Professor of Political Science @Yale, Fellow @ISPSYale, co-author "Let Them Eat Tweets: How the Right Rules in an Age of Extreme Inequality;" https://t.co/9AojBm4UPC
Jan 25, 2021 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
"Go big and simple, Biden" is fast becoming a meme, and the advice is closely linked to work on "policy feedback" to which I've contributed. So I wanted to provide some background and nuance. (1 of 5)
First, I recommend this:
journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.117…
This Annals issue is about how to use policy to build power. Yes, you have to do big, popular things that people can easily trace to government (think big checks, not hidden tax cuts). But the contributors also show that interest groups are often more important than voters. 2/
Nov 11, 2020 • 6 tweets • 1 min read
If the current situation doesn’t convince political analysts that elite partisan polarization is asymmetric — and that this asymmetry is a major problem — I’m not sure anything will. /1
Why have Republicans fled the center faster than Democrats? Motive and means. Because they want to and because they can get away with it. 2/
Aug 24, 2020 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Repeat after me: Trump did not create the GOP's meltdown; the GOP's meltdown created Trump.
@TimAlberta's brilliantly reported piece captures the effects, but not the cause. 1/
politi.co/3gmEcd5
For all his incisiveness, Alberta fails to grapple with this central fact, probably because Republicans fail to grapple with it. 2/
Aug 4, 2020 • 11 tweets • 5 min read
Fascinating thread and @newrepublic article from the ever-thoughtful @samuelmoyn. Regarding @dziblatt's "Conservative Dilemma," #LetThemEatTweets shows clearly that it's the Republican Party that's been most transformed by the rise of hyperinequality (and not for the better!). 1/
As Paul & I wrote in our 2010 "Winner-Take-All Politics," both parties have been deeply affected by America's inequality explosion. But that effect and their roles have been very different. 2/
Jul 15, 2020 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
How should we understand the relationship between Trump and the evolution of the GOP? Is it a rupture, intensification, more of the same? In response to #LetThemEatTweets, the ever-thoughtful @JohnQuiggin offers a helpful metaphor: phase transition. 1/
johnquiggin.com/2020/07/15/the…
The GOP's gone from a "mixture of many dissolved ingredients, in which the dominant element was the business establishment, and the Trump era party...as a crystallised mass of plutocratic economics, racism and all-round craziness" (@JohnQuiggin). 2/
Mar 4, 2020 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
The Public Option is back in the news, along with Medicare for All. But how are they different? And which is better? Here’s my take. 1/
The Public Option, which I first advocated in 2001 (though I didn't use the term), is a Medicare-like public insurance plan that would be open to everyone -- and could evolve into Medicare for All. Here’s a piece that explains it: 2/
Coronavirus reminds us that anti-government science denialism kills. We made big gains in life expectancy in 20th c. due to public health regulation and investment: purifying water, vaccines, antibiotics, health and education, auto/road safety, tobacco control, clean air. 1/
The U.S. hasn’t been adequately investing or regulating in the 21st century. Paul Pierson and I explain what went wrong in chapter 1 of our book, American Amnesia. 2/ amazon.com/American-Amnes…
