Writer, urban planner
Rhode Island
Joined March 2010
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In my latest for @curaffairs , I show how the administrative state was once a powerful force for good in many Americans’ lives, and how it can be again: currentaffairs.org/news/make…
Allison retweeted
“Arabs don’t produce literature” is really something you can only say if you’ve never had a moment’s contact with genuine civilization. A mind totally consumed by television and self-help books.
It’s more complicated than this tho. I’ll bet a lot of the relatively “bougie” car dealers and contractors who voted for Trump love the Cheesecake Factory. These people are working-class-coded even though they are actually often pretty well-off. Elite, but not Harvard/WSJ elite.
Cheesecake Factory is not a "Middle America" coded restaurant or for the "working man," as this editorial says. It's like P.F. Chang's: it indicates a bougie area. Have WSJ editorial writers not been to a chain restaurant beyond Ruth's Chris? wsj.com/opinion/barack-obama…
Allison retweeted
It’s truly wild how the only thing they are running on against Abdul is unvarnished racism.
Vance on El-Sayed: We have to understand what happens when our nation gives into these kinds of people with zero attachment to its land or to its history.
What we saw in France, the hatred, the ingratitude, the desire to destroy rather than a desire to build, that exact same cancer that has corrupted El-Sayed.
Allison retweeted
If the Interior Minister of Japan started committing war crimes with our tax dollars we'd get to know him.
Allison retweeted
A lot of ppl on here have a two-dimensional concept of political leverage, based purely on negative pressure. Leverage also comes from joining a coalition, making your group indispensable, building trust & problem-solving together, while pushing firmly.
Allison retweeted
Ha, the California ruling class is on track to spend half a billion dollars fighting a union-backed one-off wealth tax, and they all agree they can’t be openly associated with the campaign because people hate them and blame them for everything going wrong
Allison retweeted
Policies that would reduce the cost of living while moving us towards socialism:
—Libraries for everything (100% discount)
—Municipal food buyer cooperatives (30-50% discount)
—Limited Equity Housing Cooperatives (60-90% discount)
—Municipal repair hubs (⬇️ ongoing expenses)
Hey @Apple - nothing works on my phone since your most recent forced update. I can’t send images via text anymore, among other problems. I’m close to switching to an android phone if this enshittification trend keeps up. #nothingworksanymore
Allison retweeted
I would love one day for the opportunity to interview or debate Bret Stephens. He says so much nonsense with so much confidence. The whataboutism is here is pathetic.
Is the interior minister of Japan daily bragging about mass murder and ethnic murder and making foreign mothers cry?
Is the interior minister of Japan receiving billions of dollars in US military aid?
Is the interior minister of Japan's government being investigated by the ICJ for genocide and wanted at the ICC for war crimes?
Are we in a war alongside Japan right now?
Do US politicians, both GOP and Dem, declare they entered politics to defend Japan or have dreams about Japan?
I could keep going...
Allison retweeted
I'm reminded of Conan O'Brien's point that all statues should be made of soap. Watching Farage these days is like watching one such melt in the rain. Oh, the fall, the fall, the higgledy-piggledy crashing fall.
Allison retweeted
I found one of the approximately six buildings built in 1932. Props to the optimistic souls who put it up.
Allison retweeted
NPR has some great interviews with writers and other artists, and it's Congressional reporting is super. But I had to stop listening after October 7, as it has been National Pentagon Radio on Gaza, relentless pro Israeli pandering and propaganda. Who talks like this?
In my interviews with Israelis, a portrait has emerged: a people defiant but weary, resistant to Palestinian pain but traumatized from war, fed up with the world but fearful of global isolation, and in a tug-of-war with themselves.
Read and listen:
npr.org/2026/10/25/g-s1-1495…
Allison retweeted
please do tell me which war crimes the Japanese interior minister committed lately with my tax dollars
Allison retweeted
The most anti-intellectual US political party in at least a century is reaching for intellectual prizes as the measure of worth?