Associate Professor in Global Politics
@UCL
. Author of “Fluke” / “Corruptible”. Writer
@TheAtlantic
. Host
@PowrCorrupts
. The Garden of Forking Paths Substack.
My new book—FLUKE: Chance, Chaos, and Why Everything We Do Matters—is out now! Linking chaos theory to humanity, it explains why our lives—and societies—are swayed by random, accidental, arbitrary forces, and how to better live with that knowledge.
In Germany, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and many other countries, SCHOOLS ARE OPEN WITH NO PROBLEMS. The Dems think it would be bad for them politically if U.S. schools open before the November Election, but is important for the children & families. May cut off funding if not open!
🇬🇧Pop. 65 million
🇺🇸Pop. 330 million (5x)
🇬🇧Video game revenues: ≈$5 billion
🇺🇸Video game revenues: ≈$25 billion (5x)
🇬🇧Gun homicides (2017): 31
🇺🇸Gun homicides (2017): 14,542 (469x)
Stop blaming the video games you absolute morons.
This is depraved. The German government confirms that Trump apparently tried to bribe German scientists into giving him exclusive rights to the Covid-19 vaccine they were working on developing. He wanted it “for the US only.” How many new lows will he set for the United States?
Life expectancy, UK vs. US:
🇬🇧 male: 79.4; 🇺🇸 male: 76.9
🇬🇧 female: 83.0; 🇺🇸 female: 81.6
Healthcare spending (OECD):
🇬🇧: 9.9% of GDP
🇺🇸: 16.6% of GDP
Uninsured:
🇬🇧: 0
🇺🇸: 28 million
The Democrats are pushing for Universal HealthCare while thousands of people are marching in the UK because their U system is going broke and not working. Dems want to greatly raise taxes for really bad and non-personal medical care. No thanks!
The visual difference between Trump and Obama when talking about or visiting the aftermath of a school shooting is striking. Did anyone tell Trump it’s not a celebration?
Just imagine how Sean Hannity would respond if it were true that Obama’s personal lawyer, the target of a criminal investigation, was also secretly the lawyer for Rachel Maddow—and she had been using her show to defend the lawyer without disclosing that relationship. Just imagine
As an American who moved to a country with sensible gun laws, let me say clearly: you don’t have to live in a society where kids routinely get shot in school; where children practice “active shooter” drills; where society has grown numb to mass shootings happening every few days.
They murdered his Dad, dismembered his body, orchestrated a cover-up, lied about the murder, then lied about the cover-up...and now are forcing Khashoggi's son, who is a captive in his own country, to participate in a photo-op shaking hands with the prince who murdered his Dad.
When Uvalde happened, Republicans said the problem was the doors, not the guns.
What’s the door-based policy response to a mass shooting at an open air street parade?
I study election rigging. I co-authored a book called How to Rig an Election. These tweets are lies. The purpose of these tweets is to lay the groundwork to reject or dispute election results if he loses.
There is NO WAY (ZERO!) that Mail-In Ballots will be anything less than substantially fraudulent. Mail boxes will be robbed, ballots will be forged & even illegally printed out & fraudulently signed. The Governor of California is sending Ballots to millions of people, anyone.....
Change in confidence in US president from Obama in 2016 to Trump in 2018 (Pew)
Germany: -76%
Sweden: -76%
France: -75%
Canada: -58%
Australia: -52%
UK: -51%
Japan: -48%
Russia: +8%
Living in the UK through this, I’m grateful there is no Fox News here. There’s plenty of polarization, but Britons are not gathering in crowds to protest lockdowns that save lives; there’s no media outlet calling thousands of deaths a “hoax”; no leader encouraging insurrection.
How incredibly embarrassing that the New York Times published a piece like 24 hours ago saying that it was difficult to discern whether Elon Musk was a far-right conservative because he...claimed to be a centrist. Here he is calling to...prosecute a public health official.
Biden wants to raise taxes on Americans who make more than $400,000 a year. (And as you might have guessed, 82% of Americans do not make $400,000 a year, so this is a lie).
