james hassett

Making sense of the world one dialectic at a time. Writing about the clean energy transition and political economy.

[james hassett @rotdialectic]

My latest in WM: Outlets have decried Trump's industrial policy as "state capitalism" but contrasted with China, it's obvious that Trump's interventions lack any strategy. This isn't state capitalism, it's authoritarian cronyism.

[Washington Monthly @monthly]

The president’s parade of ad hoc deals with companies benefits his political allies and punishes enemies, but doesn’t enhance national greatness.

https://t.co/PcWlV1JgVF

[james hassett @rotdialectic]

@PAHoyeck @sangsangdou___ His genealogy of power approach definitely yields a lot of newer analytical approaches to history, but yeah I think there’s good reasons why history departments mainly teach Foucault through Discipline and Punish rather than his earlier works as it holds up the best empirically

[james hassett @rotdialectic]

@PAHoyeck @sangsangdou___ For history, though I’m mainly speaking for Foucault they can provide a useful analytical lens for the historical discipline, otoh I find his totalizing postmodern position on truth and power to be more deflationary than illuminating for historical analysis

[jordan @JordanUhl]

Trump is watching the Fox News feed of himself watching Fox News

[Jennifer A. Frey @jennfrey]

Ok, I'll bite. My response in replies.

[Marco Foster @MarcoFoster_]

Abdul El-Sayed on Gaza: “This is a moral Rorschach test. If you can’t identify the systematic murder of tens of thousands of kids as a genocide and then you wanna say you’re a fighter for human rights and dignity, that’s just hypocrisy”

[Sara McGee for Texas HD 132 @SaraForTexLege]

This is the moderate position. This pledge should be a litmus test for every single candidate in 2026 and beyond.

[Gabriel Zucman @gabriel_zucman]

I have some tremendous news to share: we've just won a decisive victory against Mark Zuckerberg and the Silicon Valley billionaires 🧵

[derek davison @dwdavison]

It’s wild how they suddenly remember all these other uses for money when it comes to ending a war, but not when the Pentagon requests a $1.5 trillion annual budget.

[James Medlock @jdcmedlock]

Checking in on this...

[Andrés Pertierra @ASPertierra]

This is a very funny hot take to have at a time when academics are doing public engagement seemingly more than ever before (books, podcasts, social media) and the public has easier access to specialist scholars than at any time in history (thanks to the internet)

[Taylor Lorenz @TaylorLorenz]

The OpenAI-Andreessen-Palantir SuperPAC admits that it was “part of their strategy” to create and run a false flag “doomer” X account that posted calls to violence.

[Gabriel Zucman @gabriel_zucman]

It seems we are now entering a new phase of the rise of inequality in the US.

It's not just wealth and billionaires — it's a broader acceleration.

Here's who benefited from economic growth in 2025, according to the latest estimates available on https://t.co/arZRWrEZEv

[David Klion @DavidKlion]

"It's not ethnic cleansing! Israel is generously asking civilians to leave their homes before Israel razes those homes to the ground so the civilians can never return and Israel can (according to its interior minister, less than 2 weeks ago) annex and settle their land"

[Senator Chris Van Hollen @ChrisVanHollen]

Democrats have provided reflexive & unconditional support to Netanyahu & Israeli governments, even as they undermined the values we claimed to stand for.

It's time to end taxpayer-funded support & condition arms sales to end the occupation & salvage a 2-state solution.

https://t.co/u0670ATFRE

[Sridhar Ramesh @RadishHarmers]

So many of the replies are "You must derive your self-worth from other Indians' accomplishments". I do not. My pride is in my own accomplishments. You dummies can't even imagine seeing oneself as a person rather than an interchangeable instantiation in some racial competition.