Erica Chenoweth
@EricaChenoweth
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Teach @Kennedy_School. Book: https://t.co/10xhGo8yMY. @crowdcounting w/@djpressman. No longer posting here.
Joined August 2011
ICYMI, my new book is out! It reviews the history of people power, explains how & why nonviolent mass movements have succeeded, responds to critiques of NV resistance, & provides updates on global trends & patterns. Available at @OUPPolitics or Amazon:
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It is time for Americans from all walks of like to recognize four key things: (1) Trump is an aspiring autocrat, who will seize power and overturn the results of this election if he can. He does not plan to leave office on Jan. 20. 1/.
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Conservative count just surpassed 3.65 million, high estimate 4.5 million. we witnessed some history in the US today
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.@Max_Fisher wrote up an analysis of some alarming trends in global protest in the @nytimes today. Some folks have asked me about it. Here I add some context, caveats, and implications to Max's analysis. 🧵
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Harvard has prohibited all non-essential air travel (domestic and international) through at least April 30, prohibited gatherings of > 100 people, & asked us to prepare to teach from home. Some useful resources aggregated here:
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It is also urgent that Republicans who have been silent over the past two weeks make clear that the voters have spoken, and that Trump and his campaign must not go any further in challenging the election or its result. This is it. *Now* is the time for you to stand up. 7/7.
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My new book is out! In it, I review the long history of people power, answer questions about how & why nonviolent mass movements have succeeded, respond to some critiques of NV resistance, & provide some updates on global trends & patterns. Available here:
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The NRA (& its allies') reaction to corporations removing discounts from NRA members is a breathtakingly textbook display of the adage that "when you're accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression." 1/
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(4) Our institutions cannot save us, because Trump's legal strategy has always been a political strategy. His lawsuits are about delaying certification or raising enough suspicion that state officials feel massive political pressure--from below and above--to refuse to certify. 4/.
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For scholarly work: Better to take a B+ swing at an A+ question, than to take an A+ swing at a B+ question.
What's the best professional advice you've ever recieved?.
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(3) He remains the most popular politician in the Republican Party, and he therefore has been able to enforce extraordinary levels of loyalty within the party. The party is not monolithic, but there have been too few repudiations of Trump's behavior within the ranks. 3/.
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It is urgent now for Americans from all walks of like to make clear that we will not let anyone take our democracy from us. The people have spoken. We have chosen our public servants, and legal challenges have been adequately addressed. 6/.
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(2) He is the incumbent president, meaning for the next 60+ days he commands the awesome powers of the presidency. He will use every lever of institutional and political power at his disposal to bring about this outcome. 2/.
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Countering this political strategy requires more than good lawyering in response. It requires a clear repudiation from all of those who will not stand for an autocratic power grab. How? See @TheRedLineGuide as a good place to start. You can also sign up for alerts @choosedemo. 5/.
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I’m delighted to announce that I’ve joined the faculty at @Harvard @Kennedy_School. I’m grateful to the excellent faculty, staff, & students @josefkorbel @sie_center for 6 incredible yrs & excited to connect with students & colleagues in the HKS community!
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Incredibly humbling.
HKS's @EricaChenoweth has been elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences
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#PoliSciTwitter: If you're an IR / comparative scholar from Ukraine and/or with family or loved ones there, and you need a break from teaching right now, DM me and I will sub for you remotely or find someone else who can.
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Excited to see the Oxford Handbook of Terrorism out with @OUPAcademic. It's an 800-pg collection with topics ranging from differentiating terrorism from other forms of political violence to autobiographies of influential scholars. Grateful to our many authors, including. 1/
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.@michelleinbklyn cites @JoaquinCastrotx's concern that far-right groups may start masquerading as federal officers more often (this happens @ the border). Yet another reason why deploying unidentified police is very bad for civilian oversight & democracy.
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Grateful to @Sifill_LDF @DanRather @JoyAnnReid & others for amplifying this research w/ @djpressman. Since we published it last Oct, we've updated the data. The findings are basically the same, but w/ 4k+ more events included. 1/2.
