Jacob T. Levy's avatar

Jacob T. Levy

@jacobtlevy.bsky.social

7522 followers 602 following 5135 posts

Tomlinson Professor of Political Theory, Chair of Political Science, Associate member of Philosophy, Coordinator of Research Group on Constitutional Studies, McGill. Senior Fellow, Niskanen Center.

Jacob T. Levy's avatar Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social
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dailynous.com/2024/07/10/w... @dailynous.com

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Matthew Downhour 's avatar Matthew Downhour @matthewdownhour.bsky.social
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It’s Rod Dreher’s perverted, bigoted world and we’re just living in it

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Jacob T. Levy's avatar Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social
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Another day in higher ed, 2024.

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kilgore trout's avatar kilgore trout @kilgoretrout.bsky.social
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there’s a case to be made that the biden freakout is not actually about biden but about the zero-real-job-experience dork pundit class having no real polling to go on for the first time in their lives and reacting by having a big one

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Peter Gratton's avatar Peter Gratton @petergratton.bsky.social
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This is very good, not least because it might be the first reported use in the 2000s of “hat trick” in non-sport writing to understand what it is.

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Dr. Lorna N. Bracewell's avatar Dr. Lorna N. Bracewell @lornab.bsky.social
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My thoughts on Project 2025's breathtakingly radical antipornography politics. TLDR: it makes the Meese Commission Report look moderate!

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Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò's avatar Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social
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“Trump was convicted of a set of felonies,” Lazer says. “The impact it had on surveys was zero. Biden had a debate where most people said it proved he was too old. Survey respondents said, ‘Yeah, I saw that. He’s too old. I’m still voting for him.’ The numbers just aren’t moving.”

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Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò's avatar Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social
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"What the report finds is that Biden held on to 94% of the people who said they would support him before the debate. For Trump, 86% of people who said they would support him before the debate said they would do so after the debate."

news.northeastern.edu/2024/07/09/b...

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Jacob T. Levy's avatar Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social
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"I also couldn’t figure out how to turn the car off. Turns out it does this of its own accord. You know how Apple will occasionally confuse the world by doing away with standard features like a headphone jack? OK, well imagine a car built entirely out of that kind of gimmick. "

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Jacob T. Levy's avatar Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social
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And as far as I've seen, every student identified as a leader or spokesperson for SPHR has been from Concordia, not McGill.

Anyway, coverage of today's events.

www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

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Jacob T. Levy's avatar Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social
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A few weeks ago one associated group split off and disassociated itself from the camp saying that McGill students were being excluded from decisions and their safety was being disregarded. They didn't explicitly name SPHR, but SPHR is who remained.

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Jacob T. Levy's avatar Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social
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in the news: "I think it's absolutely shameful that the McGill administration has to go through a private company to rid the campus of its own students," said [A CONCORDIA STUDENT], a representative for Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights (SPHR), a student group associated with the encampment.

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Jacob T. Levy's avatar Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social
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Right, but my OP referred to people who were *defeated* for reelection and then tried to return to the office later. TR left voluntarily in '08.

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Kevin M. Kruse's avatar Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social
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“Colored”? They’re going to be causally saying the N word on air by September

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Jacob T. Levy's avatar Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social
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As a couple people pointed out, TR wasn't defeated for reelection in 1908; he stepped aside voluntarily. The last case was Grover Cleveland, 1888/ 1892. 8/7

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Jacob T. Levy's avatar Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social
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And so Roberts leave behind a much greater temptation to future presidents to go after, not their predecessors (normally who cares about them?) but their would-be *successors,* or their current active opposition. Politically motivated prosecutions have become more likely, not less. 7/7

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Jacob T. Levy's avatar Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social
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So, yes, Roberts seemingly immunizes Biden as well as Trump. But he (at least) badly damages the norms that Jeff Sessions adhered to and Bill Barr occasionally paid lip service to about not just doing Trump's bidding and going after ALL his enemies: Liz Cheney, Hillary Clinton, Adam Schiff... 6/

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Jacob T. Levy's avatar Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social
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Oh, true; he stepped aside voluntarily in 08.

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Jacob T. Levy's avatar Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social
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On the other hand, Roberts gives a bright green light to presidents giving the DOJ direction about whom to prosecute, for what, when. He treats as obvious nonsense the post-Watergate norms against political interference with investigative and prosecutorial decisions. 5/

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Jacob T. Levy's avatar Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social
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So on the one hand Roberts immunizes from retributive prosecution people who are ALMOST NEVER obvious candidates for it. 4/

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Jacob T. Levy's avatar Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social
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He didn't run in the crowded GOP primary. Behind the scenes he let it be known that he would deign to consider serving as Reagan's VP provided that he would be treated as co-president. This garnered approximately zero interest.

