy as more churchgoing, for example, is total back projection. (see: John Brown, Battle Hymn, Lincoln's bible-quoting, etc)
yasharali.bsky.social Yashar Ali 🐘 @yasharali.bsky.social · 2d
1. BREAKING

The US Conference of Catholic Bishops has issued a statement admonishing the Trump administration’s immigration actions.

The last time they issued such a statement was in 2013 in response to contraception mandates.
As pastors, we the bishops of the United States are bound to our people by ties of communion and compassion in Our Lord Jesus Christ. We are disturbed when we see among our people a climate of fear and anxiety around questions of profiling and immigration enforcement. We are saddened by the state of contemporary debate and the vilification of immigrants. We are concerned about the conditions in detention centers and the lack of access to pastoral care. We lament that some immigrants in the United States have arbitrarily lost their legal status. We are troubled by threats against the sanctity of houses of worship and the special nature of hospitals and schools. We are grieved when we meet parents who fear being detained when taking their children to school and when we try to console family members who have already been separated from their loved ones. Despite obstacles and prejudices, generations of immigrants have made enormous contributions to the well-being of our nation. We as Catholic bishops love our country and pray for its peace and prosperity. For this very reason, we feel compelled now in this environment to raise our voices in defense of God-given human dignity. Catholic teaching exhorts nations to recognize the fundamental dignity of all persons, including immigrants. We bishops advocate for a meaningful reform of our nation's immigration laws and procedures. Human dignity and national security are not in conflict. Both are possible if people of good will work together. We recognize that nations have a responsibility to regulate their borders and establish a just and orderly immigration system for the sake of the common good. Without such processes, immigrants face the risk of trafficking and other forms of exploitation. Safe and legal pathways serve as an antidote to such risks. The Church's teaching rests on the foundational concern for the human person, as created in the image and likeness of God (Genesis 1:27). As pastors, we look to Sacred Scripture and the example of the Lord Himself, where we find the wisdom of God's compassion. The priority of the Lord, as the Prophets remind us, is for those who are most vulnerable: the widow, the orphan, the poor, and the stranger (Zechariah 7:10). In the Lord Jesus, we see the One who became poor for our sake (2 Corinthians 8:9), we see the Good Samaritan who lifts us from the dust (Luke 10:30-37), and we see the One who is found in the least of these (Matthew 25). The Church's concern for neighbor and our concern here for immigrants is a response to the Lord's command to love as He has loved us (John 13:34). To our immigrant brothers and sisters, we stand with you in your suffering, since, when one member suffers, all suffer (cf. 1 Corinthians 12:26). You are not alone! We note with gratitude that so many of our clergy, consecrated religious, and lay faithful already accompany and assist immigrants in meeting their basic human needs. We urge all people of good will to continue and expand such efforts. We oppose the indiscriminate mass deportation of people. We pray for an end to dehumanizing rhetoric and violence, whether directed at immigrants or at law enforcement. We pray that the Lord may guide the leaders of our nation, and we are grateful for past and present opportunities to dialogue with public and elected officials. In this dialogue, we will continue to advocate for meaningful immigration reform. As disciples of the Lord, we remain men and women of hope, and hope does not disappoint! (cf. Romans 5:5) May the mantle of Our Lady of Guadalupe enfold us all in her maternal and loving care and draw us ever closer to the heart of Christ.
November 13, 2025 at 2:16 AM
Reposted by Jonathan Ladd
helenkennedy.bsky.social
The unfortunately named Midelfart is the young woman Epstein says he “gave” to Trump. Excuse me while my lunch returns unexpectedly.
pbump.com Philip Bump @pbump.com · 2d
4. And here is Trump and Midelfart and Ivanka at a party in 1998.
www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-...
November 12, 2025 at 9:36 PM
jonmladd.bsky.social
Proceduralism run amok: Everyone knew we should abolish the penny. Why didn't Obama or Biden just do it? Obama announced in 2016 he was putting Tubman on the $20. Biden announced in 2021 it would take until 2030 to put Tubman on the 20. Trump is putting himself on a dollar coin this year.
Harriet Tubman probably won't be on the $20 bill until at least 2030 — here's why
The Biden administration said it would "speed up" efforts to put Tubman on the $20 bill. But a lengthy bureaucratic process may make that impossible.
www.businessinsider.com
November 12, 2025 at 7:39 PM