Associate Professor @UMich || scholar of American political institutions || author of False Front: tinyurl.com/y8cx24uh
Joined July 2025
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How should scholars who study American politics change what they do in light of the Trump administration?
The emerging consense is: write about Trump, go normative, and raise "alarm bells."
TLDR: This is a bad idea.
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Very important and timely reminder for everyone in the media; Trump isn't an aberration, here. All contemporary presidents caught on to the fact that the media tends to parrot policy announcements in a way that makes the political shop in the WH very happy.
Apr 29
NEW: It’s a familiar pattern: Trump announces a new policy on Truth Social. News alerts are sent out. Lawmakers issue statements. Furor ensues.
And then ... nothing.
In today’s newsletter, I investigate: how often do Trump policies announced on social media actually happen?
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Kenneth Lowande retweeted
I used Claude Code to build an website that implements the simulations presented in "Making in the Supreme Court: The Politics of Appointments, 1930-2020" (with Chuck Cameron) that predict the composition of the Supreme Court under different scenarios.
jkastellec.github.io/msc-sim…
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Kenneth Lowande retweeted
Apr 1
This is a really hard position to take in the academy. It is also correct. It's impossible not to be alarmed by Trump--but alarm shouldn't drive scholarship. We need a firewall between our personal views and our academic writing.
How should scholars who study American politics change what they do in light of the Trump administration?
The emerging consense is: write about Trump, go normative, and raise "alarm bells."
TLDR: This is a bad idea.
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How should scholars who study American politics change what they do in light of the Trump administration?
The emerging consense is: write about Trump, go normative, and raise "alarm bells."
TLDR: This is a bad idea.
1
18
75
11,290
In a new review, I write about the costs of this kind of scholarship, and how scholars should "respond" to the moment: myumi.ch/w9R2W
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Feb 17
The year is 2026, and I am told daily by a machine that it is "verifying that I am human."
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19 Dec 2025
I'm hiring a Postdoctoral Research Fellow!
Something that should be obvious after this past year: The American presidency and the executive branch, more broadly, are far and away the most important political institutions in American politics.
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19 Dec 2025
Many thanks to generous support from the Hewlett Foundation for seeing a desparate research need. If we are in a new era when most policy is made by American presidents from the top-down...
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19 Dec 2025
...we need to invest more resources into understanding what happens after the president says "go."
Applications due Feb 16. Please reach out to me with questions.
apply.interfolio.com/178829
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10 Dec 2025
Putting together my grad syllabus in American political institutions. Anyone have recommendations for new "must-read" books?
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4 Aug 2025
The Trump admin owns the public narrative by taking executive action, over and over. Our new study shows this strategy has detectable impacts on Google search traffic for the incumbent president. Ballpark est. similar to pop artists when they release a new album.
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23 Jul 2025
Even within credentials, staffers were polarized by degree field. Democrat leaning majors:
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23 Jul 2025
Highly ranked (i.e., by US News) university alumni are overwhelmingly Dem-leaning, while large publics and some small colleges are more ideologically diverse...
(I am having fun with my alma mater in this figure. Sic'em.)
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23 Jul 2025
Ranking colleges and universities by White House alumni, 1996-2024:
Privates:
1. @Yale
2. @Georgetown
3. @Harvard
4. @CatholicUniv
5. @GWAdmissions
Publics:
1. @UVA
2. @UTAustin
3. @UNC
4. @UMich
5. @UofMaryland
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23 Jul 2025
SLACs ranked by WH alumni:
1. @patrickhenrycol
2. @earlham1847
3. @Hillsdale
4. @CMCnews
5. @wlunews
Full Paper: myumi.ch/pVMM5
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23 Jul 2025
White House alumni lean correlates with 2025 investigations and funding cuts, after accounting for observables. We aren't saying this is causal. But it is a good illustration of how Trump actions reflect deeper, political divisions in higher ed itself.
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23 Jul 2025
This study is joint work with some smart undergraduates at the University of Michigan, all of whom, would make great White House staffers -- for any president!
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