“The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.” This is the world bequeathed to us by a dysfunctional global elite facing the biggest polycrisis in humanity’s history. They don’t care. Like Zuckerberg, they’ve built their own Hawaiian fortresses to survive.

Happy New Year. 7/7

These “leaders of the free world” know very well that this is a win for global illiberalism and strongmen whose actions can be similarly justified by the ends of their choosing. 6/7

It doesn’t matter that Venezuela has degenerated into inhumane state-socialist authoritarianism. Rules should apply to everyone equally. Violating this principle has long-term consequences. 5/7

Greece’s prime minister put it most bluntly: “This is not the time to comment on the legality of the recent actions.” Putin couldn’t agree more. The saner voices of Europe are too weak, drowned out by the noise of propaganda. 4/7

The hawkish, dominant wing of European elites has servilely tagged along, offering an imbecilic twist on the argument: the ends justify the means. A gutted definition of “democracy” becomes an elastic justification to suspend the minimums of international law enshrined in the UN Charter. 3/7

American politics has been explicit about this since Trump’s return: pure unilateralism, might makes right. The U.S. will “run” Venezuela like a subsidiary of America Inc. and take its oil. 2/7

Thank you for sharing!

www.masslive.com/news/2025/12...

Higher education is not a secondary battlefield in today’s illiberal politics. Whoever controls universities shapes how societies understand truth, authority, and the limits of power. 7/7

Timing matters. Protest, solidarity, and court cases can slow things down, but the window for effective resistance closes fast. Still, “throwing sand in the gears” is not meaningless. Cross-campus coordination, and international partnerships can be powerful tools for resistance. 6/7

Far-right governments weaken institutions, pick symbolic targets, split academic communities, and force universities into a false choice between autonomy and survival. Once that logic takes hold, the rest follows quickly. 5/7

The pattern itself is familiar. The rhetoric centers on “viewpoint diversity,” efficiency, or rationalization. However, illiberal higher-ed policy is fundamentally about control over knowledge production. 4/7

If you think this can’t happen “here,” think again. What still surprises me is how often warnings are brushed aside under the comforting fiction of exceptionalism. 3/7

The article shows how the illiberal model of disciplining universities is no longer a distant East-European curiosity. It is openly studied, adapted, and piloted. Today it is applied in the U.S.; tomorrow it will surface in the next country where the far right is elected to govern. 2/7

If you care about populism, illiberalism, or how economic grievances become political identities, this paper and the subsequent exchange is well worth reading: anthropology and political economy at their best.
👉 www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1...

In my response, I zoom out to place their work within the global political economy of populism. The radical right has mastered the art of transforming economic insecurity and middle-class precarity into a moral drama & cultural backlash: the hardworking “producer” versus the undeserving “parasite.”

My comment engages Sandra Morgen and Jennifer Erickson’s outstanding article on the rise of anti-tax activism in Oregon, which they explore through the lens of “taxpayer identity politics.” They show how everyday grievances about taxes inform moral claims about who deserves support, who is “taking.”