Recently I had the pleasure of appearing on one of my favorite podcasts, Civics and Coffee, and I think this was my best work as an interviewee. I give full credit to Alicia, the host, for asking great questions.
One thought as I was listening to the episode: I mention that I don't think that anyone could be elected by promising to gut Social Security, and yet we are facing extreme -- and illegal -- cuts to the program by DOGE and the current administration. Certainly I don't recall the current president campaigning on promises to cut a popular social safety net, but in practice that is what we are facing here.
My point in mentioning this -- well, *one* of my points -- is to encourage everyone to be far more engaged in relaying to people you care about the seriousness of these actions. In my unscientific research and in talking to people, I don't think most Americans are aware of how dangerous these cuts across the board are.
Unrelated: that photo of me is fast becoming the default photo of me on campus and my wife is rather proud of that because 1) she took it and 2) she hates my faculty profile photo.
