Neon Liberalism #45: Samantha and fellow Liberal Currents editor Jason Briggeman discuss the economics of liberal democracy, starting from the basic question "why are all the rich countries liberal democracies?" www.liberalcurrents.com/neon-liberal...

"Attempting to fact check the president is a Sisyphean task, but the claim that 'nothing happened to anybody' is unequivocally false." (from January) www.liberalcurrents.com/portland-is-...

“The fact that Greg Abbott has refused to act should be repugnant to anyone who has a sense of justice.”—me (feat. @caitlinmoriah.bsky.social & @trentrichardnelson.bsky.social of @liberalcurrents.com).

Please tell me you have seen @zeblarson.bsky.social piece on Mobutu and 47: www.liberalcurrents.com/congos-mobut...

"We must rediscover the virtue of ambition: the ambition to get out there and make some real changes—and the courage to face the music after." www.liberalcurrents.com/good-governa...

"Why Be a Liberal?": Join @sjshancoxli.liberalcurrents.com for a discussion of the difference between liberalism as an assumed default and liberalism as an active project, on our Neon Liberalism podcast. www.liberalcurrents.com/neon-liberal...

"The crusade against disfavoured speech is clear, led not by a grassroots movement, but by well-connected, powerful people eagerly donning the vestments of hard institutional power like children playing dress up in mommy’s uniform." www.liberalcurrents.com/the-left-is-...

"Inveterate contrarian Sohrab Ahmari has argued that Trump’s clash with the Federal Reserve isn’t just one more manifestation of an imperial presidency. Instead, his column maintains that attacking Fed independence is a warranted reassertion of democratic control over the economy."

"Charlie Kirk’s assassination, in a different time and place, could have been a moment for the country to pull back from the brink. Instead, it has become a religious 'revival' for Trumpism." www.liberalcurrents.com/charlie-kirk...

Good @aselrod.bsky.social reading of Stephen Miller's exploitation of Charlie Kirk's death. "Miller’s words drip with his own fascist salivation...Miller is not a subtle propagandist, but he is an opportunist. And he has rarely seen an opportunity like this." www.liberalcurrents.com/charlie-kirk...

"Kirk’s killing now stands to become memorialized as a sacred event on the MAGA right, one that pushes the country further toward the abyss. The rhetoric around Kirk’s legacy has been explicitly religious, flavored with talk of blood sacrifice and divine vengeance."

Half the Answer #35: Trent and Caitlin talk with politics blogger and podcaster Ed Burmila about the centrist arm of the Democratic Party and its zombie-like shuffle through our dark era of authoritarian overreach. Who is failing us, who is trying something else, and what tactics seem promising?

Charlie Kirk’s memorial was a religious revival of MAGA authoritarianism. With the exception of his widow, it was a celebration of rage, hatred, and retribution. I wrote about it for @liberalcurrents.com www.liberalcurrents.com/charlie-kirk...

I can’t recommend highly enough what Samantha and others are doing at @liberalcurrents.com. Please follow her and support her work. Samantha has a way of clarifying highly nuanced and complex ideas, turning liberalism into the fighting faith it was intended to be.

“Wessel, a young Nazi and member of the SA, was murdered by members of the Communist Party of Germany in 1930. His death became a rallying point for Nazi Party, and they adopted a march for which he’d written lyrics as the party anthem.” www.liberalcurrents.com/charlie-kirk...

"This particular exercise in hypocrisy strains credulity in a way that violently undercuts a core emotional message that has resonated with millions of people who either voted for them or looked the other way." www.liberalcurrents.com/the-left-is-...

Dr Hancox-Li absolutely blasts this one out of the park

"The libidinal pleasure of ‘owning the libs’ that now passes for modern conservatism is going to become more costly for them as time wears on." www.liberalcurrents.com/the-left-is-...

Neon Liberalism #44: The end of history left elite liberals in media and journalism with a hollow conception of liberalism—as a mere referee between the right and the left—not as an active force fighting for itself. How can we regain that energy going forward? www.liberalcurrents.com/neon-liberal...

Neon Liberalism #44: The end of history left elite liberals in media and journalism with a hollow conception of liberalism—as a mere referee between the right and the left—not as an active force fighting for itself. How can we regain that energy going forward? www.liberalcurrents.com/neon-liberal...

Great article by @quinnae.com

"No one should be in any denial about how perilous this moment is. It’s another degree’s tilt towards the abyss. But we are not idle on that knife’s edge; we remain engaged in the fight for democracy and the values that underpin it—free expression highest among them."

"Despite President Jackson’s pretensions, the Bank War he began was not a mass movement against unelected, usurious elites. It was a president grabbing at power denied to him by the people’s duly elected representatives in Congress, as is Trump’s recent feud with the Fed."

In my latest article for @liberalcurrents.com, I agree with @sohrabahmari.bsky.social that Trump is behaving like Andrew Jackson. I just go on to explain why that is so horrifying. Please read it if you’re also enthralled by 19th century political oratory! www.liberalcurrents.com/trump-must-l...

