Jun 24, 2025 | Blog, Democracy and Transitions to Authoritarianism
Growing up in Rochester, New York in the 1960s and 70s most of my friends were Catholic. My family didn’t attend church, so most of what I learned about the Bible came from overhearing my friends talking about their “CCD classes,” their confirmations, etc. The...
Jun 10, 2025 | Blog, Democracy and Transitions to Authoritarianism, News, Partisanship, Elections and the Energy Transition
A few weeks ago was graduation weekend at the University of Texas, during which I had the occasion to walk from the law school (in the northeast corner of campus) to an appointment at the business school (at the southwest corner). In that 15 minutes I passed by many...
Jun 5, 2025 | Blog, Democracy and Transitions to Authoritarianism, News, Partisanship, Elections and the Energy Transition
It is no secret that ideological and social media have amplified the worst of human nature in many ways. One away it does this is to supercharge the human instinct to blame a group for the bad acts of its individual members, and to endorse punishment of all the...
May 20, 2025 | Blog, Democracy and Transitions to Authoritarianism, Energy Transition Policy & Policymaking, Framing and the Energy Transition Debate
The indiscriminate cuts to the executive branch being made by Elon Musk’s DOGE operation are crippling the government’s ability to provide essential public goods to consumers, and to protect consumers from the predations of unregulated markets. As reported recently in...
May 4, 2025 | Blog, Democracy and Transitions to Authoritarianism, Framing and the Energy Transition Debate, Journalism, Bias & Censored News, Partisanship, Elections and the Energy Transition
[This is the last post in a multi-part look at new books addressing what we know, and don’t know, about today’s politics. Part 1 is here; part 2 is here; and part 3 is here.] The Final Book: Focus on Public Debate The books we have reviewed to date have...
Mar 30, 2025 | Blog, Democracy and Transitions to Authoritarianism, Framing and the Energy Transition Debate, Journalism, Bias & Censored News
“All culture is Internet culture.” – Taylor Lorenz (technology and media writer) The first two months of the second Trump administration are best understood as a kind of retributive lashing out at the people who MAGA voters believe have been attacking,...
