Steph
@stephsterling.bsky.social
Little-d democrat. Feminist. Modern New Dealer.
Reposted by Steph
As the Supreme Court term begins, keep this framework in mind: Autocratic Legalism.
Instead of “rule of law” (law constrains the power), we get “rule by law” (law as a weapon for power).
Authoritarians usually have to install allies. Trump started his second term with that step already complete.
Instead of “rule of law” (law constrains the power), we get “rule by law” (law as a weapon for power).
Authoritarians usually have to install allies. Trump started his second term with that step already complete.
October 8, 2025 at 10:30 PM
As the Supreme Court term begins, keep this framework in mind: Autocratic Legalism.
Instead of “rule of law” (law constrains the power), we get “rule by law” (law as a weapon for power).
Authoritarians usually have to install allies. Trump started his second term with that step already complete.
Instead of “rule of law” (law constrains the power), we get “rule by law” (law as a weapon for power).
Authoritarians usually have to install allies. Trump started his second term with that step already complete.
Reposted by Steph
An independent court doesn’t help one man evade justice.
An independent court doesn’t silence voters, ban abortion, and purge independent agency watchdogs.
This court has chosen sides—and it's not the people.
We must remind them. This country is FOR and BY the people.
An independent court doesn’t silence voters, ban abortion, and purge independent agency watchdogs.
This court has chosen sides—and it's not the people.
We must remind them. This country is FOR and BY the people.
October 2, 2025 at 7:01 PM
An independent court doesn’t help one man evade justice.
An independent court doesn’t silence voters, ban abortion, and purge independent agency watchdogs.
This court has chosen sides—and it's not the people.
We must remind them. This country is FOR and BY the people.
An independent court doesn’t silence voters, ban abortion, and purge independent agency watchdogs.
This court has chosen sides—and it's not the people.
We must remind them. This country is FOR and BY the people.
Reposted by Steph
I was back at 26 Federal Plaza today, where an ICE agent violently threw this bereft woman to the ground in front of her kids. She had not touched him. She did not pose any threat. She had to be taken to the hospital. (🎥: Elias Eliahu)
September 25, 2025 at 6:03 PM
I was back at 26 Federal Plaza today, where an ICE agent violently threw this bereft woman to the ground in front of her kids. She had not touched him. She did not pose any threat. She had to be taken to the hospital. (🎥: Elias Eliahu)
Congress js a dead letter, because upper chamber bicameralism is an outdated relic, and the two-party system fails to represent most Americans. We are experiencing a system-wide failure.
they’ve learned Roberts’ lesson that it all makes sense if you operate under the presumption that Congress is a dead letter
September 22, 2025 at 12:19 PM
Congress js a dead letter, because upper chamber bicameralism is an outdated relic, and the two-party system fails to represent most Americans. We are experiencing a system-wide failure.
Reposted by Steph
generally speaking, and with the glaring exception of november 2024, the more directly democratic an institution has been, the better it has checked Trump (eg grand and petit juries); the more elite and insular, the less effective (the Senate, the Supreme Court, big business)
September 18, 2025 at 12:40 AM
generally speaking, and with the glaring exception of november 2024, the more directly democratic an institution has been, the better it has checked Trump (eg grand and petit juries); the more elite and insular, the less effective (the Senate, the Supreme Court, big business)
Reposted by Steph
👇🎯 Folks look at you like you’re crazy when you say we’re in the midst of the worst Article I constitutional crisis in 🇺🇸 history, & then, well, 👇🤷♂️
To sum up: the President is not enforcing the law about TikTok access in order to structure the timing and sale of another giant social media platform to his political allies.
* ORACLE, SILVER LAKE, ANDREESSEN TO CONTROL TIKOK IN US: WSJ
$ORCL
$ORCL
September 16, 2025 at 10:45 PM
👇🎯 Folks look at you like you’re crazy when you say we’re in the midst of the worst Article I constitutional crisis in 🇺🇸 history, & then, well, 👇🤷♂️
It's almost like the fact that the US political system gives white, rural voters way, way more representational power than the rest of us has some kind of distorting effect on our national discourse.
It's incredibly weird that folks have convinced themselves that the Covid vaccines - which had an ~82^% take up rate - were unpopular.
Wow. New NBC poll finds 78% support vaccines, including 72% of independents and 67% of Republicans.
As I keep trying to argue, Democrats should polarize the shit out of the vaccine/public health debate. Make people take sides. It will split Republicans and MAGA.
See this:
As I keep trying to argue, Democrats should polarize the shit out of the vaccine/public health debate. Make people take sides. It will split Republicans and MAGA.
See this:
September 9, 2025 at 12:22 AM
It's almost like the fact that the US political system gives white, rural voters way, way more representational power than the rest of us has some kind of distorting effect on our national discourse.