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This is a really important point. The rise of violent right-wing extremism, white nationalism, & neofascism is a global phenomenon. These individuals and groups are connected to and inspire one another, like any other transnational terror network.
On @NewDay @CNN now @farhanakhera of Muslim advocates, connects the #NewZealand shooter to the very same british right wing extremist group “Britain first” that Trump retweeted someone tell Don junior to express his condolences and then maybe STFU.
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Over the past decade, the share of the global population living in autocracies increased from 48% - 68%. And the share of global population living in countries that are sliding deeper into autocracy increased from 6% to 34%. Report is available here: 2/2.
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Excited to share a paper just published in @NatureHumBehav with @MargheritaBelg1 in which we apply the metaphor of momentum to people power. We find that as movements increase their mass (participation) & velocity (# of events concentrated in time), their momentum increases. 1/.
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The @GOP in 2018:. Has the White House, the House, and Senate, & a majority on SCOTUS. Still finds a way to claim that it’s the victim, and that those out of power remain deeply threatening to the GOP’s agenda *and* are solely to blame for the country’s pain.
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To call this an "attack on conservatives" is just breathtakingly bold. Withdrawing a discount is not an "attack." It's decision based on business interests, which compels an NRA member to make a very simple choice: can you tolerate being treated like any other Delta customer? 5/.
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For anyone interested, I retooled my course on the Politics of Terrorism this year. It's an MPP-focused course for @Kennedy_School (with some @Harvard undergrads & PhD students enrolled too). Here's the syllabus: feat @hoffman_bruce @jkertzer @bfwalter. .
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Here's @lara_putnam @djpressman & I w/ some early descriptive data on the extraordinary breadth of this week's protests, and the ways that is sure to influence policies in the short and long-term.
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All of us should feel grateful that we're walking on this earth at the same time as @MsLaToshaBrown. She is a force of nature, a genius organizer, and a true inspiration. Thank you LaTosha for your tireless work. We all owe you and your team @BlackVotersMtr.
There are heroes who are household names. And heroes who SHOULD BE. @MsLaToshaBrown is such. When the book is written on how Black women toppled an aspiring authoritarian president. tell her story🙏🏽She tirelessly traveled across this country, organizing MILLIONS. She is owed❤️👑
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Awesome @staceyabrams line: we deserve to live in a country where voters pick their politicians, not where politicians pick their voters.
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Even without a complete tally of events, the Black-led antiracism movement is the largest, broadest, most sustained uprising in U.S. history. This is true without counting post-Juneteenth events, with are extensive. @djpressman @crowdcounting.
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I am thrilled to announce Dr. @JayUlfelder's appointment as Program Director at the Nonviolent Action Lab at @CarrCenter at @Kennedy_School. Jay brings two decades of experience in data science with a particular focus on protest, collective action, human rights, and democracy. 1/.
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At @Kennedy_School, our students write master's theses in collaboration with / to support organizations working on public policy problems. I'd like to expand the list of prospective clients working on policy related to antiracism, social justice, voting rights, & human rights. 1/.
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No need to watch the video, folks. His comments are vile, the crowd terrifying, and the active dehumanization of political opponents horrifying. But spare yourself the pain of watching, and give him fewer views tonight.
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Twitter friends who teach about terrorism, counterterrorism, and security: Looking for a new book for your fall courses? Consider adopting this one just out with @OUPAcademic.
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This week I was shopping for a card for a friend whose marriage ended recently. There were 3 aisles of cards in the store celebrating birthdays, graduations, weddings, anniversaries. But the "Sympathy," "Thinking of You," & "Get Well Soon" sections were completely empty.
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The crisis in US democracy did not begin yesterday, but the terror in Charlottesville created in many white people a novel urgency. #thread.
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Honestly, Biden's simple acknowledgment that transgender people are under assault around the country, that this is wrong, and that trans people deserve to live fully as themselves to fulfill their "God-given potential" could legit save peoples' lives. 🏳️⚧️🏳️🌈.
