Thomas J Hayes
@thomasjhayes.bsky.social
Associate Professor of Political Science at UConn. Director of the EcoHouse Learning Community.
Reposted by Thomas J Hayes
Join @stevelevitsky.bsky.social & me online, Monday 11/24 at 3:30pm ET, to talk about where we are in the US struggle for democracy. ash.harvard.edu/events/the-b...
The Breakdown with Erica Chenoweth and Steve Levitsky – Ash Center
Join Erica Chenoweth and Steven Levitsky for The Breakdown, a webinar series on the ongoing struggle for American democracy. Each month, Chenoweth and Levitsky will break down key developments, reflec...
ash.harvard.edu
November 22, 2025 at 4:57 PM
Join @stevelevitsky.bsky.social & me online, Monday 11/24 at 3:30pm ET, to talk about where we are in the US struggle for democracy. ash.harvard.edu/events/the-b...
Reposted by Thomas J Hayes
As Trump again ramps up attacks on judges as biased, consider: his own appointees rule against his admin 49% of the time. Republican appointees 65%. Reporters should ask: If the judiciary is biased, why do the judges he picked keep ruling against him?
November 18, 2025 at 2:41 AM
As Trump again ramps up attacks on judges as biased, consider: his own appointees rule against his admin 49% of the time. Republican appointees 65%. Reporters should ask: If the judiciary is biased, why do the judges he picked keep ruling against him?
Reposted by Thomas J Hayes
Those claiming Dems should retreat on racial justice aren't hard-headed realists, they're pushing against the electoral tide rather than leaning into it. The story of Gen Z isn't about racist backlash or red-pilled young men. It's the most racially progressive generation in American history. 🧵
November 14, 2025 at 8:44 PM
Those claiming Dems should retreat on racial justice aren't hard-headed realists, they're pushing against the electoral tide rather than leaning into it. The story of Gen Z isn't about racist backlash or red-pilled young men. It's the most racially progressive generation in American history. 🧵
Reposted by Thomas J Hayes
Kind of wild that while food assistance was withheld from millions of families, one Trump-supporting billionaire (Ellison) saw his net worth grow more this year than the entire SNAP budget. And the YTD gains of the other four richest men would’ve fully covered salaries for all 2M federal employees.
November 11, 2025 at 9:03 PM
Kind of wild that while food assistance was withheld from millions of families, one Trump-supporting billionaire (Ellison) saw his net worth grow more this year than the entire SNAP budget. And the YTD gains of the other four richest men would’ve fully covered salaries for all 2M federal employees.
Reposted by Thomas J Hayes
October 9, 2025 at 10:57 AM
Reposted by Thomas J Hayes
Look at how Trump's tariffs are affecting retail prices.
August 8, 2025 at 12:56 AM
Look at how Trump's tariffs are affecting retail prices.
Reposted by Thomas J Hayes
The balance of public opinion is against abortion being legal in only one state, Arkansas.
www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/...
www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/...
July 14, 2025 at 5:22 PM
The balance of public opinion is against abortion being legal in only one state, Arkansas.
www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/...
www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/...
Reposted by Thomas J Hayes
July 4, 2025 at 6:24 PM
Reposted by Thomas J Hayes
Pardoned Jan. 6 Rioter Who Threatened Police Joins Justice Dept.
www.nytimes.com
July 2, 2025 at 1:40 PM
Reposted by Thomas J Hayes
Ok, so Republicans just introduced a 900 page bill none of them have read. But my team is going through it line by line and on this 🧵you can see the hidden provisions we found. Will update all day.
1/ NEW Medicaid cuts, so now 17 million - instead of 16M - lose health care.
1/ NEW Medicaid cuts, so now 17 million - instead of 16M - lose health care.
June 30, 2025 at 6:18 PM
Ok, so Republicans just introduced a 900 page bill none of them have read. But my team is going through it line by line and on this 🧵you can see the hidden provisions we found. Will update all day.
1/ NEW Medicaid cuts, so now 17 million - instead of 16M - lose health care.
1/ NEW Medicaid cuts, so now 17 million - instead of 16M - lose health care.
Reposted by Thomas J Hayes
To top it all off, as I wrote in @medpagetoday.bsky.social, the bill goes against the federalism principles that Republicans have historically espoused, literally penalizing states for offering more generous health coverage with their own state funds. www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/seco...
Opinion | Will States' Rights Go the Way of Medicaid Funding?
Trump's 'Big Beautiful Bill' bolsters federal power
www.medpagetoday.com
June 30, 2025 at 12:36 PM
To top it all off, as I wrote in @medpagetoday.bsky.social, the bill goes against the federalism principles that Republicans have historically espoused, literally penalizing states for offering more generous health coverage with their own state funds. www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/seco...
Reposted by Thomas J Hayes
Now let’s talk behavioral health. The opioid epidemic ravaged Appalachia (where I live, and which largely voted for Trump), and Medicaid is critical lifeline for people requiring treatment for mental health and substance use disorders, as I write on in @statnews.com www.statnews.com/2025/06/12/m...
Medicaid cuts would devastate mental health, substance use treatment services in red states
Though behavioral health conditions do not discriminate between Democrats and Republicans, the Medicaid cuts may be particularly damaging for residents of red states.
www.statnews.com
June 30, 2025 at 12:33 PM
Now let’s talk behavioral health. The opioid epidemic ravaged Appalachia (where I live, and which largely voted for Trump), and Medicaid is critical lifeline for people requiring treatment for mental health and substance use disorders, as I write on in @statnews.com www.statnews.com/2025/06/12/m...
