With another set of news headlines about political elites using “””Roman salutes””” I just want to note that the Nazi salute means “I want to murder your family” and the n-word means “I want to lynch you.” That’s what they mean, they make me righteously angry, and I won’t let anybody minimize them.

New technologies don't necessarily mean new politics. To understand why, check out this great new book on political party use of new information and communication techs by Rafa Piñeiro-Rodríguez, Fernando Rosenblatt, Gabriel Vommaro, and Laura Wills-Otero:

bit.ly/4fdTGyJ

Here's a nice overview of my, @matthewrhodespurdy.bsky.social, and Stephen Utych's book: www.dailykos.com/stories/2024...

Resolves a key theoretical debate of economics vs. culture using a broad comparative perspective that includes multiple world regions.

Out Now (in paperback for a reasonable price!) The Age of Discontent by @matthewrhodespurdy.bsky.social, yours truly and Stephen Utych

cup.org/3VfBoGJ

#NaziPunksFuckOff

Ok this one is fun: show us with a restaurant where you went to school.

@matthewrhodespurdy.bsky.social and I did another podcast interview on the book with Democracy Paradox and Justin Kempf about the book. Check it out, and if you need help finding an affordable copy of the book, lmk!

"Ranked-choice voting in primaries could be particularly promising."
But "Deploying ranked-choice methods in general elections could tend to further weaken the parties, which is not the right way to take on our broken political culture."
I agree. www.nytimes.com/2023/10/09/o...

If you do experimental research, check out JEPS’s new virtual collection of articles on Best Practices. All articles are free to read, but I suggest starting here with a little piece by @matthewrhodespurdy.bsky.social, drsteveu.bsky.social and myself.

To all students: don't use AI to do your work. But if you do, maybe don't try to make it cite work by the professor teaching the course. Really easy to spot fake citations to our own work. My memory sucks but I know damn well I never mentioned digital democracy...

Really great read. The whole free speech = no consequences position is not just stupid but a logical impossibility. In practice, it means one (privilege) group gets to speak and those who oppose must be silenced (e.g.: Florida).

Most responses to this understandably focus on the cruelty of slavery. I would also point out that this is just textbook racism. The implication is Black people can't learn skills without white people forcing them.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/07/22/desantis-slavery-curriculum/

Reminds me of that epidemic of left-handedness they had a few decades back. Time to panic people!

People say things like the lyrics of this song and then wonder why small town America is dying...who in their right mind would want to live there?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/music/2023/07/20/jason-aldean-song-video-pulled-cmt-controversy/

New, from me: the grilling of the FBI Director, a Republican, by other House Republicans included a range of bizarre accusations.
Its a small but notable data point, reflecting a broader project of deinstitutionalization. https://donmoynihan.substack.com/p/the-deinstitutionalization-project

So here I am, hoping things will be better on this site than on the hellish inferno from which I am fleeing. Also, check out our book! @rnavarre.bsky.social

https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/age-of-discontent/3657702C8FAF94591EE99EE237BD33FE

My co-author, @matthewrhodespurdy.bsky.social is now on here. Welcome! I post the same stuff here as on Twitter so have fun with that.