Kevin Elliott
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kjephd.bsky.social
Kevin Elliott
@kjephd.bsky.social
Political theorist studying democracy, ethics, & institutions. Author of Democracy for Busy People (https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/D/bo194847654.html); more at kevinjelliott.net. Generally poasting my way through this thing
Pinned
New article out from me, in which I consider: what if I'm wrong about everything re: what's important for a flourishing democracy?

I use a recent book attacking institutions & advocating disintermediated localism to explore the limits of my view.

Get it free here: academic.oup.com/psq/advance-...
Alarmingly relevant new paper out in @apsrjournal.bsky.social by Turku Isiksel and @tompepinsky.com. They take on the question of whether citizens of authoritarian states should vote in their often unfair elections, & find reason to do so.

www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
January 30, 2026 at 4:20 PM
Repression rises & intensifies; talk of a retreat in Minneapolis or a defeat of the regime appears to have been premature
“Agents can identify people on the street through facial recognition, trace their movements through license-plate readers and, in some cases, use commercially available phone-location data to reconstruct daily routines and associations.” All surveillance tools people have pushed back on for ages…
DHS ramps up surveillance in immigration raids, sweeping in citizens
The Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in Minneapolis is providing insights into the surveillance technologies the government is using in its mass deportation campaign.
apnews.com
January 30, 2026 at 4:15 PM
If the stairs aren't hard, have you even done leg day
January 30, 2026 at 3:08 PM
Reposted by Kevin Elliott
The fact that the cases are meritless actually makes them MORE effective for intimidation. Prosecuting actual criminals sends no broader message. They’re saying: “Piss us off and we’ll find some bullshit reason to tie you up in court whether or not we have any chance of making it stick.”
January 30, 2026 at 2:11 PM
Reposted by Kevin Elliott
Now that all of the pieces in our symposium in honor of Kirstie McClure are available online from Philosophy and Global Affairs, here's a little thread with each of the pieces. (1/8)
January 30, 2026 at 2:08 PM
Reposted by Kevin Elliott
Such a good thread. The upshot is that, contra the model where constitutions are solid stable bulwarks *against politics,* we must see them as in constant flux, with any stability itself a product*of politics*. The law won't save us. We can only save ourselves.
But all that political insecurity is the point: the American Constitution is in constant flux. It's a product of constitutional & quotidian politics; it's constantly being reproduced or altered. The upshot? Your liberty & rights are NOT secured by any constitutional text, but merely by politics.
January 30, 2026 at 12:42 PM
Reposted by Kevin Elliott
Some context for the FBI search of a WaPo reporter's home, from last May: "Press freedom in the U.S. now falls in line with developing countries, such as Gambia, Uruguay and Sierra Leone."
U.S. press freedom falls to historical low
Reporters Without Borders cites economic strains on the media as the biggest driver of press freedom declines globally.
www.axios.com
January 14, 2026 at 3:14 PM
Reposted by Kevin Elliott
I'll be working on an entry on #Montesquieu for the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy in the coming months. If you have any recommendations about secondary readings the biblio absolutely must include (especially French language ones), I'm all ears! #poltheory
January 29, 2026 at 4:59 PM
Here's my effortpost of the day, for the evening crowd, icymi:
@tribelaw.bsky.social harshly criticizes Jill Lepore's new history of the Constitution in @nybooks.com. Two thoughts about this important exchange.

1. Tribe is entirely right to fault her for effectively dismissing the unwritten elements of the US Constitution. This the center of his whole critique
Is the Constitution ‘Dead, Dead, Dead’? | Laurence H. Tribe
The difficulty of amending the Constitution does not mean that it is a flawed and outdated relic of a distant past.
www.nybooks.com
January 30, 2026 at 3:42 AM
Fire this motherfucker and replace him with someone who understands it's not about the status of the infraction but making citizens feel marginally safer & moving their part of the country incrementally back toward constitutional rule of law
LAPD won’t enforce California’s mask ban on ICE/CBP/DHS

www.instagram.com/reel/DUHDeCJ...
January 30, 2026 at 3:38 AM
America: MY ENGINES ARE GOING FULL SPEED ASTERN
tag yourself i’m I AM MANOEUVRING WITH DIFFICULTY
January 30, 2026 at 3:28 AM
I love teaching vets because, among other things, they take higher education in general, and the classes I teach in political theory in particular, quite seriously
January 30, 2026 at 3:25 AM
I'll have you know that it looks like the Melania movie is pushing Hamnet out of my local movie theater, which seems nicely symbolic of our era somehow
January 30, 2026 at 3:18 AM
Reposted by Kevin Elliott
Hard to pick just one devastating stat from this survey but holy shit
January 29, 2026 at 9:00 PM
Reposted by Kevin Elliott
frankly I appreciate that they misspelled his name here
First trailer for Darren Aranofsky's new AI animated series 'On This Day... 1776'

