David Dagan
Director of editorial and academic affairs at Niskanen Center. Read Hypertext: hypertext.niskanencenter.org. Read The Liberal Fortress: daviddagan.substack.com. Book: amzn.to/29rrt90.
- Reposted by David DaganCan we create a digital economy that strengthens democracy instead of eroding it? This week in Hypertext ⤵️
- Incredible courage from these witnesses, whose fear of retaliatory or preemptive violence is 100% justified.
- The logic of the escalating violence & rhetoric is to force max number of R's and nonattentive folks into the pro-paramilitary corner because they either like what they see or just believe the lies, and/or to set off a confrontation w/ local/state authorities that provides pretext for worse. 1/2
- But it also raises salience so the sane majority hopefully wakes up. I'm not sure this is a *strategy* given the characters involved, but it's the logic now at work. The logic, in other words, of authoritarian consolidation. 2/2
- But if you listen to Goldsmith and Bauer today, it becomes clear just how much of an own goal this will be. He is in a loss-overreach spiral that will badly wound us but exposes the limits of his power, and thereby degrades it.
- Janet Yellen: "“If you can bring charges for no reason whatsoever against your enemies, we’re no longer living in a society governed by the rule of law.” She added: “That’s the end of Fed independence.” And much else. (Gift link) www.nytimes.com/2026/01/12/b...
- The demagogic response to the ICE killing is the domestic side of Stephen Millerism. This administration cannot recognize the category of “victim” in regard to its policies or the agents carrying them out; any victim must be immediately converted into an enemy. 1/4
- If victims can exist, that would suggest that force might be subject to reflection and accountability. In other words, that it might be constrained by something other than raw power. 2/4
- In general, these folks imagine themselves as making bold revelations when they announce to us that the world is structured by force. But this is not something that liberalism denies or obscures; it is the underlying assumption of liberalism. 3/4
- The only big reveal here is that the purported truth-teller hasn’t graduated out of the wading pool of political thought. 4/4
- I am thankful for the heroes of Jan. 6 and all who worked so hard for accountability. Their America will outlast the mob and its leader.
- Domestically, this may prove Trump's biggest blunder. How will MAGA isolationists take his plans to occupy Venezuela? A cowardly Congress refused to pass a law that would have prevented this intervention, but if Venezuela's new leader refuses to play ball, will they support a bloodbath? 1/3
- Voters who thought they were getting the anti-inflation, America First president now see as dramatically as possible that they got a Mafia boss who is willing to shed American blood to extract foreign oil. 2/3
- The likeliest scenario is that Venezuela's new leadership tells Trump what he wants to hear on the phone and then acts differently, and he allows it to happen - because otherwise, he's committed to a disaster. 3/3
- Reposted by David DaganStatement from Cato VP Clark Neily: Courts probably won't rule against the rendition. Yet Trump has chosen to bypass the constitutional provisions designed to cabin the president's powers in using force against other countries. And an indictment does not supply him with those powers.
- The guy who ran against the Iraq War is offering us Iraq on steroids. The congressional abdication. The thin pretext. The myopia about the potential for a bloodbath. All caricatures of 23 years ago. And the caricature of 2003 - the oil play - is now real.
- Reposted by David DaganEarlier this month, Ross Douthat argued that “the liberal order can’t heal itself.” The next day, @jvl.bsky.social told liberals to stop the masochism. But the answer is neither despair nor restoration, but a liberal reconstruction. hypertext.niskanencenter.org/p/lets-bake-...
- Examining how our elite went wrong is not masochism and New Right flirtation. The question is precisely how our leadership class wound up allowing these people anywhere close to power, and caving repeatedly to the predations of the Trump administration in recent months. 1/2
- I’m poking a stick just a little bit in @jvl.bsky.social's eye here, but he is an indispensable read for me in these brutal times and his insight always leaves you sharper, agree or disagree. 2/3
- Joining the Black Friday Amazon boycott this weekend led me to rediscover @kanopy.com! Double-win! @awscloud.bsky.social
- You don't have to be a genius to understand why DOGE was a disaster. But even serious people can get government reform badly wrong. To do it right, we need to study the pitfalls - and I'm jazzed about this Hypertext issue doing just that.
- Read the whole thing!
- ABC has joined the slackjaw club, dismayed at being called on its proclaimed principles, incapable of retort. It joins law firms, broadcasters, and Fortune 500 corporations that have all been exposed as suffering from an advanced stage of moral rot. Trump sensed that spinelessness and pushed. 1/2
- They should be subject to protest and boycott because they're selling all of us out. And there should be a civil society effort to provide them with all the cover they need to fight back. These are actors over which there may be more levers of influence than the government itself at this point. 2/2
- One of the most baffling points in the @ezraklein.bsky.social piece on Kirk: "We can live with losing an election because we believe in the promise of the next election." But Kirk didn't! And yet Ezra concludes: "We were on the same side on the continued possibility of American politics."