Just your reminder that if Democrats hadn’t won the House in 2018, all of this would have been buried by Republicans. Your vote mattered—and your participation heading toward 2020 matters too.
The fact that Kelli Ward absurdly and falsely suggested that John McCain’s statement about stopping treatment before his imminent death *was timed to hurt her campaign* is a perfect reflection of just how lost and gross the Trump-era Republican Party is without people like McCain
I love how Mike Pompeo tried to humiliate an NPR reporter by asking her to identify Ukraine on a map; she did; he lied about it; and then a few days later his boss couldn’t even correctly identify which state a major American city was in.
Every time someone delivers a eulogy for an American statesman in the age of Trump, it sounds like they are attacking President Trump—not because they are, but because they are praising a sense of basic decency, a trait that is so obviously absent from the current president.
I'm certainly not one to whitewash George W. Bush's legacy, but I stumbled across this video clip from about a decade ago. It's pretty striking as a comparison to Trump. In 2011, Bush warned about -- and denounced -- everything that Trump stands for.
The president’s chief adviser, a general, has allowed the president’s unqualified daughter (who lacks permanent security clearance) to brief a key ally on diplomatic decisions involving the risk of nuclear war. This snapshot belongs in an authoritarian banana republic.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin announced that Ivanka Trump briefed South Korean President Moon about the new NK sanctions.
Asked if she had the appropriate security clearance, Mnuchin said, “She has the appropriate access to brief the president.”
I’m an American living in the UK. The pandemic is hitting hard here too. But nobody is calling it a “hoax.” No armed protesters. No politicians are telling people to “liberate” Birmingham. Why? 1) Because that’s *crazy*; and 2) Because there’s no Fox News.
"If I'm elected, you won't lose one plant, you'll have plants coming into this country, you're going to have jobs again, you won't lose one plant. I promise you. I promise you."
— Donald J. Trump
🇺🇸Population: 330 million
🇬🇧Population: 65 million
🇺🇸Gun homicides (2016): ≈11,000
🇬🇧Gun homicides (2016): 26
The US has 5x the population but 423x as many gun murders.
Laws matter.
When people look back on this era of history and how it all went wrong, the ability of high-profile people to spread insane lunatic conspiracy theories like this one & face no professional consequences will be used to show how splintering realities undermined American democracy.
George Papadopoulos will be sentenced today. So, if you're keeping score at home:
Trump's Lawyer: Felon
Trump's Campaign Chairman: Felon
Trump's Deputy Campaign Chairman: Felon
Trump's National Security Adviser: Felon
Trump's Foreign Policy Adviser: Felon
Turkey’s despot, Erdogan, faced a criminal investigation in 2013/14. He called it a “deep state witch hunt,” fired prosecutors, purged Turkey’s justice department, said it was politically motivated, and eventually shut it down. He got away with it. Democracy died in Turkey.
In 2018, headline writers should make it their New Year’s Resolution to finally stop amplifying Trump’s lies without including the fact that they are lies. This is a blatant lie. Journalists shouldn’t just repeat presidential lies in headlines.
Imagine the bombshell it would be if we found out Trump sent a secret message to the Russian government asking them to hack Clinton on July 27th & they did the same day. He did exactly that publicly. Our cognitive bias is silly, thinking covert messages are worse than public ones
Even if Biden wins by the margins suggested by the polls, future generations are going to find it absolutely disgusting that Trump was even remotely competitive at this stage in his presidency. The stain will be that 40 to 45% of Americans approved of his despicable conduct.
Just in case you weren’t aware:
🇺🇸Pop. 330 million
🇬🇧Pop. 65 million
🇺🇸Gun homicides (2017): 14,542
🇬🇧Gun homicides (2017): 31
5x the population.
469x more gun homicides.
Laws matter.
The fact that Donald Trump thinks disgraced convicted felon Paul Manafort is “brave” for not “breaking” under pressure from federal prosecutors, but attacks war hero John McCain, who didn’t break after being tortured in Vietnam, tells you all you need to know about Donald Trump.
