abbey steele

From Principles to Politics. Freedom, equality, and fellowship are principles of the republican tradition, in the U.S. and globally. Echoes can be found in liberté, egalité, fraternité ou mort (liberty, equality, and fraternity or death) in revolutionary France, in the revolutionary leader Simon Bolivar’s Letter from Jamaica, and in countless constitutions across the world. These are universal values, and they are also quintessentially American. The Trump administration’s perversion of these American values explains why his second administration is so unpopular. But its opponents must not repeat the errors of the Biden-Harris administration, which activated a negative coalition to win the presidency in 2020 but failed to secure a durable settlement thereafter. The Biden-Harris administration’s fundamental error was refusing to confront the enemy of freedom, equality, and fellowship as the enemy. Biden and Harris knew exactly the stakes; they warned Americans of what the Trump administration would do if returned to office in 2025. Yet they believed that normal politics was possible, and hoped to turn the other cheek, to bless those who cursed them. “The fever will break,” Biden had been predicting since Obama’s reelection in 2012. The Nazi propagandist Carl Schmitt was right to identify liberal democracy’s weakness: reducing political conflict to disagreement over economic policy or cultural values. But when the procedures of liberal democracy have been distorted by antidemocratic forces, the liberal’s response to these distortions must be unequivocal. Every liberal—republican, conservative, socialist, Christian, or any other—must draw the line when confronted with lawlessness, corruption, and perfidy by those who abandon freedom, equality, and fellowship for their personal ends. There can be no compromise on these principles.

The anti-Trump coalition is a negative coalition, defined by what it opposes. Durable political change requires a positive coalition, defined by what it believes and the principles that will defend. Here is my outline of those principles... and the stakes.

www.liberalcurrents.com/the-republic...

In the case any of these flights took place against court orders, could flight crew and staff be charged as accessories to law breaking? If so, Democratic politicians need to be putting that out there loud and clear - everyone in the logistical chain needs to have that in the back of their heads.

Is It a Civil War? Not Yet Things are truly awful in the US, so is this the time to get pedantic?  Well, maybe.  I posted on bluesky that I was more worried about e...

Is it a civil war?
No - and:

"[...] when the power of the state is being used to kill and kidnap and deport without any due process, so very capriciously and so much by one ethnic group aimed at others, it is very, very serious indeed."
saideman.blogspot.com/2026/01/is-i...

I would argue that the case for dismantling ICE has, at this point, virtually nothing to do with larger questions of immigration enforcement and reform, it's just clearly incompatible with a free and democratic society to maintain a secret police force with sweeping and arbitrary authority.

NEW: We @immcouncil.org just published a big new report on the growth of ICE detention in Trump's first year back in office. Not only do we track the rising scale of the detention infrastructure, we explain how changing enforcement tactics have shifted the profile of who is locked up by ICE.

Nicholas Kristof @NickKristof X.com I'm struck by the contrast between the passion for democracy shown by Iranians willing to die for it and the complacency with which many Americans have accepted an authoritarian slide. Americans should cheer for Iran's democrats--and also learn from their determination.

I see this take around from time to time and totally disagree. ICE just murdered a woman standing up to them. No Kings is among the largest protests in history.

The complacency is coming from elites in media, business, universities, and the Democratic leadership

"A big reason to worry that this could be messy is that Maduro was able to govern, or co-govern, by sitting atop a byzantine network of patronage, corruption, criminal governance, and shared sovereignty that, for now, remains in place."
adamisacson.com/possible-vio...

www.eltiempo.com/justicia/jep...

I am indebted to colleagues & friends, esp @stephrschwartz.bsky.social, @alichtenheld.bsky.social & the staff @aissr.bsky.social
@uva-fmg.bsky.social

Nine UvA researchers receive ERC Consolidator Grants The European Research Council (ERC) has awarded Consolidator Grants to nine UvA researchers. The laureates are: Thijs Bol, Jaron Harambam, Eirini Karyotaki, Patty Leijten, Dora Matzke, Matthijs Roodui...

I'm thrilled & grateful to have been awarded an @erc.europa.eu Consolidator Grant. #ERCCoG

My project, GRID, will study how & why governments respond to internal displacement with protection or repression.

www.uva.nl/en/content/n...

News from a robust democracy

Consider the experiences of the last few years. The racial justice movement that peaked in 2020 ended in disappointment and backlash. The Gaza protests provoked intense conflict without delivering clear political or policy victories for their organizers. Maybe most important, Mr. Trump himself is back in the White House, suggesting a futility to opposition and activism among young people who have only ever known him as the central figure in our politics. He first took the oath of office when today's first-year college students were in elementary school. The electoral choices offered to young people are not much better. Given the realities of our dysfunctional two-party system, the only alternative to a Trump-dominated G.O.P. is the Democratic Party, which is dominated by a decadent gerontocracy whose elites were more likely to attend a wedding in the Hamptons than a No Kings protest on the same day.

