Stephen Pimpare
banner
stephenpimpare.bsky.social
Stephen Pimpare
@stephenpimpare.bsky.social

Poverty and US social welfare policy, hovering awkwardly between the fields of political science and social work.

Host, New Books in Public Policy: https://newbooksnetwork.com/hosts/profile/aba1b96c-5ec5-4ab6-940e-08f426f74a37 .. more

Political science 45%
Economics 18%

Reposted by Stephen Pimpare

After nigh on a decade of collaboration across five states, ENACTing Change is finally out in the world.

A practical, no-nonsense guide to helping young people (and the rest of us) actually shape state policy instead of just yelling at it.
press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/bo...
ENACTing Change
Explains the ENACT model of student civic engagement, empowers instructors to implement it, and shows them how to assess its impact.   ENACT: The Educational Network for Active Civic Transformation ai...
press.uchicago.edu
This piece is as good as people say it is. Read it to appreciate that writing isn't just about content, but style. AI can't do this.
Maybe Don’t Talk to the New York Times About Zohran Mamdani
It’s remarkable, the people you’ll hear from. Teach for even a little while at an expensive institution—the term they tend to prefer is “elite”—and odds are that eventually someone who was a studen…
lithub.com
If you’re trying to catch up on what went down with #SNAP late last night at #SCOTUS, here’s my attempt to read the breadcrumbs on the “administrative stay” issued by Justice Jackson—and why a justice so critical of the Court’s grants of emergency relief to Trump still granted temporary relief here:
190. SNAP WTF?
A very quick explainer on why Justice Jackson issued an "administrative stay" in the SNAP case late on Friday night, and on what's likely to happen next
www.stevevladeck.com

Reposted by Stephen Pimpare

Amy Shea discusses her new book TOO POOR TO DIE: THE HIDDEN REALITIES OF DYING IN THE MARGINS with Stephen Pimpare (@stephenpimpare.bsky.social) on the New Books Network (@newbooksnetwork.bsky.social):

newbooksnetwork.com/too-poor-to-...

Reposted by Stephen Pimpare

They aren't afraid of Mamdani, they are worried about what he would unleash among VOTERS. That those voters would say: "actually, we're not buying this centrist bullshit you've been shoveling for decades, we want something else." That's what's being litigated in these Dem elites are worried essays.
This is the sound of candidates losing the struggle against the crushing weight of partisan gravity.

This is nationalization and polarization and presidentialization swallowing everything else.

This is the dangerous collapse of dimensionality, in one chart
leedrutman.substack.com/p/the-modera...
JD Vance claims that diversity weakens unions, as people end up distrusting each other and not organizing.

Let me tell you two menswear stories related to this claim. 🧵

Reposted by Stephen Pimpare

I haven't posted an updated version of this chart in a little while, so here's where things stand with the 30 emergency applications filed by the Department of Justice during the second Trump administration:
If I were running the DNC, there would be Democratic Party sponsored food relief banks across the country right now that specifically welcomed anyone regardless of party affiliation.

Along with the food, there could be voter registration and links to runforsomething.net

Reposted by Stephen Pimpare

This interview between @pkrugman.bsky.social and @chenoweth.bsky.social is absolutely fantastic. A great introduction to Chenowith's work.

paulkrugman.substack.com/p/talking-wi...
With millions at risk of losing SNAP in the coming days, a reminder: hunger doesn't happen in isolation. When food assistance disappears, families use rent money to eat. Then come evictions and homelessness.

Housing, food, healthcare—it's all connected. Cut one thread and the whole thing unravels.

"The best aesthetic descriptor of Trump’s look, I’d argue, is dictator style" www.politico.com/magazine/sto...
Donald Trump Has a “Dictator Chic” Design Taste
I wrote a book about autocrats’ design tastes. The U.S. president would fit right in.
www.politico.com
As I noted after other recent protests, Resistance 2.0 has been predominantly female, White and educated and turnout in DC on Saturday continued this trend. : 57% were female, 88% reported holding a BA or more and here's the race/ethnicity of the crowd.
In social movement studies, we talk about how marches and protests expand the threshold of acceptable risk so that people take more and bigger social risks IN PUBLIC, EN MASSE. This is extremely important for the bourgeois white folks holding signs and building social rapport.
Not a shitpost: #NoKings is feel-good performative activism for comfortable mostly upper and upper middle class white folks and that’s good, actually. Millions of people in the streets protesting a fascist regime is good. It is good for the normie baseline to be massive displays of public dissent.

