Jonathan Locke
@qsmsn4rasb.bsky.social
Political strategist and occasional commentator. New here.
The ads in the DC metro these days are totally normal and not weird at all 🙃
October 13, 2025 at 6:08 PM
The ads in the DC metro these days are totally normal and not weird at all 🙃
Supreme Court under Biden: “You can’t do that without Congress expressly authorizing it”
Supreme Court under Trump: “You can do that unless Congress expressly tells you that you can’t”
Supreme Court under Trump: “You can do that unless Congress expressly tells you that you can’t”
It is pretty galling that the Supreme Court spent four years telling Biden "you can't do that without Congress" then allowed Trump to seize a once-unthinkable amount of power from Congress within nine months and concentrate law-making authority almost entirely in the executive branch.
October 9, 2025 at 6:29 PM
Supreme Court under Biden: “You can’t do that without Congress expressly authorizing it”
Supreme Court under Trump: “You can do that unless Congress expressly tells you that you can’t”
Supreme Court under Trump: “You can do that unless Congress expressly tells you that you can’t”
Reposted by Jonathan Locke
If there is one thing the American mainstream media simply cannot resist, it’s a “Relax, the Libs are overreacting again!” take that presents a wildly disingenuous version of what is actually going on in MAGA land to launder the Right and chide “the Left” for being hysterical.
October 8, 2025 at 1:20 PM
If there is one thing the American mainstream media simply cannot resist, it’s a “Relax, the Libs are overreacting again!” take that presents a wildly disingenuous version of what is actually going on in MAGA land to launder the Right and chide “the Left” for being hysterical.
Reposted by Jonathan Locke
JB Pritzker and Gavin Newsom are doing something new and important: They understand Stephen Miller's theory of fascist power politics, and they've developed a theory on how to combat it. More Dems need to reckon with Miller's understanding of the moment.
New from me:
newrepublic.com/article/2014...
New from me:
newrepublic.com/article/2014...
Inside Stephen Miller’s Secret Plan to Normalize Trump’s Dictator Rule
He wants to supercharge searing civil tensions to get low-information voters to embrace their inner authoritarian. Exactly two Democrats appear to fully grasp this.
newrepublic.com
October 8, 2025 at 11:41 AM
JB Pritzker and Gavin Newsom are doing something new and important: They understand Stephen Miller's theory of fascist power politics, and they've developed a theory on how to combat it. More Dems need to reckon with Miller's understanding of the moment.
New from me:
newrepublic.com/article/2014...
New from me:
newrepublic.com/article/2014...
The NYTimes is arguably the most financially independent major media entity in the US, unlike CBS or others that have corporate incentives to amplify content in accordance with the Trump pov, but they still choose to do publish this junk anyway. Why? They gain nothing and lose reader trust.
the chris caldwell of 1948 would have been arguing against desegregation of the armed forces www.nytimes.com/2025/10/07/o...
Opinion | That Hegseth Speech Was Actually Pretty Good
www.nytimes.com
October 7, 2025 at 1:40 PM
The NYTimes is arguably the most financially independent major media entity in the US, unlike CBS or others that have corporate incentives to amplify content in accordance with the Trump pov, but they still choose to do publish this junk anyway. Why? They gain nothing and lose reader trust.
Reposted by Jonathan Locke
The fact that a vast majority of Americans agree on a wide array of issues and yet our political leaders advance none of them illustrates just how broken our system is. Power has shifted from the majority to a monied-few. How do we win it back? I have some thoughts. open.substack.com/pub/davidrot...
A Word About the Most Important Voting Bloc in America
Meet the self-interested majority (who know "a man is not a piece of fruit")
open.substack.com
October 6, 2025 at 11:37 PM
The fact that a vast majority of Americans agree on a wide array of issues and yet our political leaders advance none of them illustrates just how broken our system is. Power has shifted from the majority to a monied-few. How do we win it back? I have some thoughts. open.substack.com/pub/davidrot...
Sure, this scenario is scary and raises the stakes, but it may be necessary to face the reality of the moment. The playbook of litigation and judicial rulings is simply too slow and limited to be the only tool to rely on right now.
October 6, 2025 at 2:35 AM
Sure, this scenario is scary and raises the stakes, but it may be necessary to face the reality of the moment. The playbook of litigation and judicial rulings is simply too slow and limited to be the only tool to rely on right now.
Reposted by Jonathan Locke
This is an old formula used by authoritarian regimes. Stoke chaos and blame scapegoats to justify the use of force.
October 5, 2025 at 12:25 PM
This is an old formula used by authoritarian regimes. Stoke chaos and blame scapegoats to justify the use of force.
Reposted by Jonathan Locke
This is something @gelliottmorris.com touched on recently. Legacy media orgs still largely think of their audience as "all Americans". They haven't wrapped their heads around the fact that conservative readers/viewers aren't a significant part of their audience and haven't been for decades.
At the time, scholars of this topic noted that, in Trump's first term, the independence of institutional media orgs from him went with a surge in trust in the media from Democrats. Major media org's cooption and capitulation in Trump's second term has gone with a drop in Democrats' media trust.
October 4, 2025 at 7:52 PM
This is something @gelliottmorris.com touched on recently. Legacy media orgs still largely think of their audience as "all Americans". They haven't wrapped their heads around the fact that conservative readers/viewers aren't a significant part of their audience and haven't been for decades.