Tom Pepinsky
LightNews LightNews
banner
tompepinsky.com
Tom Pepinsky
@tompepinsky.com
22K followers 1.2K following 2.9K posts
Teacher, researcher, globalist, republican.

tompepinsky.com
Posts Replies Media Videos
tompepinsky.com
Douthat: "Is there not a certain unique potency in the monarchy that some ambitious figure might try to revive and use before the end?"

Summon Orwell!

www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-f...
But suppose the crisis comes, with the existing institutions of Britain failing even more notably than they seem to be today. Is there not a certain unique potency in the monarchy that some ambitious figure might try to revive and use before the end? If not William, perhaps his steelier consort? Young Prince George (who knows what techno-monarchist Substacks he might end up reading?) or Princess Charlotte? Prince Archie of Sussex, his ambitions kindled by his mother’s on-the-make Americanism? Monarchy survived the 20th century by making its peace with liberalism and making its unruly members an anachronism. But in a post-liberal era, that unruliness might yet be a political virtue — or if not quite that, at least a way to close out the books of kings with a bang. Now, it is clear that the decline of a language must ultimately have political and economic causes: it is not due simply to the bad influence of this or that individual writer. But an effect can become a cause, reinforcing the original cause and producing the same effect in an intensified form, and so on indefinitely. A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language. It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts. The point is that the process is reversible.
November 8, 2025 at 6:28 PM
tompepinsky.com
Perhaps you would be interested in this crabby take on PR in the USA which has sat unedited on my desktop since fall 2020
THE CASE AGAINST PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION IN THE UNITED STATES Thomas B. Pepinsky* Cornell University ABSTRACT. Proportional representation (PR) is often proposed as a solution to partisan dysfunction in the United States. The most compelling argument for PR is that it would the break down the two-party system that characterizes US national politics. But in a federal system with a presidential form of government and a bicameral legislature with two single-member districts in each state in the Senate, PR could only be implemented for House elections. The likely result would be even more power accruing to the executive branch, increasing the all-or-nothing nature of presidential elections and undermining party discipline in the House. All the purported benefits of PR in the United States would be more easily obtained by switching from a presidential to a parliamentary form of government.
November 7, 2025 at 2:57 PM
tompepinsky.com
November 5, 2025 at 1:34 PM
tompepinsky.com
Charlotte Court House, VA is the closest thing I have to an ancestral family seat, and this result explains why just about everyone related to me moved away
November 5, 2025 at 2:05 AM
tompepinsky.com
Out on the road today, I saw a
Phish 95 license plate
November 4, 2025 at 1:58 PM
tompepinsky.com
<local hero> YOU KNOW WHERE YOU ARE??
Amelia Earhart Terminal
October 31, 2025 at 11:31 AM
tompepinsky.com
Preparing for a lecture on "Asian values” and “Asian-style democracy,” and really need to commend this outstanding agenda-setting essay on modern and historical liberalism in Southeast Asia by Leloy Claudio (Berkeley). Short 🧵

1/

www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1...
A Research Agenda for the Study of Southeast Asian Liberalisms Lisandro E. Claudio ABSTRACT This article proposes a research agenda for a sympathetic study of liberalism in Southeast Asia. To do so, it outlines a vision for liberal scholarship, after which it responds to three obstacles that retard investigations of liberalism in the region: that liberalism is an elite project; that liberalism is ill-suited and detrimental to Asia; and that liberalism is emotionally barren. In addressing these obstacles, the article hopes to encourage capacious research on how liberalism has been interpreted and reinterpreted to address historical and contemporary political problems in Southeast Asia.
October 30, 2025 at 12:00 PM
tompepinsky.com
Iron Chef Ketchup
Trump-S. Korea menu
October 29, 2025 at 6:50 PM
tompepinsky.com
Everyone is having a lousy time except for Singaporean P.M. Lawrence Wong (far left), who like many Singaporeans enjoys a little holiday to KL sometimes even if KLCC kinda showing its age now
October 26, 2025 at 10:47 PM
tompepinsky.com
<Steve Winwood>

