Joe Mathews 乔·马修斯
@californiajoe.bsky.social
journalist, localist, futurist. Founder-publisher @democracylocal.bsky Fellow @berggruen. Calif. columnist @thepublicsquare Author 4 books, including The U.S. vs Us. Proud Californian, Angeleno, baseball coach
If you find yourself in an unfamiliar city hall far from home—as @californiajoe.bsky.social often does—bring up Panchayat, the hit streaming show from India about the governance of a small village. zps.la/4w8Lhpy
What Panchayat Reveals About Village Democracy | Democracy Local
The Hit Show From India Explores Power, Public Health, and the Gap Between Policy and Implementation
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On a recent trip to Vienna, @californiajoe.bsky.social went to church with Schwarzenegger and @kamalaharris.com to listen to a cathedral organ. Here's what he heard: zps.la/4pvDAXC
Can Optimism and Organ Music Change Our Climate Perspectives? | Connecting California
A Dispatch from Vienna, Where Our Columnist Went to Church With the Governator and Kamala Harris
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If driverless cars are widely adopted, “the population-level health effect could rival those of seat belts or the decline in smoking,” Jonathan Slotkin argues. So what is the hold up? #waymo #selfdriving
Why We Demand Perfect Machines Yet Tolerate Human Carnage | NOEMA
The illusion that we are all somehow above-average drivers is quietly slowing the adoption of autonomous vehicles that could save tens of thousands of lives each year.
noemamag.com
The Iran war has helped Pakistan showcase its unique set of skills & increased its status in the world order, @binashah.bsky.social writes. #iranwar #pakistan
Pakistan’s Rise To A Middle Power | NOEMA
The Iran war has helped Pakistan showcase its unique set of skills and increased its status in the world order.
noemamag.com
For the 250th, America should give itself a new name, writes columnist @californiajoe.bsky.social: “The United Scammers of America.” zps.la/4fa3nBd
I Pledge Allegiance to the United Scammers of America | Connecting California
This Republic Stands for Crooks, Fraud, and Hypocrisy
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“The only thing worse than a human with their finger on the atomic trigger is an AI quick on the draw based on faulty intelligence.” —Nathan Gardels #warfare #ai #drones
The Warfare Of The Future Is Already Here | NOEMA
AI and drones are changing the scope, scale and speed of battle.
noemamag.com
“Democracy’s merit is that it institutionalizes losing.” — @hennyge.bsky.social #ai #politics #elections
Democracy Needs Friction To Function | NOEMA
AI promises to help us find common ground. But democracy was never meant to resolve our disagreements.
noemamag.com
Great piece from Carnegie Endowment on how Morocco followed a "California model" on water, irrigation, and agriculture—and has lived to regret it. carnegieendowment.org/research/202...
Parallel Climate Reckonings: Colonial Water Legacies and Indigenous Adaptation, from Morocco to the American West
If Indigenous land and water dispossession is ignored, climate adaptation strategies risk reproducing inequalities and worsening acute climate vulnerability.
carnegieendowment.org
Columnist @californiajoe.bsky.social wants to say he is sorry—so very sorry—to America and @nytimes.com for being part of a state that dares to advance beyond late-19th-century election conventions. zps.la/4chMHoQ
California Is Sorry for Counting Votes Slowly | Connecting California
And for Registering So Many New Voters. And for Making It Easier for Them to Vote. And for Checking Their Signatures So Scrupulously. And for Improving on 19th-Century Conventions
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The 2028 Olympics could bankrupt Los Angeles city and melt its government. And maybe it’s just the renewal the city needs, writes @californiajoe.bsky.social. There’s only one mayor for that job: zps.la/49j2AL4
The Mayor From Jaws Should Run Los Angeles | Connecting California
ICE on the Streets? An Olympics That Could Bankrupt Us? Sharks in the Water? Let’s Ignore Them
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For nearly two decades, @californiajoe.bsky.social has asked California governors to make him lieutenant governor, an easy gig with no serious responsibilities and a big paycheck. Not anymore. Read how the state’s easiest political job just got dangerous: zps.la/4uPaXXq
I No Longer Want to Be Your Lieutenant Governor | Connecting California
A Sweet Sinecure Has Become a Perilous Position in Poisonous Times
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Pope Leo’s new encyclical not only calls for “transparency, accountability & accessibility” for AI, but also for its “disarmament,” Nathan Gardels writes. #popeleo #vatican #pope #ai
Pope Leo XIV: AI Wealth Must Be Universally Shared | NOEMA
His “Magnifica Humanitas” encyclical calls AI innovation to account.
noemamag.com
PDLA’s work on Los Angeles Charter Reform was just featured in The Guardian, alongside stories from the broader democracy movement happening in the U.S. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...
Elected officials don’t always understand their communities. Can civic assemblies bridge the gap?
