Jacob T. Levy
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jacobtlevy.bsky.social
Jacob T. Levy
@jacobtlevy.bsky.social
61K followers 1.1K following 14K posts

Tomlinson Professor of Political Theory, Associate member of Philosophy, Coordinator of Research Group on Constitutional Studies, McGill.
Posts here speak only for myself.
Americo-Canadian; liberaltarian; aging geek.
http://jacobtlevy.com .. more

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Jacob T. Levy is an American political theorist and Tomlinson Professor of Political Theory at McGill University. Levy is the Chair of the Department of Political Science at McGill, as well as the coordinator of McGill's Research Group on Constitutional Studies and the founding director of McGill's Yan P. Lin Centre for the Study of Freedom and Global Orders in the Ancient and Modern Worlds. Levy is also a Senior Fellow at the Niskanen Center and the Institute for Humane Studies. He is known for his expertise on multiculturalism, liberalism, and pluralism. .. more

Political science 68%
Law 8%
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jacobtlevy.bsky.social
Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social · 6h
Rank 'em

BTAS
JLU
Young Justice
Teen Titans Go
Harley Quinn
My Adventures With Superman

Reposted by Jacob T. Levy, Bessma Momani, Kate Jackson

andycraig.bsky.social
Andy Craig @andycraig.bsky.social · 6h
They want it formally dead, but NATO is already functionally dead as a geopolitical reality. Even if he backs down (wouldn't bet on it), there's no going back from sending European capitals into a spiraling panic that the US is seriously about to invade one of them. You can't unring that bell.

Reposted by Jacob T. Levy

dandrezner.bsky.social
Daniel Drezner @dandrezner.bsky.social · 6h
The key section:

jacobtlevy.bsky.social
Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social · 6h
Gonna be one of those nights.
jacobtlevy.bsky.social Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social · Feb 8
doom, scrolling.

Reposted by Jacob T. Levy

adamgurri.liberalcurrents.com
Adam Gurri @adamgurri.liberalcurrents.com · 6h
Consider supporting @liberalcurrents.com, where in December *2024* @matthewdownhour.bsky.social was writing about how "America First" in principle means militarism in practice www.liberalcurrents.com/the-bellicos...
The Bellicose Stance of the State
The incoming "America First" coalition is likely to put the United States in greater, not less, risk of conflict.
www.liberalcurrents.com

Reposted by Joanna Bryson, Rebecca Solnit, Dorothy Bishop , and 9 more

chrismurphyct.bsky.social
Chris Murphy @chrismurphyct.bsky.social · 7h
I can't believe I'm posting this video - but we actually have to have a conversation about the real world implications of America going to war over Greenland.

Let me walk you through it. It doesn't turn out well for us.

jacobtlevy.bsky.social
Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social · 10h
fair, and I appreciate the restraint

jacobtlevy.bsky.social
Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social · 10h
www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLLE...

jacobtlevy.bsky.social
Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social · 10h
I think this is pointless as long as Congress refuses to stand up to Trump’s claimed impoundment and rescission powers. He will simply not spend anything he doesn’t want to spend. The appropriations power isn’t, it turns out, self-enforcing.

jacobtlevy.bsky.social
Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social · 11h
I haven't seen "One Battle After Another," but I've seen the trailer often enough to ask: "Best Musical or Comedy" category? What?

jacobtlevy.bsky.social
Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social · 11h
"we will pick you for the opportunity through personal favoritism and then subsidize you until you think it's worth it because otherwise you'd want to do some normal secure profitable thing" is *absolutely squarely* the kind of thing Adam Smith spends hundreds of pages complaining about.

Reposted by Will Jennings, Michael A. Clemens, David R. Miller , and 7 more

andycraig.bsky.social
Andy Craig @andycraig.bsky.social · 12h
Common Sense, published 250 years ago today.
Men who look upon themselves born to reign, and others to obey, soon grow insolent; selected from the rest of mankind their minds are early poisoned by importance; and the world they act in differs so materially from the world at large, that they have but little opportunity of knowing its true interests, and when they succeed to the government are frequently the most ignorant and unfit of any throughout the dominions.

