Perfect Mother’s Day quote, 2026: “I cannot imagine having gone through figuring out how to raise a newborn without ChatGPT,” Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, said recently.
Paul Starr
@starrprospect.bsky.social
Sociologist, Princeton University; co-founder, The American Prospect; author of books on history of American medicine; media; liberalism. Forthcoming: American Contradiction: Revolution and Revenge from the 1950s to Now.
In “The Premature Guide to Post-Trump Reform,” tinyurl.com/yunb54ab I set out three levels of reform: change in the law, the Supreme Court, and the Constitution. The first, modeled on post-Watergate reforms, calls for efforts to curb presidential aggrandizement through new legislation …
The Premature Guide to Post-Trump Reform
American history offers three general strategies of repair and renewal.
tinyurl.com
Out today @prospect.org “Trump has shown how vulnerable [we are] … authoritarian rule when the president is contemptuous of [constitutional] norms, Congress is under his thumb, and the Court is an accomplice.” What to do? Here you go: “The Premature Guide to Post-Trump Reform” tinyurl.com/yunb54ab
The Premature Guide to Post-Trump Reform
American history offers three general strategies of repair and renewal.
tinyurl.com
Read this brilliant article by the historian Tara Zahra explaining how today’s right-wing reaction against trade and immigration recapitulates the first crisis of globalization in the early 20th century. Proud that Tara began her career at @theprospect.bsky.social www.nytimes.com/2025/04/05/o...
Opinion | Globalization Is Collapsing. Brace Yourselves.
The world was just as intertwined 100 years ago, and its unraveling was a disaster. Can we avoid the same outcome?
nytimes.com
Important article by Aziz Huq on the U.S. following the path of Nazi Germany toward a “dual state”—partly rule of law, partly rule by prerogative (dictatorship). www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc...
America Is Watching the Rise of a Dual State
For most people, the courts will continue to operate as usual—until they don’t.
theatlantic.com
We need a new #proCanada movement to support Canada, to buy Canadian, to vacation in Canada, to express Americans’ long admiration of Canada, friendship with Canada, appreciation of Canadian decency and neighborliness, in contrast to the imperial lunacy driving the US today.
Thank you for reminding me about that old piece. It’s still true now. And, yes, it would be great to get new data on public perceptions of Social Security’s overhead costs and the realities.
Dan Ancona@danancona.bsky.social · last yr.Fuckin crazy man. Holds up amazingly well, absolutely still a banger. But we are going to get an update on that polling for you. 1981, sheeesh! bsky.app/profile/dana...
Are Denmark’s Social Democrats winning because they made one strategic decision—to keep immigration at lower levels than other European countries and the US? Check out this piece by David Leonhardt of the NY Times. www.nytimes.com/2025/02/24/m...
How Denmark’s Social Democrats Are Succeeding With Stricter Immigration Policies
Around the world, progressive parties have come to see tight immigration restrictions as unnecessary, even cruel. What if they’re actually the only way for progressivism to flourish?
nytimes.com
Will Trump politicize or privatize the Postal Service? I’ll bet on politicize. Privatization would result in heavy cutbacks and higher rates in rural areas and small towns that vote Republican. They’re just not profitable to serve. But politicizing the post office—that’s the oldest graft in the US.
Such an adorable poodle. Putin has him well trained for the coming surrender.
Trump’s polling numbers are slipping as he pursues unpopular policies. It’s what happened the first time around, but this will be worse. Prediction: He will end up the most hated president in American history, a stain on America’s good name. www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...
Analysis | Trump’s honeymoon is over
New polling shows Trump’s approval declining — and a number of major warning signs appearing.
washingtonpost.com
On the loss of a model of intellectual integrity and courage—Christopher Jencks. He showed us how to wade into troubled waters and come out the stronger for it. @theprospect.bsky.social prospect.org/health/2025-...
The Exemplary Radical Skeptic
Christopher Jencks, one of the Prospect’s founding group, has died.
prospect.org
Imagine if we had done this to the Hungarians who fled their country in 1956 or the Cubans who later fled Castro. Trump’s decision to end TPS for Venezuelans is a betrayal of the Republican Party’s own traditions. And of the trust Venezuelans placed in him. www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/...
Venezuelans backed Trump. Now some worry he’ll deport them.
Venezuelans in the Miami suburb of Doral have been some of Trump’s biggest proponents. Many feel betrayed after he revoked temporary protected status for thousands.
washingtonpost.com
@jimrutenberg.bsky.social: Trump’s attacks on media resemble Nixon’s. But the context then was different: a Democratic Congress whose hearings validated reporting on Watergate, and a Supreme Court that reliably defended press freedom. Outcome now much less certain. www.nytimes.com/2025/02/09/b...
Trump’s Blueprint for Bending the Media Has Nixon Written All Over It
The president’s heavy-handed approach to traditional journalists has the hallmarks of an attempted crackdown 50 years ago.
nytimes.com
The Republican adherence to federalism is like the Republican adherence to balanced budgets. Federalism and balanced budgets just apply to the Democrats, not to themselves. Limits for thee, not for us.