HALLOUMIIIIIIIII! HALLOUMI!
Halloumi, beans, and tomatoes
October 26, 2025 at 9:45 PM
tompepinsky.com
Indonesia, 1998. FOR EXAMPLE
The New Order subsequently stepped up its defense of economic management. Tutut led the charge with her public support of the Love the Rupiah campaign, targeting mobile capital in doing so. Tutut not only asked the konglomerat to show patriotism by holding rupiah assets but also pledged that the Soeharto family itself would exchange its foreign currency holdings for rupiahs.51 Amid some popular speculation that konglomerat’s business practices and involvement in currency deals showed their lack of patriotism, the regime began to target the konglomerat directly for participation in the Love the Rupiah campaign. These sentiments were particularly acute in the wake of the poor international reaction to the 1998 budget announced on January 5, which led to further rupiah depreciation and saw urban Indonesians beginning to hoard food and other necessary goods. With hoarding came accusations of price gouging from goods traders. Wealthy Indonesians – increasingly viewed by the public as Chinese Indonesians – bore the brunt of popular dissatisfaction in urban areas.52 The regime designed the Love the Rupiah campaign to present a united front of pribumi businessmen, konglomerat, and government figures with a firm plan to end economic troubles.53 For months after the initiation of the Love the Rupiah campaign, Indonesian newspapers printed stories of Indonesians – both rich and poor – spontaneously converting their assets into rupiah.
October 25, 2025 at 2:34 PM
tompepinsky.com
*sigh* the things one writes in 2025
Foreign policy will be transactional, with an eye for flashy wins in the U.S. media and a focus on mercantilist-inspired “deals.” For U.S. partners and allies in Asia, though, the most troubling developments are the Trump administration’s evisceration of the core institutions of the American state. The second Trump administration’s approach to government is guided by the politics of dominance. The administration’s social media strategy is, quite literally, shitposting.
October 22, 2025 at 11:56 AM
tompepinsky.com
Important to benchmark Kristi’s Kowboys relative to your standard shitlib globalist IPA dad
October 21, 2025 at 9:45 PM
tompepinsky.com
John Bender
October 16, 2025 at 8:24 PM
tompepinsky.com
Morris Buttermaker and Amanda
October 16, 2025 at 4:01 PM
tompepinsky.com
Here is Prabowo Subianto asking Donald Trump if he can meet Don and Eric. Then they’ll talk about “Harry,” which is almost certainly a reference to Hary Tanoe: this guy.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hary_Ta...
Hary Tanoe with Donald John Trump
October 13, 2025 at 5:45 PM
tompepinsky.com
I made saag paneer with kale instead of spinach. Never going back
Saag paneer
October 12, 2025 at 9:11 PM
tompepinsky.com
<Anthony Kiedes voice, Dave Navarro guitar>

Cheese said! All the whey. All the whey.
Curds and whey
October 12, 2025 at 1:26 PM
tompepinsky.com
“Theocratic libertarian” is exactly as incoherent as it sounds. No laws at all except for the laws of God, which… turns out… is gonna require a lot of laws written by men

"He Believes America Should Be a Theocracy. He Says His Influence Is Growing."
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/09/o...
The government should be significantly smaller than it is, and we need to curtail a lot of the busybodyness that we have. That’s why I would call myself a theocratic libertarian. There is a true libertarian element in this, and yet, the transcendent grounding for what we’re talking about means that we acknowledge the authority of God. We have racked up quite a body count of awful crimes, and I believe the only way out is for us to repent and turn to Christ. This would be things like no more Pride parades, no more drag queen story hours, no more abortion on demand, no more legalized same-sex unions — all of that, done. That’s the repentance part.
October 9, 2025 at 5:10 PM
tompepinsky.com
And then a piece by me, on social cleavages and electoral institutions in contemporary Indonesia

4/

journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....
Indonesian democracy is characterised by large governing coalitions and a dominant presidency, coupled with weak parties with few programmatic differences. These features of coalitional presidentialism are the product of a presidential form of government and proportional representation with high district magnitudes and have implications for electoral politics in a diverse socioeconomic context. This manuscript shows that the core features of Indonesian party politics and electoral competition in the 2024 elections can be explained by applying the comparative literature on electoral institutions to Indonesia's social structure and political cleavages. Analysing the interaction of electoral rules, social structure, and politicians’ incentives provides insights into the roots of Indonesia's democratic decline and the pathways towards reform.
October 8, 2025 at 6:14 PM
tompepinsky.com
Next, we have Burhanuddin Muhtadi (Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University, Jakarta) on collective memory and the election of Prabowo Subianto