Reposted by Stephen Pimpare

Not a mistake that a lot of our pop culture material on resistance & rebellion features some of the most goofily earnest protagonists you can find. Actually believing in shit and being willing to fight for it is a power.
a man in a green suit is looking at himself in the mirror .
Alt: Rebellions are built on hope gif from Andor
media.tenor.com
Trump and his agenda *are* deeply unpopular. This doesn’t do anything on it’s own. It is a resource with which we can do things.
I feel that some of you need regular reminders of how unpopular this man is. And frankly I see him getting even more so as the economy worsens. Again, this doesn't mean that he will give up any power but it does mean that WE HAVE POWER TOO.

Reposted by Stephen Pimpare

5. The movement is not just continuing to spread into previously unrepresented parts of the country, but also maintaining its geographic reach: Protests occurred in at least 20 percent of US counties for four consecutive months in 2025 — something we never observed during Trump’s first term.

"“A false but clear and precise idea always has more power in the world than one which is true but complex.”

-- Alexis DeTocqueville, 1835

"“The accumulation of all powers legislative, executive and judiciary in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.”

-- James Madison, Federalist 47, 1788

"These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier & the sunshine patriot will in this crisis shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered. . .”

Paine, American Crisis, 1776

"“The more men have to lose, the less willing are they to venture. The rich are in general slaves to fear, and submit to courtly power with the trembling duplicity of a spaniel.”

-- Thomas Paine, Common Sense, 1776
The Regime's goal is to grind everyone down. Plain & simple. Our goal is to refuse this by taking turns to fight where and how we can. When one group needs to bow out, then another group needs to step in and so on. We don't all have to do everything. We can all do something though. Stay in the fight
I don't understand why U.S. reporters so regularly seem to let politicians get away with 'I haven't seen that' about stuff a) they obviously know and b) is directly relevant to their job. Did they sign some kind of agreement never to ask a follow-up question?
REPORTER: We know the president moved forward with mass layoffs. We're also learning there were significant cuts to staff at special education services. Are you comfortable with those cuts?

MIKE JOHNSON: I haven't seen the specifics of that and I don't know
The Dem establishment is going to back Mills over the absolute phenom outsider Platner in Maine, which tells you everything you need to know about how well they understand the current moment & how prepared they are to meet it.

Reposted by Stephen Pimpare

I agree with everything @dhnexon.bsky.social says in this post about where we’re at with the American Republic today and where we must go from here:

www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2025/10/the-...
The State of the Republic is Grim - Lawyers, Guns & Money
If you’re on Bluesky and follow me, you’ve probably seen that I’m writing threads that really should be the basis for posts at LGM. You’ve also likely gotten a bead on where I am these days. Here’s a ...
www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com
As someone whose professional interests have overlapped heavily with Przeworski's, I felt (and concurred with) this bit: "The brutal fact that we find it so difficult to predict what will happen under our current circumstances is evidence that we do not have theories we can rely on."
How Democracies Fall Apart - Dissent Magazine
An interview with Adam Przeworski.
www.dissentmagazine.org
My publisher’s been very patient. I’m not doing everything I said I’d do to promote this book (out in a few weeks) because I’m an organizer in a city under federal attack. My days are full and emotionally exhausting. Any help getting the word out means a lot. It's a book people need right now.
Read This When Things Fall Apart by Kelly Hayes | Pilsen Community Books
A bundle of letters to activists and organizers on the frontlines in catastrophic times from Let This Radicalize You co-author Kelly Hayes In social movements, some heartbreaks are all but inevitable.
www.pilsencommunitybooks.com
UNTIL IT’S DONE, Ep. 4: Sylvia Rivera

In the 1970s, queer New Yorkers had been pushed to the margins of NYC. Our trans neighbors faced immense cruelty. But in Sylvia Rivera, they found a champion.

As we combat Trump’s politics of darkness, her legacy can light the path forward.

Not the main point, I realize, but this is a WILDLY disingenuous description of the Free Staters.