“Jackson, as Trump does now, falsely believed his re-election was a mandate for pursuing all of his policy preoccupations, legal and Constitutional limits be damned.” www.liberalcurrents.com/trump-must-l...

We're +570%.

"While the ethical sense that each of us is singular and irreplaceable is correct, the moment we extend this sentiment to political office, we corrupt the very foundations of democratic governance." (from February) www.liberalcurrents.com/democracy-me...

"What is absent from the story told in this lavishly funded and visually stunning national museum is any sense of Hungarian complicity in any of the century’s atrocities." www.liberalcurrents.com/maga-is-revi...

My piece on Trump's War on transparency for @liberalcurrents.com www.liberalcurrents.com/trumps-war-o...

"Ezra Klein, Charlie Kirk, Free Speech, and Whitewashing in the Media": @caitlinmoriah.bsky.social and @trentrichardnelson.bsky.social with @marisakabas.bsky.social, on our Half the Answer podcast www.liberalcurrents.com/half-the-ans...

"We have general elections, and they are largely free and fair. But in most districts in the country, the general election does not decide who takes office... If you're in a blue district, whoever won the Democratic primary wins. If a red, the Republican." www.liberalcurrents.com/good-governa...

I stopped by the @liberalcurrents.com Half the Answer podcast to talk about Charlie Kirk, Ezra Klein, free speech and the power of independent media. Full episode here: www.liberalcurrents.com/half-the-ans...

"What Are Groypers?": @caitlinmoriah.bsky.social and @trentrichardnelson.bsky.social with @noturtlesoup17.bsky.social, on our Half the Answer podcast www.liberalcurrents.com/half-the-ans...

The two words that sparked this “Hate Speech” crackdown, were not “Charlie” and “Kirk.” It was vocal comparisons to “Nazi” and “Hitler” that sent Trump over the edge, and the media has wiped these words from their coverage. Read more @liberalcurrents.com www.liberalcurrents.com/hitlers-shad...

"Presidents have swung between rather tepid enthusiasm and intense dislike of the FOIA. But trying to get rid, outright, of such a law is tricky, and likely to provoke a backlash.  A better way is to quietly starve those who carry out the law of resources and personnel."

"It works like this: if I direct racist abuse at you, and you name that racism for what it is, and I then face a social penalty for it, I claim that your act of holding me accountable is a form of discrimination against me." www.liberalcurrents.com/hitlers-shad...

Half the Answer #34: Trent and Caitlin check in with independent journalist Marisa Kabas about media and public figures’ reactions to the assassination of Charlie Kirk, their impulse to valorize and whitewash his legacy, and the ensuing mass harassment and firing campaigns.

“Trump’s second administration has been marked with the creation of a ‘machinery of misinformation’ on the government’s webpages, press conferences and press releases.” www.liberalcurrents.com/trumps-war-o...

“The US FOIA was already slow and creaking, and Trump’s second administration has been marked by ‘obstruction, secrecy, and lawlessness’. As well as document shredding and avoiding FOIA, it appears that some officials who deal with requests, and even entire teams, are being removed.”

“My friends, not only are we living in Hitler’s America—where the federal government is censoring the N-word (Nazi) to stop us all from saying it—we are also living in George Washington’s nightmare.” www.liberalcurrents.com/hitlers-shad...

"Bad history can be done in compelling ways. That, after all, is its propagandist function—to be believed and internalized." www.liberalcurrents.com/maga-is-revi...

"It’s worth remembering just how bad things got right after 9/11, and how bad they stayed for years." (from July 2020) www.liberalcurrents.com/conservative...

The Editors Chat is a monthly, freewheeling discussion among the editors of Liberal Currents on a variety of topics from current events to ancient history, social science, and more. www.liberalcurrents.com/the-editors-...

Did a podcast about Nick Fuentes and his idiot groupies.

"From a strategic perspective, the Movement recognized that as the weaker party in physical terms, they could not win through physical violence. Instead they pursued a different strategy. Jim Crow had to be confronted—directly, aggressively, with great force—but not with physical force."

“Reducing sympathy for other groups by erasing the histories of their oppression helps to manufacture a white electorate that is at best indifferent and at worst hostile to pleas for fair treatment from those same groups.”

Half the Answer #33: Caitlin and Trent talk with independent journalist Amanda Moore about the groypers and their peers, the self-serving micro-celebrities who profit from them, and the media’s mad scramble to make the latest assassination fit into the left-right paradigm without consulting experts.

“It’s galling, after decades of Americans becoming more and more aware of our own thorny past, for Trump and his henchmen to try and brute force American historiography back to the turn of the 20th century.” www.liberalcurrents.com/maga-is-revi...

"I can understand how these “Twitter Files”-heads feel. After all, some low-level feds suggested that Twitter remove some conspiracy posts during a global public health emergency. Compared to that rampant tyranny, a sitting president openly threatening his critics is hardly worth tweeting about."