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.@djpressman & I are counting school walkouts. Thousands of schools reported participating; we have 180+ so far. Let us know what schools we're missing! Submit info at … .@crowdcounting @WomensMarchY @womensmarch.
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It's not a good sign when you can't decide whether current events are more parallel to pre-WWI or pre-WWII. Either way it's terrifying.
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Commencing thread summarizing 10 things everyone should know about unarmed dissent. Details here:
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Effectively this means that movements that emerge in autocracies today are not just struggling against isolated autocratic regimes. They are struggling against an emboldened, global, *autocratic coalition* that has gotten to sharpen its response to protest over the past decade.
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Four years ago, it was clear that there would have to be sustained nonviolent resistance to Trump's agenda, skilled & determined organizing at every level, & record voter turnout to contain Trump's worst excesses & prevent him from staying in power after his term expired. 1/.
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I am in awe of the courage that Christine Blasey Ford is showing the world right now. I will never forget this. #IBelieveDrFord.
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It's interesting to imagine what Election Night might look like if the president didn't have access to Twitter, if news stations interviewed election officials rather than campaigns/candidates, and if media covered false declarations of victory as inaccurate and illegitimate.
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In fact, they are not treating you any differently than any other customer. That's called equality. In other words, the NRA has no basis upon which to claim it has a right to discounts given to them by corporations like Delta. Discounts are privileges, not rights. 3/.
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Tldr: despite the grim trends in the recent data reported in the Times, (1) many other protest movements are winning on lots of issues; (2) mass movements for democracy are here to stay as a major source of change, even if they have uneven, complex, & messy results.
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#IBelieveDrFord. And I think that her testimony should be enough to end his nomination. But even if I didn’t, #Kavanaugh disqualified himself on multiple other counts that highlight the ominous times we live in. 1/.
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Just read through the 2021 @vdeminstitute Democracy Report, and it's a doozy. The general finding is not surprising: the current wave of autocratization accelerated in 2020. But the *degree* of autocratization is both striking & unsettling. 1/2.
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.@djpressman & I are still tallying @womensmarch events, but I have to say that one of the great honors of my life is bearing witness to people in this country who are newly awakened to the power of putting their feet to pavement & joining with others in their fights for justice.
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When the histories of this time are written, I hope we center the lives we lost, the grief we suffered, and the price we paid as a nation--not just the negligence, incompetence, and self-serving denial of a narcissist and his sycophants.
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In this piece with @djpressman @achoifitz @feligsantos & @JayUlfelder, we describe some of the 100+ methods of collective action & dissent persisting and emerging during this time: 1/.
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They therefore *do not* include movements or campaigns that seek other types of goals, like policy reforms, economic, social, racial, or environmental justice, or other such goals - the types of protest movements that are the most prominent worldwide today.
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Delighted to receive a copy of #CivilAction today. In it, we focus on the role that civil action has played in armed conflicts around the world. In wartime, communities, businesses, NGOs, local governments, & even armed groups have eschewed violence and engaged with others. 1/
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The new global autocratic alliance has emerged because of the sense of shared threat such regimes possess, in part due to the paranoid & false belief that mass movements within their borders are always engineered by the West to destabilize them.
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In fact, one study suggests a steadier degree of "achievement" of protest goals over time, painting a sightly more optimistic picture than the data referenced in the article.
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As a result, there has been significant cooperation over the past 15 yrs among autocratic regimes & leaders who share info, tech, advice and/or personnel against mass movements. They use a common toolkit that some people call "smart repression."
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Overall, we estimate that between 5.9 million and 9 million people protested in the US in 2017. That's roughly 1.8-2.8 percent of the population of the United States. We estimate that 89 percent of these people were protesting Trump or his agenda. @djpressman @crowdcounting.
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Fourth, the latter reality points to a key point that was not raised in the Times article: the fact that popular movements today face much more sophisticated, emboldened, and unconstrained regimes than they did even ten years ago.
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Wow.
VIDEO. Ohio. Voters. Know. Their. Power. 10 minutes after the early vote polls opened in Hamilton County.