Trump isn't just facing a humiliating loss. He's facing several criminal investigations, debts being called in, an existential threat to his business empire, and financial ruin.
.
@Theresa_May
, don’t focus on me, focus on the destructive Radical Islamic Terrorism that is taking place within the United Kingdom. We are doing just fine!
No.
🇺🇸Pop. 330 million
🇬🇧Pop. 65 million
🇺🇸Gun homicides (2017): 14,542
🇬🇧Gun homicides (2017): 31
5x the population.
469x more gun homicides.
58: killed in Vegas shooting
59: killed in UK terrorism since 2010
The knife murder rate is higher in the US than the UK.
Takeaway from
#LondonBridge
incident: If law-abiding Londoners could carry firearms legally, it probably wouldn't have happened.
Amazing how bold the terrorists are when they know their victims will be unarmed.
No exaggeration: if any other elected leader in a Western democracy tried to instruct their top law enforcement official to shield their political allies from prosecution for political reasons like this, they would be forced to resign within hours. This is insane.
Two long running, Obama era, investigations of two very popular Republican Congressmen were brought to a well publicized charge, just ahead of the Mid-Terms, by the Jeff Sessions Justice Department. Two easy wins now in doubt because there is not enough time. Good job Jeff......
Yet again, here's covid-19 deaths yesterday:
Spain: 24
France: 17
Japan: 16
Canada: 13
UK: 12
Germany: 9
United States: 1,358
Population of countries above: 426 million
Population of United States: 328 million
Public service announcement from your friendly neighborhood political scientist:
A constitutional republic is a type of democracy. Saying “we’re a constitutional republic, not a democracy” is like saying “I don’t have a dog, I have a Border Collie.” How is this difficult?
Trump uses the words infest, breed, and invade to refer to immigrants. He calls asylum seekers animals. Nazis referred to Jews as “rats.” Hutu leaders in Rwanda called Tutsis “cockroaches.” Slaves were “stock.” Dehumanizing language paves the way for atrocities.
When Nordstrom pulled Ivanka’s clothing line, Trump tweeted immediately and angrily denounced them.
When America’s closest ally is the victim of a chemical weapons attack on its soil by the Russian government, Trump has not tweeted anything.
Think about why that might be.
This is the photo that should be used in history books to explain Trump in the pandemic. When 140,000 people had died, with 1,000 more dying every day—not to mention tens of millions desperately unemployed—Trump took time for a photo-op promoting beans because the CEO praised him
Nothing is stopping the Republican caucus from stripping Marjorie Taylor Greene of her committee assignments. Nothing is stopping the Republican caucus from expelling her from their caucus. Nothing is stopping them from voting to censure her. They are actively accepting her.
Experts who warned about authoritarianism were called alarmists. Experts who warned about Covid were called alarmists. Experts who warned about the courts and abortion were called alarmists. Experts who warned about climate were called alarmists. Perhaps it's actually alarming?
All you need to know about Lindsey Graham is that in 2016 he said Trump was “crazy” and a “kook” who was “not fit to be president” and then in 2017 said: “What concerns me about the press is this endless attempt to label the guy as some kind of kook not fit to be president.”
Of all the problems in the world, Trump used his presidential authority to call LeBron James stupid last night. LeBron just opened a school for at-risk kids, providing them free tuition, bicycles, food, counseling & guaranteed tuition to the University of Akron if they graduate.
Given how much evidence is already publicly available, I'm not even sure that Trump coming out and being like "Yeah, I secretly plotted to end American democracy and I'm trying to do it again" would fundamentally shift the political dynamics in America. That's how bad it is.
If you think a “Constitutional Crisis” will announce itself with a marching band & parade, you’re wrong—we’re already in the midst of a steady erosion of norms that adds up to serious democratic decay under Trump. Every day, the goal posts move. The unacceptable becomes accepted.