- I mourn Kirk's killing. I admire his charisma, organizing genius, & commitment to debate. THAT was right about his way. I also believe he used his talents to promote lies that damaged our democracy and bigotry that divides us. THAT was wrong about his way. www.motherjones.com/politics/202...
- It can be a trap if you make it a trap. It's a gift if you make it a gift. The line is: We have a big crime problem and we'd love more cops to help solve it. But Trump is cutting money for cops and sending troops because he isn't coming after criminals - he's coming after democracy.
- Pritzker had at least one statement along these lines in the last few days - he gets it.
- Big new paper from Steve Teles @niskanencenter.bsky.social today niskanencenter.org/abundance-va.... Steve outlines six types of “abundance” thinking he predicts will shape US politics. As in the Progressive Era, broad principles will attach to distinct cultural and political economic projects.
- Reposted by David DaganThis is getting very bad: *FBI raids top Trump critic's home *Trump loyalist gins up "mortgage fraud" pretexts for DOJ probes of Schiff, Letitia James, Lisa Cook *Bannon says ICE will monitor 2026 voting *DHS memo vows LA operations "for years to come" New from me: newrepublic.com/article/1994...
- I spent a lot of time trying to level-set on how we reached the point of starvation in Gaza. First of several posts: daviddagan.substack.com/p/why-are-ga...
- Reposted by David DaganSome racial profiling was happening from the start, but the operation was supercharged in mid-May when the White House ordered ICE to stop using warrants, targeted operations, and just "go out on the streets" and arrest people. These arrests shot from 500/week to 1,500/week
- The BLS firing is one of Trump's most chilling moves yet. He is demanding that we be lied to about the most material facts of most Americans' lives - how they earn a living. And it will come at the expense of that living, because it destroys the foundations for investing in the United States.
- Reposted by David DaganI want to enthusiastically endorse this piece from @cselmendorf.bsky.social & @profschleich.bsky.social. Thus far YIMBY has been almost entirely focused on More Housing, but ultimately, if you want people to accept density, you have to make it *nice*, and that means more than just housing.
- The great @henrymjtonks.bsky.social cranked up his time machine and came up with really critical lessons for Democrats. But not only Democrats. 1/2 hypertext.niskanencenter.org/p/lessons-fr...
- If R's are going to be the working-class party, they'll need to do better than ruinous debt and tariffs. There is a subtle way of thinking about growth that we have lost, this piece shows. 2/2
- As @mattyglesias.bsky.social notes today, certain interest groups certainly built the polarization machine deliberately, but @jmcrosson.bsky.social wrote this great piece for us about how many just got sucked into it, even as single-issue orgs. 1/2 hypertext.niskanencenter.org/p/when-lobby...
- But local and even state politics are much more fluid, which is also why political reform probably needs to start at the bottom. 2/2
- YIMBYism needs to become more party-like, @cselmendorf.bsky.social and David Schleicher argue in today's Hypertext. Here's why. Shoutout to @dbroockman.bsky.social & @jkalla.bsky.social.
- Reposted by David DaganHypertext—Niskanen’s intellectual journal—is turning two! We launched it to tackle one big question: How do we make America’s institutions work for the 21st century? Now we’re sharpening that mission 🧵
- The "TACO" shorthand for thinking about Trump is not just annoying as an acronym - I also think it misreads the moment. I think it grows out of confusion that comes with being in what I'm thinking of as The Warp Zone.
- In his first 3-4 months Trump was hyperaggressive on almost every front. He blew through some quasi-law in the form of bedrock norms (think "the presumption of regularity" in court and relations with Congress) as well as a meaningful amount of hard law.
- But since then he has hit some hard constraints that require political tradeoffs even in his narrow authoritarian conception of what it means to hold power. Markets crashed, courts repudiated him, the public got activated, efforts on Israel-Iran-Gaza/Ukraine got stuck, Congress started dealing.
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View full threadIran is interesting because there is a hard decision that will commit Trump, period. If the bomb is dropped, it doesn't come back. If two weeks in it is not dropped, it probably won't be. Most of these other areas lack such an obvious focal point so far.
- Iraq and Afghanistan from the beginning were conceived as regime-change invasions involving ground troops. A war goal of destroying Fordow aerially is limited and (I think!) achievable. Whether we should do it hinges on nonpublic intel IMO - but that's the question on the table.
- MAGA's Massive Ordnance Penetrator - thoughts on the American crisis meeting war in the Middle East. daviddagan.substack.com/p/magas-mass...
- Early in the war that began on Oct. 7, a friend said to me: “It’s like Covid, but with bombs.” That's more true than ever now that the fight is directly with Iran. But Israelis know why they are going through this. daviddagan.substack.com/p/what-israe...
- My latest Israel-Gaza post - taking seriously the problem of Hamas diverting aid, and condemning the prolonged blockade that has driven Gazans to the brink. daviddagan.substack.com/p/the-blocka...
- The Trump administration caved on the Abrego Garcia case because the courts did not cower. Now they are using their politicized DOJ to save face with hyperbolic criminal charges. This is at once a big win for the rule of law and a reminder of the danger we still face.