Reposted by Steph
Once again, we are in the midst of the worst, most unprecedented Article I constitutional crisis in 🇺🇸 history
White House declares $4.9B in foreign aid unilaterally canceled in end-run around Congress' funding power.
White House declares $4.9B in foreign aid unilaterally canceled in end-run around Congress' funding power
The administration is setting up clash with Capitol Hill over its use of the "pocket rescission."
www.politico.com
August 29, 2025 at 1:44 PM
Once again, we are in the midst of the worst, most unprecedented Article I constitutional crisis in 🇺🇸 history
Reposted by Steph
On the slate gabfest this week, she discussed a revealing part of their strategy, which is to find takes that will generate engagement and reach, especially through arguments that generate intra-left conflict. I suspect you can create a successful business on this premise, but not so much a polity
August 23, 2025 at 2:17 PM
On the slate gabfest this week, she discussed a revealing part of their strategy, which is to find takes that will generate engagement and reach, especially through arguments that generate intra-left conflict. I suspect you can create a successful business on this premise, but not so much a polity
Reposted by Steph
Having a plurality of extremists in your electoral coalition is a huge problem when institutions empower them directly
August 23, 2025 at 1:49 PM
Having a plurality of extremists in your electoral coalition is a huge problem when institutions empower them directly
I’m a fan of the fight in @chrismurphyct.bsky.social — but I live here, and it doesn’t feel like a distraction to me. It feels like they are preparing to occupy the city so it’s easier to maintain power after they lose the election.
All just a stunt to distract from the economy being a mess, health premiums about to go up by 75%, Epstein coverup. But the media keeps covering like it's straight news about crime in DC.
WASHINGTON (AP) — National Guard troops from West Virginia, South Carolina, Mississippi and Louisiana have begun arriving in Washington.
August 19, 2025 at 10:21 PM
I’m a fan of the fight in @chrismurphyct.bsky.social — but I live here, and it doesn’t feel like a distraction to me. It feels like they are preparing to occupy the city so it’s easier to maintain power after they lose the election.
Reposted by Steph
Yep. As I try to argue in this pod chat, Trump's military occupation of DC and LA, his threat to end vote-by-mail via executive order, and the corrupt Texas gerrymandering scheme are part of the same big story.
A non-mutually exclusive series:
1. Gerrymander the Wrongs out of contention
2. Strike the Wrongs from the voting rolls
3. Make it logistically difficult for the Wrongs to vote
4. Intimidate the Wrongs from voting
5. Refuse to count the Wrongs’ votes
6. If the Wrongs still win, claim fraud & annul
1. Gerrymander the Wrongs out of contention
2. Strike the Wrongs from the voting rolls
3. Make it logistically difficult for the Wrongs to vote
4. Intimidate the Wrongs from voting
5. Refuse to count the Wrongs’ votes
6. If the Wrongs still win, claim fraud & annul
"What we are seeing is a real effort to militarize the nation ahead of 2026...in Detroit, Milwaukee, Atlanta, Philadelphia...there will be a full-on effort to intimidate and suppress Dem voters."
On the pod @davedaley.bsky.social is brilliant on Trump/GOP ratfuckery:
newrepublic.com/article/1992...
On the pod @davedaley.bsky.social is brilliant on Trump/GOP ratfuckery:
newrepublic.com/article/1992...
August 19, 2025 at 12:16 PM
Yep. As I try to argue in this pod chat, Trump's military occupation of DC and LA, his threat to end vote-by-mail via executive order, and the corrupt Texas gerrymandering scheme are part of the same big story.
Reposted by Steph
checkpoints are by definition stops made without reasonable suspicion. They are presumptively unconstitutional. I don’t know what they’re saying this is about, but I’m certain whatever they say will be a pretext for general crime-detection and that that is not ok.
August 19, 2025 at 12:08 AM
checkpoints are by definition stops made without reasonable suspicion. They are presumptively unconstitutional. I don’t know what they’re saying this is about, but I’m certain whatever they say will be a pretext for general crime-detection and that that is not ok.
Reposted by Steph
Watching video today of ICE agents roaming the streets of American cities and reading about the anger and fear of Bostonians during the Fugitive Slave crisis is a reminder of why it is so important that the institutions charged with interpreting the past be allowed to do so without interference.
August 14, 2025 at 11:10 PM
Watching video today of ICE agents roaming the streets of American cities and reading about the anger and fear of Bostonians during the Fugitive Slave crisis is a reminder of why it is so important that the institutions charged with interpreting the past be allowed to do so without interference.
Reposted by Steph
Reposted by Steph
the thing everyone is going to have to accept is that the post-trump period, whenever it comes, will not and cannot be a project of national unity, it must be a project of partisan project of renewal, in the same way that reconstruction and the new deal were partisan projects of renewal.
