Michael Evans
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mevanspolisci.bsky.social
Michael Evans
@mevanspolisci.bsky.social

I teach & conduct political science research, seeking a healthier democracy.

Communication & Media Studies 27%
Education 25%
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.
At last night’s candlelight vigil for Renee Nicole Good, Bishop Rob Hirschfeld of the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire announced he had asked the clergy of the diocese to get their affairs in order and to make sure they have their wills written ...,
Once again, I am begging supposedly serious people & societal institutions not to normalize violating all of our international obligations, threatening to seize/acquire our closest allies, & generally treating the One Special Boy as if our entire edifice of institutions, laws, & norms do not exist.
The Norwegian Nobel Prize committee has been forced to make a statement, declaring that the prize cannot be transferred.
It's hard even to comprehend how stupid this has become
“These findings provide clear evidence that data collected on MTurk simply cannot be trusted.”
Yes, JD. Let’s ask them if they think a stay at home mom, avowed Christian, and widow of a veteran deserved to be shot in the face and left to bleed out in her own car after dropping her 6-year-old off at school, for the crime of looking out for her neighbors. Let’s ask everyone running for office.
There is only one fraud ring that matters in the United States, and it's run out of the White House
JD Vance: "I believe we're gonna have some very big announcements in the next couple of days. I don't want to get ahead of the president, but we believe there is a nationwide fraud ring that's rooted in illegal aliens and others taking advantage of the American welfare system."
Martin Peterson's creative response to being banned from teaching Plato (shared with his permission).
I need everyone in the political communications world who found the moral foundations reframing approach promising (which includes me) to read this paper

It doesn't replicate in new research. It just doesn't work.

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
The Poverty of Moral Foundation Messaging
Prominent scholars have argued that reframing political positions and issues in terms of moral foundations that appeal to conservatives or liberals can attract more individual-level support for tho...
www.tandfonline.com
I hate to break it to you, but heavily-armed government militias are roaming unchecked through US cities and shooting human rights observers dead in the streets. That's happening in our country.

Six Feet Under
We underestimate how impactful harassment and threats of violence are on politicians. Clear, large uptick in the number of major incumbent politicians not running/retiring specifically due to harassments and threats of violence. The harassers are like 0.1% of the population but hugely impactful.

Reposted by Michael Evans

😳 Thiel Fellowship co-founder Michael Gibson & American Moment founder Nick Solheim led a 2024 talk about colonizing Greenland. Gibson wrote yesterday that someone shld “pitch Rubio on building a charter city in Venezuela…” In reply, his colleague tagged an American Moment alum IN THE STATE DEPT. 1/
30 years ago they were like we have to ban song lyrics for the children but it’s full steam ahead for the here’s how to do drugs until you die machine
“ChatGPT started coaching Sam on how to take drugs, recover from them and plan further binges. It gave him specific doses of illegal substances, and in one chat, it wrote, ‘Hell yes—let’s go full trippy mode’”
www.sfgate.com/tech/article...
A Calif. teen trusted ChatGPT for drug advice. He died from an overdose.
"Who on earth gives that advice?"
www.sfgate.com
I wrote section 230 to protect user speech, not a company's own speech. I've long said AI chatbot outputs are not protected by 230 and that it is not a close call. Given that the Trump administration is going to the mat to protect pedophiles, states should step in to hold Musk and X accountable.
I am not a Section 230 expert but being that Twitter is creating and publishing these photos I wonder if they actually have any civil legal protection? @kenwhite.bsky.social ? @akivamcohen.bsky.social ?
What X is allowing Grok to do is unlawful or regulatory-illegal in multiple jurisdictions, creates clear DSA violations, and continues despite regulator scrutiny. The images do not need to be pornographic, non-consensual sexualised or intimate depictions are enough.
One of the most lopsided results you'll ever see in a poll, from our weekend Washington Post poll www.washingtonpost.com/politics/int...
My brother in Christ, the Constitution empowers *you* to make this determination! What do you mean it’s “likely” constitutional? Rediscover your backbone and fulfill the duties of your office.

ChatGPT: Please provide an example of the role of the perception gap in driving affective polarization in one meme.

Reposted by Michael Evans

Seems relevant
The US is at war with Venezuela.

No Congressional authorization, no public debate, no clearly stated goal, no casus belli, and a gradual ramp up rather than big opening, so many haven’t noticed (or deny it). But this attack removes the ambiguity.

US is at war with Venezuela. With no end in sight.
Exclusive: CIA carried out drone strike on port facility on Venezuelan coast | CNN Politics
The CIA carried out a drone strike earlier this month on a port facility on the coast of Venezuela, sources familiar with the matter told CNN, marking the first known US attack on a target inside that...
www.cnn.com
A cross-national analysis finds that as governments become more populist, academic freedom declines
doi.org/10.1017/S153...

This is an egregious error and I certainly hope the authors set the record straight exactly as you requested. But what evidence do you have to support your accusation (made in your post and in the letter) that this was "dishonest" -- i.e., intentional distortion -- rather than simply a mistake?
"Norman Rockwell was antifa," his granddaughter says. (Fact check: literally true.)
www.thebulwark.com/p/norman-roc...
The MAGAfication of Norman Rockwell
Trump uses the artist’s work—like other cultural icons—to promote Gestapo tactics and nativist ideas.
www.thebulwark.com
Trump: "Russia wants to see Ukraine succeed. It sounds a little strange but President Putin was very generous in his feeling toward Ukraine succeeding, including supplying energy, electricity and other things at very low prices."

Reposted by Michael Evans

Again, sure, but it was neither the president’s nor the AG’s job to do the Senate’s job for it. It all should have been over in February 2021, & the people everyone is actually angry at are all Republican Senators. Total failure of Article I of the Constitution. Presidentialism was a grave mistake.

Reposted by Michael Evans

I think engineers are especially prone to Trumpism, for reasons that are complex but have to do mostly with narrow expertise and a belief in yes/no, right/wrong solutions. I wrote about this problem in The Death of Expertise:
All of the money that changed hands in the Teapot Dome scandal totaled less than $10 million after adjusting for inflation, and it was considered so corrupt we still teach it in high school government classes a century later.
Corruption so pungent, it wafts right off the page:

Lobbyists who do pardon deals “say their going rate is $1 million. Pardon-seekers have offered some lobbyists close to the president success fees of as much as $6 million if they can close the deal.”

Gift link www.wsj.com/politics/pol...
Inside the New Fast Track to a Presidential Pardon
Even some of the president’s closest advisers have been surprised by a number of the recent series of pardons.
www.wsj.com

Reposted by Michael Evans

Over the last 11 months, however, one crisis has been ongoing. I have repeatedly warned that the Republican voter suppression and election-subversion machine continues to grind on. www.democracydocket.com/opinion/the-...
The Greatest Threat to Democracy
Read more here.
www.democracydocket.com

The lack of a comparable attempt to learn lessons from the most massive gov response to a crisis since at least the New Deal is also interesting info. Everyone who attended this webinar I helped organize agreed the book is far from terrible and worth engaging. www.youtube.com/watch?v=zj9r...
The Epistemic Crisis and Attack on Public Health
YouTube video by Scholars Strategy Network
www.youtube.com

This is a foolish and embarrassing take.