• Tells short narrative stories about the Revolutionary War

• Uses Gen AI tools, including tech made by Google DeepMind

• Has SAG voice actors
January 29, 2026 at 9:12 PM
That this same poll finds Trump approval at 37%—while approval of his *policies* is at Bush II nadir levels of 27%—reminds us once again that his appeal has little to do w policy.

I'd add that it also suggests a technocratic view of politics as fundamentally about policy cannot make sense of Trump.
January 29, 2026 at 9:13 PM
Reposted by Kevin Elliott
"Oh yeah I forgot that he was cruel and ignorant and bigoted and unfathomably corrupt and possessing of several untreated mental illnesses that render him unfit for any political office"
We must remind the public every 4 years that they hate Donald Trump because collectively they have no long-term memory.
January 29, 2026 at 9:00 PM
"As demand for fossil fuels stagnates or declines, these economies of scale will invert, leaving shrinking user bases to carry growing liabilities, and infrastructure designed for expansion to instead weather contraction."
Fascinating: "We identify a risk of collapses in service availability as specific elements of fossil infrastructures reach what we term 'minimum viable scale,' a level of throughput past which existing physical, financial, & managerial infrastructures can no longer effectively operate as expected."
Fossil energy minimum viable scale
Unseen infrastructural threats to safety and decarbonization may arise as fossil energy systems are phased out
www.science.org
January 29, 2026 at 9:02 PM
Reposted by Kevin Elliott
Fascinating: "We identify a risk of collapses in service availability as specific elements of fossil infrastructures reach what we term 'minimum viable scale,' a level of throughput past which existing physical, financial, & managerial infrastructures can no longer effectively operate as expected."
Fossil energy minimum viable scale
Unseen infrastructural threats to safety and decarbonization may arise as fossil energy systems are phased out
www.science.org
January 29, 2026 at 8:58 PM
Reposted by Kevin Elliott
So, incredibly, the White House has chosen to escalate in blue Minnesota and retreat in Maine to protect a vulnerable GOP Senator.

It's confirmation that Trump-Vance-Miller view ICE as a partisan govt-backed militia to attack blue America while propping up their regime. 1/
January 29, 2026 at 12:55 PM
Reposted by Kevin Elliott
Great thread for #USgov teachers as well as everyone with interested in living in a constitutional republic. #iteachsocialstudies
@tribelaw.bsky.social harshly criticizes Jill Lepore's new history of the Constitution in @nybooks.com. Two thoughts about this important exchange.

1. Tribe is entirely right to fault her for effectively dismissing the unwritten elements of the US Constitution. This the center of his whole critique
Is the Constitution ‘Dead, Dead, Dead’? | Laurence H. Tribe
The difficulty of amending the Constitution does not mean that it is a flawed and outdated relic of a distant past.
www.nybooks.com
January 29, 2026 at 6:14 PM
Reposted by Kevin Elliott
Sabato’s moves:

GA-Sen to Lean D from Tossup
FL-Sen to Likely R from Safe R
January 29, 2026 at 4:38 PM
This is a sign of our education system failing since apparently nobody at this company has heard of a calzone
what are they cooking up in the food labs?!?
January 29, 2026 at 5:50 PM
Reposted by Kevin Elliott
Trump's not the most unpopular president ever (yet!), but he is smashing some records and is in range for more. My look at the numbers. Plus the 40% rule. At GP/BP. goodpoliticsbadpolitics.substack.com/p/trump-unpo...
Trump, Unpopular
Enough to start convincing Republicans that there's a problem.
goodpoliticsbadpolitics.substack.com
January 29, 2026 at 4:17 PM