August 12, 2025 at 11:18 PM
the thing everyone is going to have to accept is that the post-trump period, whenever it comes, will not and cannot be a project of national unity, it must be a project of partisan project of renewal, in the same way that reconstruction and the new deal were partisan projects of renewal.
"Strength lies in organisation, in careful long-range planning
and implementation, in consistency of action over an indefinite
period of years, in the scale of financing available only through
joint effort, and in the political power available only through
united action and national organizations."
and implementation, in consistency of action over an indefinite
period of years, in the scale of financing available only through
joint effort, and in the political power available only through
united action and national organizations."
August 12, 2025 at 11:15 PM
"Strength lies in organisation, in careful long-range planning
and implementation, in consistency of action over an indefinite
period of years, in the scale of financing available only through
joint effort, and in the political power available only through
united action and national organizations."
and implementation, in consistency of action over an indefinite
period of years, in the scale of financing available only through
joint effort, and in the political power available only through
united action and national organizations."
The reason for this asymmetry is in part because rural voters' votes are worth more than urban voters' votes. They count more than we do in our political system. In fact, they count disproportionately more than any other country in the world. www.economist.com/graphic-deta...
August 11, 2025 at 7:19 PM
The reason for this asymmetry is in part because rural voters' votes are worth more than urban voters' votes. They count more than we do in our political system. In fact, they count disproportionately more than any other country in the world. www.economist.com/graphic-deta...
Reposted by Steph
👇🎯 A lot of folks don't seem to understand that 90+% of our authoritarian problem is the total failure of Article I of the Constitution, not Article III.
Our country has some problems that, taking the law at face value and refusing to engage in chicanery, require constitutional amendments to fix. But this is absolutely not one of them.
August 3, 2025 at 10:14 PM
👇🎯 A lot of folks don't seem to understand that 90+% of our authoritarian problem is the total failure of Article I of the Constitution, not Article III.
Reposted by Steph
From a director at the … American Enterprise Institute
August 3, 2025 at 11:46 AM
From a director at the … American Enterprise Institute
Reposted by Steph
I guess it will at least be amusing to watch the Roberts Court twist itself into knots to declare the new Texas map legal, moral, and virtuous, and the new California map a brazen perversion of democracy.
Newsom says he will seek to call a Nov. special election to have voters approve new House maps that boost Democrats.
Gavin Newsom floats November special election for his anti-Trump redistricting push
The governor has vigorously embraced the party’s push to counter a GOP-friendly Texas gerrymander by buoying Democrats in blue states.
www.politico.com
July 31, 2025 at 10:53 PM
I guess it will at least be amusing to watch the Roberts Court twist itself into knots to declare the new Texas map legal, moral, and virtuous, and the new California map a brazen perversion of democracy.
Reposted by Steph
Again, the platform needs to be institutional reform. None of the policies can get through our failed, broken, incredibly anti-democratic electoral, legislative, & judicial institutions. And the guardrails of democracy have failed. Fixing that is first, second, & third order. 👆 is simply not it.
This is why Democrats need a platform focused on institutional reform. Having to adopt policy positions opposed by supermajorities of the national public to win the hyper-malapportioned Senate is anti-democratic, & promising policies you can never pass is political suicide.
bsky.app/profile/mcop...
bsky.app/profile/mcop...
I really feel like more people need to constructively engage with this! You can think the moderation/centrism discourse is often braindead (as I do!) but the center left really needs a pretty robust convo about what winning, say, an Iowa or Kansas or Texas or Ohio senate seat would look like.
June 30, 2025 at 11:16 PM
Again, the platform needs to be institutional reform. None of the policies can get through our failed, broken, incredibly anti-democratic electoral, legislative, & judicial institutions. And the guardrails of democracy have failed. Fixing that is first, second, & third order. 👆 is simply not it.
Reposted by Steph
👇🎯 Norms and duct tape worked for a long time. Sort of. But we’re all out of norms, & we’ve shredded our last rolls of tape.
If/when we get out of this mess, we need to understand that a democracy cannot rely just on norms and forbearance. Rules will need to be codified and spelled out, like in other countries with better, more robust institutions.
July 16, 2025 at 10:51 AM
👇🎯 Norms and duct tape worked for a long time. Sort of. But we’re all out of norms, & we’ve shredded our last rolls of tape.
Reposted by Steph
Folks look at you like you’re crazy when you say we’re in the midst of the worst, most unprecedented Article I constitutional crisis in American history, & then, well, 👇🤷♂️🤦♂️
Mike Johnson: "God miraculously saved the president's life -- I think it's undeniable -- and he did it for an obvious purpose. His presidency and his life are the fruits of divine providence. He points that out all the time and he's right to do so."
July 16, 2025 at 11:08 AM
Folks look at you like you’re crazy when you say we’re in the midst of the worst, most unprecedented Article I constitutional crisis in American history, & then, well, 👇🤷♂️🤦♂️