E.J. Fagan
ejfagan.com
E.J. Fagan
@ejfagan.com
Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Illinois Chicago. Author of The Thinkers: The Rise of Partisan Think Tanks and the Polarization of American Politics. Also, baseball.
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Hello new Bluesky followers!

I study U.S. politics and policymaking, focusing on the politicization of expertise and information processing.

I published a great book this summer. It's called The Thinkers: The Rise of Partisan Think Tanks and the Polarization of American Politics. Check it out!
The Thinkers: The Rise of Partisan Think Tanks and the Polarization of American Politics (Studies in Postwar American Political Development): Fagan, E.J.: 9780197759660: Amazon.com: Books
The Thinkers: The Rise of Partisan Think Tanks and the Polarization of American Politics (Studies in Postwar American Political Development) [Fagan, E.J.] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. The Thinkers: The Rise of Partisan Think Tanks and the Polarization of American Politics (Studies in Postwar American Political Development)
www.amazon.com
Reposted by E.J. Fagan
Remember the immigration raid on the apartment complex in Chicago almost two months ago? The one with the Black Hawk helicopter and federal agents rappelling on ropes? @ProPublica decided to take a deeper look. We found little evidence to support the government’s claims. 🧵
November 13, 2025 at 11:06 PM
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The administration leaning into GWOT on the narcos—broadly defined to include foreign leaders.

Seems likely to involve further unlawful military action.

Going to wager that the United States does not in fact bomb its way to victory in the war on drugs.
November 13, 2025 at 10:29 PM
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NEW: The first two years of Massachusetts' millionaire tax has raised $3 billion more than expected.

And rather than driving the rich away, IPS researchers found that the number of millionaires has *increased.*

Tax the rich. Greg Ryan in @bloomberg.com:
Millionaire Tax That Inspired Mamdani Fuels $5.7 Billion Haul in Massachusetts
A millionaire levy in Massachusetts that New York City mayoral frontrunner Zohran Mamdani holds up as a model for taxing the rich has generated $3 billion more in revenue than expected without forcing...
www.bloomberg.com
November 12, 2025 at 4:01 PM
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The entire GOP remains committed to policies that were discredited a century ago because doing stupid s**t is easier for them than admitting that Donald Trump is economically illiterate.
Prices aren't coming down. Trump lied. They started going up as soon as he took the wheel.
November 13, 2025 at 4:05 PM
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The attorney general and the FBI director, a manosphere podcaster bro, pulled into the situation room a member of Congress best known for getting kicked out of a Beetlejuice musical for drunkenly giving her date a handy, in order to pressure her about the president's child sex trafficking scandal.
November 12, 2025 at 11:23 PM
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Something that’s so striking in these emails is how…unimpressive Epstein is. He comes off as a pompous, sub-literate lech. Yes everyone is so mortifyingly solicitous of him! All fawning and flattery! Why?????
November 13, 2025 at 3:43 AM
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in case you're wondering how the cope is going www.mediamatters.org/megyn-kelly/...
November 13, 2025 at 12:29 AM
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The true unicorn in modern social science: an RDD null effect 👀
Of course, knowing _that_ turnout increases doesn't tell us whether it changes _how_ people vote. To answer this, we use VEST data to test whether mass shootings impacted the share of votes a neighborhood (precinct) gave to the Democratic presidential candidate in 2016 and 2020. The answer? No.
November 13, 2025 at 2:08 AM
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For folks (and journalists) who want to search the Oversight Committee email texts, I made a database for searching the 20k text files:

splendorous-chaja-f79791.netlify.app
Epstein Document Search
splendorous-chaja-f79791.netlify.app
November 13, 2025 at 1:12 AM
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The Kremlin disguised a nearly $100 mn payment to Trump in the form of a brokered real estate deal... and both Jeffrey Epstein and William Pulte were involved in the deal. That's very interesting.
November 12, 2025 at 9:56 PM
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yeah-- also look at the within-pollster trends here

marywitha4.substack.com/p/every-poll...
Every pollster's presidential approval trendline
Alternately titled: Mary's slow descent into madness
marywitha4.substack.com
November 12, 2025 at 11:57 PM
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probably something an innocent man would do
November 12, 2025 at 7:43 PM
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The U.S. is on track for another record year for clean electricity in 2025: 59 GW additions, which is 92% of new builds. Solar leads again, and storage nearly doubles. The grid is changing fast.
November 12, 2025 at 8:08 PM
He's describing the legal profession.
JD Vance: "Science as practiced in its best form is that if you disagree with it, then you ought to criticize it and you ought to argue against it."
November 12, 2025 at 5:57 PM
Trump dips below 40% approval on @gelliottmorris.com's tracker for the first time.
November 12, 2025 at 5:24 PM
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Googles Tom Barrack.
November 12, 2025 at 5:02 PM
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Astonishing and in a way heartening to see what people are prepared to put up with to get the education they want.
The number of foreign students in the U.S. decreased by less than 1 percent this fall, according to new federal data, despite predictions that their enrollment would plummet this year due to a crackdown by the Trump administration.
Trump’s crackdown on foreign students barely impacts enrollment, data shows
About 1.3 million students in the U.S. had active visas in October, down less than 1 percent from a year ago.
www.washingtonpost.com
November 12, 2025 at 6:03 AM
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If you haven’t seen it, this is the video.

It’s a serious problem that our government can respond to this video and claim that we didn’t see what we all saw.
Here’s video of federal agents doing a drive by pepper spraying that hit a father and his one-year old on Saturday when the Feds were hitting Little Village and Cicero
November 12, 2025 at 5:05 AM
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He stole the Resolute Desk !
November 12, 2025 at 1:57 AM
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I wonder if the United States can learn anything from the last time a major industrialized country decided to isolate itself from the rest of the world?

Almost a decade after the Brexit vote, GDP in the UK is around 6-8% lower relative to peer countries. (Source: www.nber.org/papers/w34459)
November 11, 2025 at 3:35 PM
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Let's say you take out a $400,000 mortgage loan at 6.25% - and choose a 50-year mortgage instead of 30 years.

In return for saving $283 monthly, you will pay an extra $421,302 in interest over the life of the loan.

Or if you sell at 15 years, will have paid down just $29,000 in equity. Not good.
INGRAHAM: Is a 50 year mortgage really a good idea?

TRUMP: It's not even a big deal. You go from 40 to 50 years. All it means is you pay less per month
November 11, 2025 at 4:07 PM
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NEWS: The UK is no longer sharing intelligence with the US about suspected drug trafficking vessels in the Caribbean because it does not want to be complicit in US military strikes and believes the attacks are illegal, sources familiar with the matter told CNN. edition.cnn.com/2025/11/11/p...
Exclusive: UK suspends some intelligence sharing with US over boat strike concerns in major break | CNN Politics
The United Kingdom is no longer sharing intelligence with the US about suspected drug trafficking vessels in the Caribbean because it does not want to be complicit in US military strikes and believes ...
edition.cnn.com
November 11, 2025 at 3:06 PM