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.@djpressman & I estimate between 1,856,683 and 2,637,214 people marched in 407 @womensmarch locations in the US last weekend @crowdcounting:
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Although the challenges may be formidable, some evidence shows that when activists and organizers come together across borders for peer-based training, they significantly improve their chances of success--precisely bc they gain crucial strategic know-how.
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In this @ForeignAffairs piece, @z_marks, @jmartyns & I argue that the #SudanUprising & #algeriaprotests are indicative of a broader trend: a remarkable growth in the frequency & success of people power movements in Africa over the last decade. More here:
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Regardless, going back to the Times piece, I would not interpret the decline of protest effectiveness as evidence of the permanent demise of people power as a technique. Autocrats have adapted a new playbook precisely because they *know* that mass protests threaten their power.
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They are not preventing you from buying their tickets. They are not preventing you from boarding their planes. They are not telling you where you can sit on the plane. They are not telling you that you don't belong in the city you're flying from, or the city you're flying to. 2/.
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Thank you to everyone who has sent well-wishes to me & my family. Sadly we lost my beloved grandfather, Alan Abel, to COVID-19 over the weekend. He was a legend and it's difficult to process that he's gone. We are now hoping & praying that my grandmother recovers from COVID soon.
Five and a half weeks ago, I posted this inspiring story about my grandparents & their residential community. Within days of my posting it, everyone in their community entered a strict shelter-in-place phase, and they stayed in their room for 5 weeks. 1/.
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Consider this: #WomensMarch was likely the largest single-day action in US history yet not a single reported arrest.
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Autocrats like Putin, Xi, Lukashenko, and Raisi know that if a movement succeeds in ousting any of their allies (particularly neighboring allies), they too may become vulnerable to newly emboldened opposition groups who will take the cue to rise up.
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More solid evidence that protests affect long-term political attitudes in real and meaningful ways. For those wondering whether protest and resistance matter, the answer is yes.
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The marches today shows the persistence of resistance in the US since the inauguration. There were over over 8,700 protests in the US, counting every day from the @womensmarch of 1.21.2017 through 12.31.2017 @crowdcounting
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Two of the four largest protests in recent US history were organized over the past 12 weeks. Both called for student safety and/or gun regulation. The other two were the 2017 & 2018 Women’s Marches. @djpressman @crowdcounting
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There is too much to say about this for a Twitter thread, but suffice to say that there has been robust adaptation on the side of autocratic regimes to the various ways that people power can expose those regimes' weaknesses.
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Massive voter turnout is the best way to ensure a decisive election. So vote, and encourage everyone you know to vote. And then watch @VanJones68, get active in supporting orgs protecting our votes in the courts, and check out the .@TheRedLineGuide.
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Awards alert! The #SSIP section of @isanet is delighted to announce that the 2020 Dina Zinnes Award for best graduate student paper goes to @RobertUNagel & @austincdoctor for their paper “Conflict-Related Sexual Violence and Rebel Group Fragmentation.” Congrats to them both! 1/.
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Congrats to Dr. Chris Shay, who successfully defended his dissertation today! His work explores why human rights abuses persist in post-conflict settings, even after transitions to democracy. Dr. Shay will start a postdoc at UConn in a few weeks. We are very proud of him!
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Because *actual* life and death oppressions and inequalities are part of the daily lives of ppl who have been calling out the NRA for its hypocrisy when it comes to defending the 2nd amendment rights of people of color 7/.
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@dandrezner Dan, my guess is the little green men were deployed precisely *because* his threat to send in the military backfired so badly in June. He got huge political pushback & it wasn't clear the military / nat'l guard would go along. But border patrol is likely full of loyalists.
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I'm beyond excited that @KeishaBlain & @meganfrancis will be joining us at @CarrCenter @Kennedy_School this year. And I can't wait to read their new books!
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First, the claims in the piece about the decline in protest effectiveness is based on data with a specific set of scope conditions. These data look specifically at campaigns trying to oust incumbent national leaders or achieve territorial independence.