3/

journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....
In 2024, Prabowo won by the greatest margin in Indonesian presidential election history, garnering over 96 million votes. How did Prabowo win so decisively, despite his deep ties to the dark authoritarian past and allegations of human rights violations? Utilizing the original national survey data prior to the 2024 presidential election, the author finds that authoritarian beliefs and nostalgia for the authoritarian past do not explain support for Prabowo. Instead, authoritarian notions of democracy such as support for military governments and strongman leaders are highly linked to Prabowo support. Although supporting Prabowo does not necessarily indicate support for the return of authoritarianism, it does imply that many Indonesians may either be unconcerned or naïve about potential challenges to the current political system, or have a concept of democracy that aligns with the idea of a strong, powerful personalistic leadership that has been a central selling point of Prabowo's presidential candidacy.
October 8, 2025 at 6:14 PM
tompepinsky.com
First up, Marcus Mietzner (ANU) on Joko Widodo’s majoritarian instincts and their mixed effects on Indonesian democracy

2/

journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....
After ruling Indonesia for a decade, Joko Widodo (or popularly called "Jokowi") left the presidency in 2024 amid a heated debate over his democratic record. While his high approval ratings indicated support in the broader population, pro-democracy activists were scathing. Indeed, under his presidency, many democratic achievements of previous periods eroded. Yet democracy, however damaged, survived Jokowi's rule. This article adds to scholarship on this outcome of a harmed but enduring Indonesian democracy. It looks at how Jokowi's majoritarian thinking led him to undermine democracy when he felt he had the majority's support for his actions. Believing that democracy is doing what the majority wants, approves, or tolerates, he used polls to identify segments of democracy he could attack. At the same time, his majoritarianism also set him limits: if a majority was opposed, he retreated. This left Indonesia with a declining democracy, but one that did not cross over into fully authoritarian territory.
October 8, 2025 at 6:14 PM
tompepinsky.com
I predict we will see more such proposals, I’m afraid: Exclusionary openness is a tried-and-true model in recent European history and updating it to meet the current moment would serve a lot of corporate and racist interests

tompepinsky.com/wp-content/u...
The Exclusionary Foundations of Embedded Liberalism Sara Wallace Goodman and Thomas B. Pepinsky Analyses of embedded liberalism have focused overwhelmingly on trade in goods and capital, to the exclusion of migration. We argue that much as capital controls were essential components of the embedded liberal compromise, so too were restrictions on the democratic and social rights of labor migrants. Generous welfare programs in labor-receiving countries thrived alongside inclusionary immigration policies, but this balanced arrangement was only tenable if migrants were politically excluded in their destination countries. That is, embedded liberalism abroad rested on exclusionary political foundations at home. In bringing together the IPE literature on the“globalization trilemma” with the comparative politics of citizenship, we provide a novel account of how embedded liberalism worked politically, with implications for current debates about the fate of the liberal order in a time of populist resurgence. Migrant workers are profitable and beneficial to the host society only so long as they are unorganized, insecure, bereft of political rights, in a word,“exploited.” Gary Freeman, Immigrant Labor and Racial Conflict in Industrial Societies1
October 8, 2025 at 11:22 AM
tompepinsky.com
This AI-boom flow-of-funs chart reminds me of a map of the heroin/yaba/meth trade in the Golden Triangle
Methamphetamine trafficking routes in East and Southeast Asia, South Asia, and Oceania, 2024 and 2025 (May)
October 8, 2025 at 12:27 AM
tompepinsky.com
This is a warrior. He marched across France, and as a German-speaker, translated for Nazi POWs caught defending the Third Reich. Then he came home, went to Alabama Polytechnic Institute on the GI Bill, and met my other grandma.

Forget your lust for the rich man’s gold. All you need is in your soul
October 1, 2025 at 12:30 PM