Americans have never been angrier with one another. But polarization is not the disease—it is the response to a revanchist movement seeking to roll back sixty years of social progress. 🆕 by @lilymasonphd.bsky.social muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/a...
Erica Chenoweth
@chenoweth.bsky.social
Political scientist & part-time farmer. Books: 'On Revolutions' (2022), 'Civil Resistance' (2021), & 'The Politics of Terror' (2019). Coming soon: 'Bread & Roses' & 'The End of People Power.' https://www.ericachenoweth.com. What a time to be alive.
My team at the NVA Lab has produced a new dashboard for exploring our data on US protests from Jan 2025-May 2026. This snapshot shows the 61k+ protest events (>14.6M+ recorded participants) active in the US since Trump's second inauguration. Link to dashboard in thread.
My team at the NVA Lab has produced a new dashboard for exploring our data on US protests from Jan 2025-May 2026. This snapshot shows the 61k+ protest events (>14.6M+ recorded participants) active in the US since Trump's second inauguration. Link to dashboard in thread.
Our friend and famed social movements expert @chenoweth.bsky.social will stop by tomorrow to chat about the next No Kings on October 17, our organizing to stop election sabotage during the midterms, and your questions. Join us: www.mobilize.us/indivisible/...
Happening within the same 72 hours that Trump banned media from the White House — alarm bells as we hurl towards the midterms with near-daily reminders that the group of men controlling our govt & media & tech grows smaller as they glom onto power & wield increasingly authoritarian tactics.
Free Press@freepress.bsky.social · 3w agoAG Bonta is trying to save face, but we know he capitulated to the Ellisons, striking a bad deal that "abandons the thousands of creatives and workers who risked speaking out, and the tens of millions of consumers the attorneys general should be fighting for." ktla.com/news/califor...
@stevelevitsky.bsky.social and I are back! Join us at 3pm today on The Breakdown, where we talk about the ongoing struggle for American democracy. Register here: ash.harvard.edu/events/the-b....
The Breakdown with Erica Chenoweth and Steve Levitsky (Eighth Session) – Ash Center
ash.harvard.edu
New, from me: This should be a clarifying moment about the relationship the Supreme Court's opposition to representative democracy in America. Lets look at some graphs that make this point. 🧵 donmoynihan.substack.com/p/power-demo...
Power, democracy, and clarity
What does the end of the Voting Rights Act mean?
donmoynihan.substack.com
I've done this too, but we should be better at showing data - many people don't know the size of Congress.
In its latest ruling gutting the Voting Rights Act, the Roberts Court has inverted the Reconstruction Amendments to justify the same racist devices and practices they were adopted to dismantle (🎁) www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...
One reason not to allow a 9-member super-legislature to arbitrarily veto federal election legislation it doesn’t like for purely invented non-legal partisan reasons is that it creates scope for authoritarians to go the next step & simply “postpone” elections.
Phil Lewis@phillewis.bsky.social · 5mo agoBATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Louisiana postpones May 16 House primaries after US Supreme Court rolls back Voting Rights Act.
👀"We will not back down when our communities are most in need of resources to resist authoritarianism." Powerful statement from - Block & Build Funder Coalition (BBFC) a coalition of more than 500 individuals representing 225 philanthropic organizations - in solidarity with @splcenter.org
Climate change impacts are here, but public support for action remains polarized. Which climate messages move people? In a ~13,500-person megastudy, we tested 10 of the most-cited messages. Six increased pro-environmental attitudes in the U.S.—but only by 1–4 percentage points. 🧵
An attack on one of us is an attack on all. This administration uses racism, hate, and fear—openly and repeatedly—as tools of control. We will not be silent. Read our statement: https://bit.ly/4eAqjK0
The Leadership Conference Condemns Attacks on Civil Rights Movement
This administration uses racism, hate, and fear – openly and repeatedly – as tools of control.
civilrights.org
“Rather than let a crowded field enable Orbán to retain power, parties stood down their candidate to maximize the vote behind Magyar and his Tisza party.” www.liberalcurrents.com/two-lessons-...
Two Lessons from Hungary for 2026 and 2028
Unity and accountability.
liberalcurrents.com
This is pure, unadulterated preference falsification under authoritarian rule — @timurkuran.bsky.social getting it right yet again… www.nytimes.com/2026/04/13/o...