US cities are turning to randomly selected residents to help resolve divisive policy debates
theguardian.com
Open your mail ballot. There, you’ll see 61 Californians running for governor. This isn't an election. It's a clusterf—k, writes columnist @californiajoe.bsky.social. zps.la/4wEoEd3
The California Governor’s Race Is a Clusterf—k | Connecting California
With 61 Names on the Ballot, Is the Best Choice No Choice at All?
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We're having a "Spring Survival" drive. Help us out!
“We need a new social contract for the age of AI. The current arrangement — the commodification & extraction of our lived experience into data analytics that are sold to manipulate human behavior — should not be legal.” —Otto Scharmer #ai #humanai
We May Be Entering A Second Axial Age | NOEMA
The transition from small hunter-gatherer societies into complex civilizations gave rise to the first Axial Age. Today, the planetary polycrisis of climate chaos, mass migration, increasing warfare an...
noemamag.com
"A new trusted voice has appeared in China's cyberspace— the virtual influencer Ying Li, known popularly as Teacher Li." —Nathan Gardels #democracy #authoritarian #china
Virtual Civil Society Is Coming To China | NOEMA
Teacher Li, a new species of dissident, is paving the way.
noemamag.com
This is a big step forward for co-governance and digital democracy in California. And all Californians can be part of it. #EngagedCA join.engaged.ca.gov/en/projects/...
Citizen engagement platform
join.engaged.ca.gov
Dismantling USAID, defunding VOA, closing the Wilson Center, and hollowing out the State Department's career diplomatic service together represent a strategic effort to decapitate the organizational and intellectual infrastructure of the liberal international order within the American state itself
Are your kids reading Melville? If not, demand that their teachers assign Moby Dick, The Confidence Man. In the USA (United Scammers of America)—"a flock of fools, under this captain of fools, in this ship of fools"—Melville is essential. "I have confidence in distrust"
“I have many thoughtful friends who are depressed about the state of the world. I am less depressed than they are because I believe history reveals a pattern that leaves reason for hope.” —Danny Hillis #democracy #fascism #tyrant
The Rise And Fall Of ‘Petty Tyrants’ | NOEMA
History shows that bad leaders can successfully undermine democracy — but the story always ends the same way.
noemamag.com
brilliant -- Morning Joe put together clips of Pete Hegseth reciting a fake Bible quote from Pulp Fiction, along with the Samuel L. Jackson scene from the movie
Due to an unfortunate stay in the hospital, I missed the window to say "F*ck the NYT" when it pissed on California's commitment, enshrined in our constitution, to count every vote. But thanks @californiajoe.bsky.social for delivering the message. New York could use a big dose of democracy.
COLUMN: Sorry, America, That Californians Count Ballots Slowly
Who Knew that Accuracy and Care in Elections Undermined Democracy?
open.substack.com
My latest piece argues that as LLMs commodify routine cognitive tasks like data manipulation & text-drafting, a surprising implications emerges: namely that a traditional liberal arts education is what provides the skills that will be most valued in this era: www.noemamag.com/why-a-libera....
Why A Liberal Arts Education Will Soon Be More Valuable Than Ever | NOEMA
In a workplace augmented by AI, the new frontier of human value lies in interpretation, negotiation and trust-building.
noemamag.com
“.. appears to be the first time any U.S. municipality will go to the ballot to kneecap data center development. .. an aggressive new tactic in an escalating movement to oppose the hulking artificial intelligence factories ..” @politico.com #Wisconsin www.politico.com/news/2026/04...
Another terrible bill to make it prohibitively expensive for the public to obtain public records. Here's an idea: a constitutional amendment to require all government documents to be created and accessible on the Internet. (Hamburg did this). calmatters.org/commentary/2...
Opinion | California shouldn’t price the public out of public records. Democracy is at stake
A bill letting governments charge for public documents would let them base the cost on the time it takes to review and redact the information. It doesn't limit them.
calmatters.org
The burgeoning eco-ideological Cold War presents Middle Powers with the opportunity (if not the imperative) to develop a new sort of "non-aligned" geopolitics. open.substack.com/pub/nilsgilm...
The Middle Powers in the New Cold War
In which I talk with L'Express about the opportunities for Middle Powers, and France in particular, to chart a new sort of non-alignment in the emerging eco-ideological Cold War
open.substack.com
My Zócalo syndicated column this week is about why a low-budget Chuck Norris film about California, local government, revolt, and trucking should live forever. www.yahoo.com/entertainmen...
Chuck Norris' California trucker film keeps getting better | Mathews
I so loved the trucker humor and Norris’ hand-to-hand combat that I declared it the best movie ever made. Today, I still hold to that verdict.
yahoo.com
Two top California gubernatorial contenders make their homes in two of the state's most successful and fastest-growing cities. But they aren’t talking about this. Read @californiajoe.bsky.social's dispatch on a race that’s become more about Trump than governance: zps.la/3NZu6FY
A Green, Growing California City Can’t Win the Governor’s Race |
Gubernatorial hopeful Eric Swalwell isn’t from the same California as you and me. That’s because he is from Dublin, a city on the eastern edge of the Bay
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