@brendannyhan.bsky.social is right: young people are reluctant to come to the defense of institutions that have excluded them, ignored them, and crushed their movements

www.nytimes.com/2025/11/24/o...

arme Ohio, gewoon minding its own business

Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump President Gustavo Petro, of Columbia, is an illegal drug leader strongly encouraging the massive production of drugs, in big and small fields, all over Columbia. It has become the biggest business in Columbia, by far, and Petro does nothing to stop it, despite large scale payments and subsidies from the USA that are nothing more than a long term rip off of America. AS OF TODAY, THESE PAYMENTS, OR ANY OTHER FORM OF PAYMENT, OR SUBSIDIES, WILL NO LONGER BE MADE TO COLUMBIA. The purpose of this drug production is the sale of massive amounts of product into the United States, causing death, destruction, and havoc. Petro, a low rated and very unpopular leader, with a fresh mouth toward America, better close up these killing fields immediately, or the United States will close them up for him, and it won't be done nicely. Thank you for your attention to this matter! President Donald J. Trump

Wait till the president finds out that his administration _already cut_ something like 3/4 of US aid to "Columbia," along with most aid worldwide, earlier this year. Most of the aid that remains goes to Colombia's military and police—to support counter-drug operations.

Civilizing Contention by Rana B. Khoury | Paperback | Cornell University Press In Civilizing Contention, Rana B. Khoury asserts that to understand civilian and refugee activism in war, we must regard the international actors and organizations that enter the scene to help. When.....

To celebrate the upcoming release of my book, and to support emerging scholars, I'd like to buy and mail copies to ten graduate students.

If you’re a grad student who’d like a copy, reply or DM me!

www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501...

The National Guard troopers confirming what everyone suspected; they don't want to be there.

Juan Masullo and I wrote a piece on the recent assassination attempt on Senator Uribe in Bogotá, its connections to the drug war, how it echoes the past, and why it is only the most visible form of how the drug war undermines democracy. 1/2

"Powerful drug-trafficking organizations use violence to operate outside the rule of law, control who can and cannot run for local office, and eliminate community leaders who stand up to them. The attempt on Senator Uribe’s life underscores a grim fact: Democracy is among the drug war’s casualties."

Juan Masullo and I wrote a piece on the recent assassination attempt on Senator Uribe in Bogotá, its connections to the drug war, how it echoes the past, and why it is only the most visible form of how the drug war undermines democracy. 1/2

A Dutch dangerous experiment in criminalizing compassion: How a parliamentary "slip-up" could create Europe's harshest migration law Huub Verbaten , Research Fellow at the Clingendael Institute Photo credit : Markus Bernet, via Wikimedia commons On the evening of Jul...

The proposed Dutch law criminalising assistance to migrants
A critical analysis, by Huub Verbaten - eulawanalysis.blogspot.com/2025/07/a-du...

BCG helped set up a militarised aid scheme in Gaza, widely condemned by the humanitarian sector, and worked on cost models for relocating Palestinians out of the territory.

Russia’s entire military budget is only $145 billion. Stephen Miller got even more than that to expel people who don’t pass his racial standards—including naturalized citizens. And when they’re done with that, they’ll come after critics. When they create a gulag economy that big, it doesn’t go away.

it is also striking what the top 4 are! - they don't care about them either.
(though the Dems haven't been much better lately.)

It also makes ICE better funded than most national militaries -- by a wide margin. This is the expansion of a secret police force.

🚨 Big News for European Political Science 🚨

We’re thrilled to announce the launch of the European Political Science Society (EPSS): a new, member-led, not-for-profit association built to support our scholarly community.

🔗 epssnet.org

Here’s a thread with everything you need to know.

🧵

Laughing in front of cages designed to hold migrants and refugees, many of whom came to this country fleeing extreme violence and poverty, and hoping to raise their children in a more compassionate country. And many of whom followed all the legal procedures to enter the country.

WEEK 19 WEEK 19

"From what I can tell, ICE is a secret police when acting in a public space...The comparativist in me wants to think about other police forces in history which had such broad and ill-defined powers. But such comparisons are too frightening."

adamprzeworski.substack.com/p/week-19

"...the only ideas offered by Democrats come from its left wing. The rest of the party is just catatonic. Its leadership is patiently waiting for Trump to fail, generously granting them electoral victory while attending weddings of billionaries."

Gisteren vroeg een collega mij nog of ik inmiddels een Nederlandse nationaliteit had, en was verbaasd toen ik zei dat dat niet mogelijk is (zonder afstand te doen van mijn Amerikaanse nationaliteit, wat nogal een gedoe is).

Four points I wish public and media commentary understood about #genocide in #Gaza, why legal experts are reluctant to diagnose gencoide and what that does NOT mean 🧵