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Jacob T. Levy's avatar Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social
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Carter pretty clearly despised Reagan. But at no point in Reagan's first term would anyone have thought that *Carter* was an important figure for Reagan to go after. Did Clinton occasionally fantasize about siccing the FBI on Gingrich? Probably! George HW Bush? Almost certainly not. 3/

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Jacob T. Levy's avatar Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social
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Ex-presidents are ALMOST NEVER the important rivals of sitting presidents. Trump is the first a) incumbent president defeated for reelection who b) has tried to come back and win the office again since-- TR? Right? 112 years ago? 2/

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Jacob T. Levy's avatar Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social
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One point I was only able to mention briefly but that bears spelling out: Roberts' opinion makes things worse *even in the very specific ground of presidents' ability to engage in politically-motivated prosecutions of their rivals.*

1/

www.theunpopulist.net/p/justice-ro...

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The UnPopulist's avatar The UnPopulist @theunpopulist.net
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The Supreme Court's immunity ruling will make it hard to punish Trump for his past lawlessness, while inviting future abuses.

New from @jacobtlevy.bsky.social:

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Jacob T. Levy's avatar Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social
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To be clear, I'm not saying Clooney is acting vengefully. He held a giant fund-raiser for Biden in between then and now! He's a very loyal Democrat! But the bonds had frayed a bit, and understandably so.

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Jacob T. Levy's avatar Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social
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Eagerly awaiting two weeks of wall-to-wall coverage of the crazy man's demented word salad.

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Jacob T. Levy's avatar Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social
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Clooney doesn't mention this part in his op-ed.

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Jacob T. Levy's avatar Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social
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The Institute for the Study of Modern Authoritarianism's big launch conference on "Liberalism for the 21th Century" starts tomorrow. I got a head start by writing my first piece for the Institute's "UnPopulist."

substack.com/home/post/p-...

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Mark Chadbourn's avatar Mark Chadbourn @chadbourn.bsky.social
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More on that “peace” agenda. Medvedev: “Even if Ukraine surrenders the territories we claim and renounces NATO aspirations in exchange for a peace deal, sooner or later we would still have to put the nail into the coffin of Ukrainian statehood and return the rest of the country’s lands to Russia”.

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Jacob T. Levy's avatar Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social
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Oh, I didn’t know, or had forgotten! Yay, let’s make sure to find a time to talk Montesquieu.

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Jacob T. Levy's avatar Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social
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Columbia- Barnard have really stood out as getting every damn thing wrong for the last nine months.

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Chance 🌹's avatar Chance 🌹 @chancephillips.bsky.social
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IMO the new Republican platform reading just like Trump’s tweets is key.

“Like the campus conservatives I knew who would append “Sad!” to the end of their comments, the Republican Party has begun to speak in Trump’s voice now. And it thinks Trump’s thoughts.”
www.alreporter.com/2024/07/10/o...

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Paul Crider's avatar Paul Crider @paulcrider.liberalcurrents.com
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Challenge: Choose 20 books that greatly influenced you. One book per day, for 20 days. No explanations, no reviews. Just covers. 3/20 (Two in one today because I skipped yesterday.) #BookSky

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Jacob T. Levy's avatar Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social
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Montesquieu thread (entirely correct!)

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Kieran Healy's avatar Kieran Healy @kjhealy.bsky.social
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The inviolability of faculty authority to assign grades is in the process of turning into the Jury Nullification of academia; ie definitely real and indeed conceptually necessary for the entire enterprise but which the admin branch would really, really prefer you didn’t proactively lean on.

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Seth Cotlar's avatar Seth Cotlar @sethcotlar.bsky.social
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TPUSA ambassador and speaker Evan Kilgore has now taken the “brave” stand of denying the Holocaust.

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Rima I Anabtawi's avatar Rima I Anabtawi @rimaanabtawi.bsky.social
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The most important result in our new national poll of registered voters is that a majority of 53% of all voters believe that Donald Trump and his administration would represent “a grave danger to democracy continuing in the United States,” if he wins the election

www.politico.com/news/2024/07...

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Jacob T. Levy's avatar Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social
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If I put down the serious small-print tomes every five pages, then the slighter books would take me less time to read. The post says that the slighter books do not take me less time. QED.

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Jacob T. Levy's avatar Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social
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I would think that the inference isn't hard, though.

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