Maya Sen
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mayasen.bsky.social
Maya Sen
@mayasen.bsky.social
20K followers 410 following 1.3K posts

Professor, Harvard Kennedy School | Speaking in a personal capacity | https://msen.scholars.harvard.edu/

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Economics 33%
Law 32%
Posts Replies Media Videos

Reposted by Dani Rodrik, Maya Sen

nytimes.com
The New York Times @nytimes.com · 7h
In Opinion | The first step toward building a good jobs agenda requires officials thinking about economic development “to get over their manufacturing fetishism,” Dani Rodrik writes.
Opinion | What Even Is a ‘Good’ Job?
It starts with abandoning the fetish over manufacturing.
nyti.ms

mayasen.bsky.social
Maya Sen @mayasen.bsky.social · 2d
@stevevladeck.bsky.social has a piece on this

mayasen.bsky.social
Maya Sen @mayasen.bsky.social · 2d
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/07/u...
Supreme Court Temporarily Allows Trump to Curtail Food Stamp Funding
www.nytimes.com

mayasen.bsky.social
Maya Sen @mayasen.bsky.social · 2d
Eviscerating Congressional established agencies? No problem

Moving $40 billion from account A to account B? Whoa there, hold your horses

mayasen.bsky.social
Maya Sen @mayasen.bsky.social · 2d
An administration that for months claimed unilateral & absolute authority to shutter entire executive agencies suddenly finds without any agency to move money from one internal pot of money to another

mayasen.bsky.social
Maya Sen @mayasen.bsky.social · 3d
As always, spot on in your analysis, Joey

Reposted by Maya Sen

fishkin.bsky.social
Joey Fishkin @fishkin.bsky.social · 3d
But basically this agreement reads to me like one where the administration recognizes they are losing and are desperate to sign any deal to notch a win.

Many of the most dangerous elements from the Columbia and Brown deals (and the proposed deals with Harvard and UCLA) are missing from this one.

mayasen.bsky.social
Maya Sen @mayasen.bsky.social · 3d
Enduring 3-4 years in an inhospitable ideological climate is apparently a huge ask in exchange for decades of political power

mayasen.bsky.social
Maya Sen @mayasen.bsky.social · 3d
Yeah when demand for highly talented conservatives > supply, then you get pretty unqualified people in key roles

mayasen.bsky.social
Maya Sen @mayasen.bsky.social · 3d
There’s never been a better time to be a young well-educated conservative

demand for them across every area of expertise (legal, economic, scientific) vastly outstrips supply

Maybe cool it a bit with the victim mentality?

Reposted by Brendan Nyhan

mayasen.bsky.social
Maya Sen @mayasen.bsky.social · 3d
Why would they give up?

Republicans control 28 state legislatures, both chambers of Congress, and the White House

They have a 6-3 supermajority on the Supreme Court and a R appointments outnumber D appointments to other fed courts

www.politico.com/news/2025/11...
Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh to conservative law students: Don’t give up
The Trump appointees’ remarks came at a Federalist Society event in Washington.
www.politico.com

Reposted by David Darmofal

mayasen.bsky.social
Maya Sen @mayasen.bsky.social · 4d
Excellent & clear explainer on the oral arguments in the tariffs case

Supreme Court Seems Skeptical of Trump’s Tariffs www.nytimes.com/2025/11/06/p...
Supreme Court Seems Skeptical of Trump’s Tariffs
www.nytimes.com

mayasen.bsky.social
Maya Sen @mayasen.bsky.social · 5d
Also if you're an economist who thinks this is all insane, you've got to be feeling pretty relieved following that oral argument

mayasen.bsky.social
Maya Sen @mayasen.bsky.social · 5d
Shout out to Neal Katyal's repeated pleas to common sense in this morning's oral arguments, because really it does feel like gaslighting sometimes
mayasen.bsky.social Maya Sen @mayasen.bsky.social · 7d
Economists, thinking rationally: “There is clearly no national emergency. He’s obviously just making shit up.”