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Taking a break. 3.6M - 4.6M marchers & still counting. Pls send us verifiable links so we can fill in missing data:
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Important piece by @jessicabraith on resisting political violence in America. Key point: one way to interrupt an escalation in violence is to refuse to participate in it--and to use & elevate nonviolent methods instead. Today @PVGlance
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In the face of a mass killing, nonviolent methods like protest & pressuring corporations take courage. Kids were assaulted by a weapon the NRA says ought to be available to protect the country (from whom, again?). No. No one's "attacking" you. You are not the victims here. 12/12.
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@surlybassey Czechoslovakia, Finland, and Belgium during the interwar period. They reversed or suppressed fascist progress in seizing power. Check out “Defending Democracy” by Giovanni Cappocia.
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Shameless political theater is when you promise to defeat AIDS and childhood cancer, lower healthcare costs, and endorse paid family leave - just after you’ve finished a xenophobic rant, and just before you announce your intention to destroy women’s reproductive rights.
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This week I had dinner w/some undergrads. They are the 1st generation of American students whose country has been at war for their entire lifetimes. I asked if they could imagine a time when the US would be at peace. Their response: “I guess I don’t know what would be different.”.
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The answer to this question may be very informative regarding how accustomed to privilege folks have become, and how much equality feels to them like oppression even in an incredibly trivial episode in the grand scheme of things. 6/.
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Thank you @RepKinzinger for consistently breaking with your party to tell the truth, repudiate dangerous lies about our electoral system, and uphold democracy.
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I'm excited to launch my book in conversation with an incredible panel of organizers, activists, & thinkers--all of whom I deeply admire. Please join us! The book is available here: cc: .@OUPPolitics.
Register now for the book launch of "Civil Resistance: What Everyone Needs to Know":. Speakers:.🔸@EricaChenoweth.🔸@reporterdriver.🔸@BinaNepram.🔸@CornellWBrooks.🔸@ErikaAndiola.🔸@HardyMerriman.🔸@sushmaraman. 🗓️ 04/15.⏰ 3:00pm ET. Register ➡️
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We should probably stop referring to the GOP & Trump as succumbing to authoritarian “impulses.” McConnell, Trump, and their base have been signaling for years what they’re about. Their plans are deliberate, methodical, & systematic. There’s nothing impulsive about it.
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Fearful Americans Stockpiling Facts Before Federal Government Comes To Take Them Away via @theonion.
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Nice review of @GretaThunberg’s new book: “No one else could have created this incredible resource.”
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Second, among the many campaigns that were active in 2019-2020, many demobilized when the pandemic set on: That means that many campaigns ended without achieving their goals, but that doesn't necessarily mean the movements have been defeated for good.
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In this case, the lobby group had negotiated additional privileges for its members (i.e. discounted fare for NRA members flying to Dallas for its annual meeting). It's not a right, or something they're entitled to. It was just a privilege - and, in this case, a business deal. 4/.
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And, as I write, people are still displaying extraordinary courage protesting Putin's annexation of Ukrainian territory, the regime in Iran, and the draft in Russia, and elsewhere. They are still experimenting, learning, & sharing lessons in real time with the rest of the world.
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Hot off the press! "The Resistance" is now out from @OUPAcademic. It's edited by Sidney Tarrow & @davidsmeyer1, with chapters by @Fisher_DanaR, @hahriehan, @ProfCZM, and one on @womensmarch by @marieeberry & yours truly. Check it out!
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Apart from being appalling, inhumane, discriminatory, and unconstitutional, nothing about this makes the U.S. safer. @TSA you know this.
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Updated #WomensMarch stats: @djpressman & I estimate > 4.1M marched in US, > 300K abroad = > 4.4M marched worldwide.
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They also intervene to shore up one another's regimes when it appears that they are critically unstable due to people powered challenges (e.g. China's support of crackdowns on the Civil Disobedience Movement in Myanmar, or Russia's support of crackdowns in Belarus & Kazakhstan).
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More people in the U.S. protested in June than in any month since the January Women’s Marches.
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