BREAKING: DC area man with five draft deferments who mocked tortured war hero John McCain for being captured says he believes he would confront an active shooter—with an AR-15 assault weapon—unarmed.
Can't believe this is real. "Eye-popping"
Biden's proposal for top marginal income rate is 39.6%. Here's what it was in the past:
Now: 37%
2017: 39.6%
1993-2000: 39.6%
1982-1986: 50%
1981: 69.3%
1971-1980: 70%
1954-1963: 91%
Headlines like this are failures of journalism.
President Biden in the next few days will unveil eye-popping new tax rates for the wealthiest Americans —a top marginal income tax rate of 39.6% and a capital gains rate of 43.4%.
A British newspaper has started a live stream on YouTube of Liz Truss’s photo next to a lettuce to see which one lasts longer. I do love this country’s sense of humo(u)r.
It's pretty wild that Bill Barr successfully spun & buried the Mueller report/Russia investigation so much that everyone has just sort of shrugged and moved on even though we now know with certainty that Trump's campaign fed internal strategy memos and polling to a Russian agent.
Yes, but imagine if some sort of oversight body existed — a “Senate” of sorts, if you will — and you were a member of it, with a razor-thin majority for the president. Then you wouldn’t need to tweet about it and could instead use your immense leverage to do something to stop it.
A better thing, Mr. President, would be to declare: "Russia is the enemy of America and our allies, and we will expose and respond to their continued cyber-attacks against our nation."
Trump hasn't signed a major piece of legislation in more than 300 days in office, despite GOP control of the House & the Senate. Job growth for Feb. through Oct. is the worst it has been in 5 years.
HAPPY THANKSGIVING, your Country is starting to do really well. Jobs coming back, highest Stock Market EVER, Military getting really strong, we will build the WALL, V.A. taking care of our Vets, great Supreme Court Justice, RECORD CUT IN REGS, lowest unemployment in 17 years....!
🇺🇸Population: 330 million
🇬🇧Population: 65 million
🇺🇸Gun homicides (2016): ≈11,000
🇬🇧Gun homicides (2016): 26
The US has 5x the population but 423x as many gun murders.
Laws matter.
Hm, what is it about the members of the House that Trump aggressively attacks? Ilhan Omar. Ayanna Pressley. Maxine Waters. Elijah Cummings. John Lewis. Rashida Tlaib. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. I feel like there must be some common trait they share. Can anyone figure it out? 🧐🕵🏻♂️
As of tomorrow, meeting in groups of more than six - inside or outside - is illegal in England, punishable by an on-the-spot fine. That's because there has been a spike in cases. The UK had 6 deaths on Friday.
The US had 1,094 deaths on Friday. Trump is still holding rallies.
Unspeakably vile and callous. Trump says he considered canceling his political rally not because 11 people were murdered in an anti-Semitic act of terrorism, but because he had a bad hair day due to answering questions about the murders of Jews in the rain
Trump is lying about Lester Holt. The entire unedited interview was posted online. And Trump is likely lying about it because he now understands that he put himself in legal danger by admitting, on camera, that he fired Comey *because* he was investigating Trump’s campaign.
What’s going on at
@CNN
is happening, to different degrees, at other networks - with
@NBCNews
being the worst. The good news is that Andy Lack(y) is about to be fired(?) for incompetence, and much worse. When Lester Holt got caught fudging my tape on Russia, they were hurt badly!
It amazes me that the same people who trashed the Iran deal—a deal literally written with countless verification & compliance measures because the West assumed Iran would try to violate it—are now celebrating North Korea's vague, non-binding "pledge" that recycles 1990s language.
There's a lot I like about the Harris pick, but one thing isn't getting enough attention: Trump demands absolute loyalty. He forces people to stroke his ego. Harris came out swinging at Biden and landed a big blow in the primary. Biden responded by asking her to govern with him.
In a single speech, Trump praised dictators, attacked the press, singled out a journalist who he called a “son of a bitch,” erased women of color from the electoral statistics he used about women, and suggested that he wants to be able to execute drug dealers.
Vote in November.