A lot of Orbán's American fans are saying that this election proved he was never an authoritarian in the first place. This is completely wrong — and, in fact, betrays a complete misunderstanding of both Hungarian politics and modern authoritarianism. Here's why.
This Methodist is highly impressed by the three cardinals who took on Trump on 60 Minutes tonight--they were focused, tough, straightforward. The Catholic church is emerging as a potent center of resistance. As one said, "We're better than this." www.thelettersfromleo.com/p/were-bette...
“We’re Better Than This” — Pope Leo XIV’s Top Three US Cardinals on 60 Minutes
Cardinals Cupich, McElroy, and Tobin sat for their first joint interview — and credited Pope Leo XIV with inspiring them to speak out against the Iran war and mass deportations.
thelettersfromleo.com
There is now a massive street party with huge crowds dancing in Budapest. Hugs, tears and bottles opening. Orban is gone, Peter Magyar took power
Hungarians deserve every congratulations for giving Peter Magyar a bigger margin than Orban has ever gotten in all of his rigged elections - and this within the system that Orban rigged. Magyar now has a constitutional majority to undo Orban's constitutional prison and govern as a democratic leader.
To scholars of democratic backsliding, it is difficult to overstate how big a deal today's election in Hungary, a country of less than 10 million people, is likely to be as a narrative milestone for our age, regardless of which way it goes.
Financial Times@financialtimes.com · 6mo agoHungarian voters turn out in force for biggest test of Orbán era ft.trib.al/AVotRAP
This is the massive turnout for last night’s “anti regime” concert in Heroes Square, Budapest, ahead of tomorrow’s crucial Hungarian elections. Tens of thousands chanted “Russians go home”. #Orban
Since discovering that today is the anniversary of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s execution by the Nazi regime (Apr 9, 1945), I thought it would be appropriate to repost this thread of some key, and timely, lines from his Prison Letters. 🗃️
Matthew J Kuiper@matthewjkuiper.bsky.social · 2y agoAfter I posted👇, a friend pointed me to a stunning passage in Bonhoeffer's Prison Letters. Digest slowly: "Stupidity is a more dangerous enemy of the good than [evil]. Evil always carries within itself the germ of its own subversion in that it leaves in human beings at least a sense of unease. 1/
Host a local organizing meeting to gather newly activated people in your community and plan for what’s next after No Kings. We put together a toolkit with everything you need: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1FiB6mAXLloLnkwgNqvyW6Wrx1wSrG7TMpKvesSbYQGA/edit?tab=t.v0fmw0p02ibf
Really timely re-release of @davidmcraney.bsky.social’s brilliant You Are Not So Smart podcast with @chenoweth.bsky.social. #NoKings feels so close to 3.5%. Also makes the key point that the likes of the odious MTG opposing the US government really helps. Stoking division works both ways.
336 - The 3.5 Percent Rule - Erica Chenoweth (rebroadcast) | You Are Not So Smart
If you want to create a movement that can change the national status quo, you don't need half the country, you only need 3.5 percent of the population to join – but there are some caveats.
you-are-not-so-smart.simplecast.com
Excited to share new paper w/ @jakemgrumbach.bsky.social: "Veiled Power: How Rosenwald Teachers Quietly Shaped the Civil Rights Movement" The puzzle: did ~5,000 segregated schools built in rural South emphasizing “manual labor” strengthen or weaken Jim Crow? 🧵 omarwasow.com/wasow_grumba...
This is powerful, if true. More of this. Refuse. Stand on principle.
Peter Lucier@peterlucier.bsky.social · 6mo agoGreg Jaffe Helene Cooper and Eric Schmitt on the byline with a source on background saying the dismissal was tied to refusal to comply with Hegseth’s directive to remove the 2 black and 2 female officers from the promotion list to one star general www.nytimes.com/2026/04/02/u...
Join @stevelevitsky.bsky.social & me tomorrow morning at 9am ET for our latest episode of The Breakdown: ash.harvard.edu/events/the-b...
The Breakdown with Erica Chenoweth and Steve Levitsky – Ash Center
ash.harvard.edu