Lawyers, thinking like lawyers: “But the foreign policy exception to the major questions doctrine…”
a man in a blue shirt and tie is pointing at a bulletin board with a lot of papers on it .
ALT: a man in a blue shirt and tie is pointing at a bulletin board with a lot of papers on it .
media.tenor.com

Reposted by Maya Sen, David Darmofal

mikesacks.bsky.social
Mike Sacks @mikesacks.bsky.social · 5d
Not every justice has yet spoken, but Roberts and Barrett have and they are clearly against Trump's tariffs. That's five votes.

mayasen.bsky.social
Maya Sen @mayasen.bsky.social · 5d
And funny

Humor in a political candidate is completely underrated

mayasen.bsky.social
Maya Sen @mayasen.bsky.social · 5d
He’s part of your brand now, guys

You can ignore this issue and let Fox News and Trump turn him into a bogeyman

Or you can take control the narrative and make him a communicator on economic populism and working class issues

mayasen.bsky.social
Maya Sen @mayasen.bsky.social · 5d
My hot take is that Mamdani is a very effective communicator and campaigner

And he’s funny too

Democrats should not just learn from him, but they should use him strategically - send him to Fox News etc, & let him make his policy pitches

No more of this weird “let’s ignore him” nonsense

Reposted by Alan Stewart, Maya Sen

theguardian.com
The Guardian @theguardian.com · 5d
Mamdani’s victory is a rebuke to the failed strategies of the Democratic party | Moira Donegan
Mamdani’s victory is a rebuke to the failed strategies of the Democratic party | Moira Donegan
The Democratic party appears listless and unprincipled, unwilling to fight because they do not believe in anything. Zohran Mamdani is the opposite of this
www.theguardian.com

mayasen.bsky.social
Maya Sen @mayasen.bsky.social · 6d
Loooool

mayasen.bsky.social
Maya Sen @mayasen.bsky.social · 6d
“Alex, I’ll take ‘Supreme Court claims that have aged poorly’ for $200”

mayasen.bsky.social
Maya Sen @mayasen.bsky.social · 7d
Wouldn’t be an issue if we had a working national legislature!

Reposted by Maya Sen

bostonglobe.com
The Boston Globe @bostonglobe.com · 7d
Setti Warren, the former mayor of Newton and first Black man elected to lead a city in Massachusetts, has died.
Setti Warren, former Newton mayor and leading political voice, dies at 55 - The Boston Globe
No cause of death was disclosed Sunday by Harvard University, where Warren was the director of the Kennedy School's Institute of Politics.
trib.al

mayasen.bsky.social
Maya Sen @mayasen.bsky.social · 7d
Basically all everyone is doing now is using whatever models you have (legal, partisan, ideological, personal) to guess the four swings - JR, ACB, and maybe NG and BK - depending on the issue and to see if you can pick off 2

mayasen.bsky.social
Maya Sen @mayasen.bsky.social · 7d
Yeah there’s a well trodden foreign policy deference to the govt and upholding Trump’s ability on tarrifs would fit with that, and Kavanaugh has basically telegraphed this

So you’d need 2 of ACB, NG, and JR

law is endogenous to politics obvs, but this isn’t clear cut predictively

mayasen.bsky.social
Maya Sen @mayasen.bsky.social · 7d
I think lawyers see this case as less clear cut than do others

mayasen.bsky.social
Maya Sen @mayasen.bsky.social · 7d
The joke will be on the economists, though, as the only math needed here will be the ability to count to 5

mayasen.bsky.social
Maya Sen @mayasen.bsky.social · 7d
Lmao 100%

They look at me like I’m crazy when I predict 5-4 in favor of upholding

mayasen.bsky.social
Maya Sen @mayasen.bsky.social · 7d
Economists, thinking rationally: “There is clearly no national emergency. He’s obviously just making shit up.”

Lawyers, thinking like lawyers: “But the foreign policy exception to the major questions doctrine…”
a man in a blue shirt and tie is pointing at a bulletin board with a lot of papers on it .
ALT: a man in a blue shirt and tie is pointing at a bulletin board with a lot of papers on it .
media.tenor.com

mayasen.bsky.social
Maya Sen @mayasen.bsky.social · 7d
As a purely anecdotal matter, most economists I’ve talked to think SCOTUS will limit POTUS’s ability to unilaterally impose tariffs - b/c they’re simply not an emergency

Disconnect between economists and lawyers on this prediction is significant

www.nytimes.com/2025/11/03/u...
Supreme Court Confronts Trump and His Tariffs in Test of Presidential Power
www.nytimes.com