Reposted by Jacob T. Levy

theunpopulist.net
The UnPopulist @theunpopulist.net · 12h
George Washington said no offensive expeditions without Congress deliberating and authorizing. Madison insisted war powers vest in the legislature, not the executive. Trump just bombed Caracas without even notifying Congress.
Trump’s Bogus Rationale for Invading Venezuela Is an Impeachable Offense
The Framers would have regarded this president as an out-of-control lunatic in desperate need of reining in by Congress
www.theunpopulist.net

jacobtlevy.bsky.social
Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social · 13h
“Watching this was the first time I realized how much Julie Hagerty energy Alison Brie has.”

omg yes

Reposted by Jacob T. Levy

drjennings.bsky.social
Will Jennings📉🗳️ @drjennings.bsky.social · 15h
If anyone tells you they were here during the early days of Bluesky nod politely and back slowly away…

jacobtlevy.bsky.social
Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social · 15h
Harris is uh a little noncommittal these days on how central she was to the Biden administration.

jacobtlevy.bsky.social
Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social · 15h
He was *good* at being Hill ambassador!

jacobtlevy.bsky.social
Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social · 15h
And given how marginal he had been in the Reagan administration, you can understand why he thought so!

jacobtlevy.bsky.social
Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social · 15h
There were a lot of retrospectives when he died claiming that he was the first, but I found the evidence underwhelming, and I definitely don’t think he was reported on as a powerful administrative figure at the time.

Reposted by Jacob T. Levy

onetruestephen.bsky.social
Stephen Raab @onetruestephen.bsky.social · 15h
Archeologists have rejected the evidence of a “unitary” Bill Kristol, as recent scholarship has determined this sobriquet to refer to two distinct individuals active at about the same time with diametrically opposed politics

jacobtlevy.bsky.social
Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social · 15h
-ish. same for Harris. As I recall they were both pretty marginalized in decisonmaking but were more actively employed than traditional VPs as ambassadors to the Hill.

jacobtlevy.bsky.social
Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social · 15h
While lord knows I’d lock Vance in particular out of any building I happened to be in, this is also the normal employment position of all vice-presidents except Gore and Cheney.

jacobtlevy.bsky.social
Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social · 15h
and a lot more left-wing rather than right-wing, but that still aren’t actually good for us.

I don’t think he’s wrong about any of it, though I still find it to be worth it on balance (here though obviously not on Twitter).

jacobtlevy.bsky.social
Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social · 15h
He was vocal about the ugly dynamics on here when he was here and he continues to be vocal about the ugliness of social media in his blogposts. Self-righteousness, knee-jerk hostility, showmanship for the audience— the kinds of things that were terrible on Twitter and here are a little less bad…

Reposted by Robert W. Wallace

jacobtlevy.bsky.social
Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social · 15h
Grim and true thoughts from the departed-from-Bluesky Adam Kotsko

adamkotsko.substack.com/p/thought-an...
Thought and its vicissitudes
Reflections on some deadlocks in contemporary culture
adamkotsko.substack.com

jacobtlevy.bsky.social
Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social · 16h
I could understand just not loving it, but I can't understand the intensely negative reaction from some people.

Reposted by Jacob T. Levy

tomjoscelyn.bsky.social
Tom Joscelyn @tomjoscelyn.bsky.social · 16h
Much of the right lives in an online fantasy world in which the left and progressives are uniformly antisemitic.

Meanwhile, the reality:
AOC condemns antisemitic chants

jacobtlevy.bsky.social
Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social · 16h
If it got a little predictable toward the very end, that's more than balanced out by how full of surprises it had been up until then.

jacobtlevy.bsky.social
Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social · 16h
First book of the year was RF Kuang, Katabasis, a wonderfully-written dark fantasy novel about academia. It is often take-your-breath-away brutal. Wouldn't have thought a book about magicians in Hell could have so many "it's funny because it's true, but it's *almost* too true to be funny" moments.

Reposted by Jacob T. Levy, Steven S. Taylor

nilsgilman.bsky.social
Nils Gilman @nilsgilman.bsky.social · 16h
So if you’re a regime cheer-leader, well, that’s what you would’ve been then: a collaborator. If you’re horrified but trying to mind your own business, well, that’s what you would’ve been then: a keep-your-head-down coward. If you’re just a shitposting cynic, well… (etc. etc.)
nilsgilman.bsky.social Nils Gilman @nilsgilman.bsky.social · 18h
Remember when you sat in history class and wondered to yourself, “I wonder what I would have done if were there?”

Well, now you have an answer: whatever you’re doing *right now* is what you would have done…
whstancil.bsky.social Will Stancil @whstancil.bsky.social · 19h
If all the people who knew Trump was a dangerously foolish and criminal man would simply be honest about him, he’d be out of office in a week. MAGA wouldn’t stand a chance against the combined mockery and condemnation of virtually every institution and influential person. But they won’t!