Reposted by Thomas J Hayes
As Republicans expedite their efforts to rip health coverage from millions of Americans, re-upping my writing on the not so-beautiful bill. First, my piece in The Hill w/ @mshepruralpolitics.bsky.social on harms to rural (conservative) communities (ex: hospital closures). thehill.com/opinion/heal...
Medicaid cuts will harm rural Republican communities most
Trump’s budget will actively harm the health and incomes of rural communities and Republican voters, well beyond those who themselves are enrolled in Medicaid.
thehill.com
June 30, 2025 at 12:31 PM
As Republicans expedite their efforts to rip health coverage from millions of Americans, re-upping my writing on the not so-beautiful bill. First, my piece in The Hill w/ @mshepruralpolitics.bsky.social on harms to rural (conservative) communities (ex: hospital closures). thehill.com/opinion/heal...
Reposted by Thomas J Hayes
One of the tough things about covering Trump’s 2nd term is that he is breaking so many laws & norms that when you cover them each on their own, you come off as an anti-Trump Dem pundit w “Trump Derangement Syndrome.” But when you list it all out things indeed look pretty alarming
May 11, 2025 at 6:17 PM
One of the tough things about covering Trump’s 2nd term is that he is breaking so many laws & norms that when you cover them each on their own, you come off as an anti-Trump Dem pundit w “Trump Derangement Syndrome.” But when you list it all out things indeed look pretty alarming
Reposted by Thomas J Hayes
if Congress does not seize its powers back Trump *will* fly the American economy straight into the side of a mountain.
Again: he is not going to back down from tariffs because the imports collapse is an explicitly good thing to him. It’s the whole goal of the policy.
He sees the number of containers going to zero and thinks *that is a success* because it means we’re not buying things from those foreigners anymore.
He sees the number of containers going to zero and thinks *that is a success* because it means we’re not buying things from those foreigners anymore.
Trump: "We were losing a trillion dollars a year. Now we're not losing anything, you know? That's the way I look at it. We were losing with China on trade a trillion dollars a year."
May 8, 2025 at 12:00 PM
if Congress does not seize its powers back Trump *will* fly the American economy straight into the side of a mountain.
Reposted by Thomas J Hayes
The US government is pumping right-wing conspiracy theories into other countries. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
Embattled Voice of America to use newsfeed from hard-right network
One America News will now provide news and video to government-funded organization
www.theguardian.com
May 8, 2025 at 2:25 AM
The US government is pumping right-wing conspiracy theories into other countries. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
Reposted by Thomas J Hayes
Reposted by Thomas J Hayes
Appeasement, as Churchill warned, is like feeding a crocodile and hoping to be the last one eaten.
Levitsky, Way, and me today in New York Times
www.nytimes.com/2025/05/08/o...
Levitsky, Way, and me today in New York Times
www.nytimes.com/2025/05/08/o...
Opinion | No One Has Ever Defeated Autocracy From the Sidelines
www.nytimes.com
May 8, 2025 at 12:42 PM
Appeasement, as Churchill warned, is like feeding a crocodile and hoping to be the last one eaten.
Levitsky, Way, and me today in New York Times
www.nytimes.com/2025/05/08/o...
Levitsky, Way, and me today in New York Times
www.nytimes.com/2025/05/08/o...
Reposted by Thomas J Hayes
There’s so much happening right now, I thought I’d put together a running thread on the dismantling of #climate and research and knowledge infrastructure in the United States 🧵
May 7, 2025 at 12:11 PM
There’s so much happening right now, I thought I’d put together a running thread on the dismantling of #climate and research and knowledge infrastructure in the United States 🧵
Reposted by Thomas J Hayes
they are literal segregationists apnews.com/article/scho...
The Justice Department ended a decades-old school desegregation order. Others are expected to fall
The Justice Department is lifting a school desegregation order in Louisiana dating to the Civil Rights Movement, calling its continued existence a “historical wrong” and suggesting that others across ...
apnews.com
May 1, 2025 at 8:57 PM
they are literal segregationists apnews.com/article/scho...
Reposted by Thomas J Hayes
Welp, the federal minimum wage is now officially a poverty wage (as in, a full-time worker earning the federal minimum wage gets paid less than the poverty line for a single person). www.epi.org/blog/the-fed...
April 28, 2025 at 4:58 PM
Welp, the federal minimum wage is now officially a poverty wage (as in, a full-time worker earning the federal minimum wage gets paid less than the poverty line for a single person). www.epi.org/blog/the-fed...
Reposted by Thomas J Hayes
Trump's ActBlue attacks serve two goals: Cripple Dems' small-dollar machine (where GOP mega-donors can't compete) while forcing Democrats deeper into the arms of their own billionaires and mega-donors. Not just about winning—it's about kneecapping Dem candidates who refuse to bow to elite interests.
April 25, 2025 at 3:28 AM
Trump's ActBlue attacks serve two goals: Cripple Dems' small-dollar machine (where GOP mega-donors can't compete) while forcing Democrats deeper into the arms of their own billionaires and mega-donors. Not just about winning—it's about kneecapping Dem candidates who refuse to bow to elite interests.