Paul Starr@starrprospect.bsky.social · last yr.Now we can see clearly what should have been clear before: Republican support for federalism and denunciations of federal power have been a matter of expediency rather than principle. With Trump, they gave up federalism without a peep: www.nytimes.com/2025/02/07/u...
My first post here at Blue Sky ... Trump is doing terrible things every day, but the wholesale destruction of USAID is by far the worst and potentially catastrophic ... truthandcons.substack.com/p/the-destru...
Now we can see clearly what should have been clear before: Republican support for federalism and denunciations of federal power have been a matter of expediency rather than principle. With Trump, they gave up federalism without a peep: www.nytimes.com/2025/02/07/u...
Trump’s Power Grab Defies G.O.P. Orthodoxy on Local Control
New York City traffic. California water rules. Middle school sports. Few local policies are outside the reach of Donald J. Trump’s federal government.
nytimes.com
Day by day, Trump is clarifying things for the many voters in 2024 who refused to take seriously his announced intentions. The opposition will grow. prospect.org/politics/202...
2024’s Foreseeable Unforeseens
What many refused to see in the last election becomes clearer day by day.
prospect.org
Another day, another insanity: Think of all the time and energy lost to all of us now that, once again, we have to attend to this man’s stupid and vicious ideas. www.cnn.com/2025/02/04/p...
Trump says US will ‘take over’ Gaza Strip and doesn’t rule out using American troops | CNN Politics
President Donald Trump on Tuesday said the United States “will take over” the Gaza Strip — possibly with the help of American troops — while the Palestinians who live there should leave, a stunning pr...
cnn.com
I see headlines like this—“Tariffs will shut down North American auto production within a week, industry warns”—and wonder, just how does the political payoff from Trump’s tariffs work?
Amid all the bleak assessments, read Ezra Klein’s counterintuitive analysis: “Trump is acting like a king because he is too weak to govern like a president. … He is trying to overwhelm you … to persuade you of something that isn’t true. Don’t believe him.” www.nytimes.com/2025/02/02/o...
Opinion | Don’t Believe Him
Look closely at the first two weeks of Donald Trump’s second term and you’ll see something very different than what he wants you to see.
nytimes.com
Trump sending Venezuelans given temporary protected status back to Maduro’s Venezuela. Next? Cubans with TPS back to Cuba? Why didn’t Eisenhower and Kennedy think of that when Cubans were first fleeing to the US? www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...
Trump to send Venezuelans back to Maduro’s repressive state
An agreement with the government of Nicolás Maduro will allow the deportation of hundreds of thousands back to the authoritarian socialist regime many have fled.
washingtonpost.com
While Trump’s assaults on the Constitution are the bigger problem, let’s not ignore his assaults on our intelligence. See David Brooks in the NY Times on the “six principles of stupidity.” And look who’s talking about the “dumbest trade war” ever. www.wsj.com/opinion/dona...
Opinion | The Dumbest Trade War in History
Trump will impose 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico for no good reason.
wsj.com
I have a slightly different take. Trump 1 wasn’t foiled by the deep state; he lacked clear ideas about policy and appointed people to top posts who found him to be unfit. Now he is using the fiction of the deep state to entrench a real right-wing deep state that Democrats will find hard to undo.
Jonathan Chait@jonathanbchait.bsky.social · 2y agoVia @citizencohn.bsky.social, a big-picture look at how Trump has advanced his domestic policy goals without bothering with Congress www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-...
I don’t know why people think DEI began with “diversity, equity, and inclusion.” The original was “domination, exclusion, and inequality." That’s a much deeper tradition.
Top officials in professional agencies—the FBI director, the FAA director, now the Census director—need to stop resigning before their terms are over. Their resignations validate the idea that they’re political appointees. Make Trump fire you! And speak out! apnews.com/article/cens...
Robert Santos decides to resign as US Census Bureau director midway through a 5-year term
The director of the U.S. Census Bureau has decided to resign. Robert Santos was known for emphasizing inclusivity and outreach to overlooked communities.
apnews.com
Who’d have thought that higher immigration could boost growth? And that a country might have low energy prices because renewable power now generates 60 percent of its electricity? Check out what’s happening in Spain.
The Times and Sunday Times@thetimes.com · 2y ago🔎 In depth: Spain's GDP is forecast to grow by as much as 2.5% in 2025, thanks to a surge in immigration, a thriving tourist trade and lower energy prices | ✍️ Isambard Wilkinson
Yes, not so hard to learn the difference! But perhaps you didn’t grow up a child of privilege with a famous name and come to expect things to be given to you that you didn’t earn. And then try to compensate for your drug addiction and mediocrity by appealing to ignorance and playing on desperation.
Larry Levitt@larrylevitt.bsky.social · 2y agoTrue story: I studied science and defense policy in grad school. But, I interviewed for my first job working on Medicaid in a governor’s budget office. Before the interview, I studied the difference between Medicare and Medicaid. I got it right, got the job, and have learned a whole lot more since.
I so hope Deborah Pearlstein is right about the courts, and I love her line that Trump’s order to kill birthright citizenship violates not just the 14th Amendment but “the foundational idea that citizens decide who should be a president, not the other way around.” www.nytimes.com/2025/01/30/o...
Opinion | The Law Is Not Fully Trump’s Yet
The legal system is not so easily dismissed.
nytimes.com