"Reagan initially said that he would not be cowed by terrorism, but an attack of that magnitude and a death toll of that scale was enough to change his mind." www.liberalcurrents.com/the-war-that...

Neon Liberalism #67: According to all current polling, Graham Platner will be Maine's next senator—despite a Nazi tattoo, a history of controversial social media posts, and an almost-total lack of political experience. What does this tell us about the direction of the Democratic Party?

March's Opposition Report will be published this week. Sign up as a paid subscriber now at any tier and you'll get @chancephillips.bsky.social's very valuable summary of the month of news. www.liberalcurrents.com/support-us/

“Ever since the war began, the once unthinkable closure of the Strait of Hormuz—and the long term, potentially permanent destruction of oil and gas capacity throughout the region—has become a reality on a scale not seen since Saddam Hussein burned Kuwait's oil fields”

Listen to @gawattia.bsky.social talk about what history can teach us about the war in Iran youtube.com/shorts/fWImX...

Reminder that if you are interested in a print copy of The Reconstruction Papers, you can help us with our planning by logging your interest in our survey (not a pre-order, just a way for us to gauge the volume of our print run) docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

“Ever since the war began, the once unthinkable closure of the Strait of Hormuz—and the long term, potentially permanent destruction of oil and gas capacity throughout the region—has become a reality on a scale not seen since Saddam Hussein burned Kuwait's oil fields”

“The world’s growing economic interdependence as well as the diversification of the economies of the Persian Gulf mean even more sectors are directly impacted by the present crisis than was the case during the original oil shocks.” www.liberalcurrents.com/worse-than-t...

"The president’s son, Donald Trump Jr., is an adviser to both Polymarket and Kalshi, and an investor in the former. As the federal government has shown its willingness to cozy up to the industry, it has legitimized what would otherwise be under greater scrutiny."

"The idea that there are huge swaths of the United States populace who want and need the right wing’s unreality—their alternative reality—is a farce: a gaudy, festering artifice constructed and maintained by a million people who need it to be real for financial, political, and cultural purposes."

"The most direct and reliable consequence of cynicism isn’t wisdom, it’s passivity." www.liberalcurrents.com/why-we-fight/

"Chris Krebs, the former director of US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure, has outlined three time-clocks: an agriculture clock which runs in weeks, a food security clock which runs in months, and a geopolitical clock which runs in years." www.liberalcurrents.com/the-war-that...

"Coolness is almost always framed as manliness… The pink hat–wearing liberal women who have marched consistently against Trump since his rise, the kind of liberal archetype so many online sneer at as overly earnest and ultimately ineffectual, are regularly discarded as 'wine moms.'"

It's that moment again. (article from last June) www.liberalcurrents.com/now-is-the-m...

"The bottom line is that regime change by bombing does not work."

"'Lebanon is a harsh teacher,' wrote the political scientist William Quandt. President Ronald Reagan and his foreign policy advisors would learn this the hard way." www.liberalcurrents.com/the-war-that...

“There are certain physical facts—bodies of water, deposits of gas—that technology was never going to transcend, except in the ultra-long term.’’ says Janan Ganesh. Missing from his list is history. My new piece for @liberalcurrents.com looks back at 1982. www.liberalcurrents.com/the-war-that...

“The Israelis undertook a massive seven-week siege of western Lebanon, cutting off food, water, and electricity, and subjecting the populace to intense and unpredictable bombardment. The war resulted in the deaths of at least 6,775 Beirut residents” www.liberalcurrents.com/the-war-that...

We have, though. 🫡 (Read Matthew's thread!)

"DHS and DOJ are being made to expend a much higher percentage of their finite resources than they would without the heroic work of immigration attorneys and the commitment of federal judges—including many Trump appointees—to the rule of law." www.liberalcurrents.com/why-we-fight/

First drafts of the essays will be heading to our designer soon. I'm working with printers but would like to get a gut check on the scale of the print run. This isn't a pre-order, just a way to help us with our estimates. Thanks in advance!

"Iran has good reason to reject any peace offer from Donald Trump that includes concessions, or even an unconditional ceasefire. Trump has repeatedly shown the United States cannot be trusted." www.liberalcurrents.com/what-if-iran...

"We are not going to get open borders through a 2029 trifecta. But we can get back to something like the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act, which was truly liberalizing in its effects. For decades afterwards we had something far better than what we currently have."

"Douglass’s prescriptions are less impressive than his normative assessments. Douglass struggled with what exactly to do about the 'labor question.' Yet Douglass felt that labor must ultimately win in the contest with capital for the sake of humanity." www.liberalcurrents.com/the-communis...

Wherein I make the case in @liberalcurrents.com that even an increasingly authoritarian landscape like ours, resistance is still both possible and a moral necessity. To the extent you give in to the temptation of doomerism, you do the fascists’ work for them. www.liberalcurrents.com/why-we-fight/

"We’re going to retake The House of Representatives—and possibly even the Senate—in November and we’re going to primary the squishes and Vichy Democrats who have failed to understand or meet the moment." www.liberalcurrents.com/why-we-fight/

"You cannot do this sort of politics if you are not willing to be vulnerable. You cannot do it if you are afraid of seeming emotional or dorky, or if you are too worried about placing a foot wrong. You can’t build strong and lasting relationships without these things."

As we make progress on The Reconstruction Papers, we are beginning to plan the print run. Please help us gauge demand by marking your interest, if you intend to order a copy docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

"But would Iran want to end the war now? In hard power dynamics, this is the strongest position the Islamic Republic has ever been in, the most leverage they have over the United States since the 1979-80 hostage crisis." www.liberalcurrents.com/what-if-iran...

"Without substantial reform in 2029 the end of the Trump presidency will be but a short reprieve. It’s important that as part of the necessary American Reconstruction we restrain presidential power and empower Congress." www.liberalcurrents.com/imagining-a-...

As we make progress on The Reconstruction Papers, we are beginning to plan the print run. Please help us gauge demand by marking your interest, if you intend to order a copy docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

"The real work of resistance is hard. Victories are rarely easy, rarely quick, and almost never permanent or total. Sniping and pontificating on social media is vastly easier and, unlike resistance, it provides instant gratification." www.liberalcurrents.com/why-we-fight/

"Building a simpler, faster, more humane immigration system than the one we have—and I cannot emphasize enough how low a bar that is—gives future liberal officeholders more tools to widen the openness of it with less risk of political fallout." www.liberalcurrents.com/editors-note...

"These influential people then use their platforms to blast out that message to you and me and our parents and grandparents and coworkers. The message is always clear: The US is split down the middle in every way." www.liberalcurrents.com/fakery-is-th...

"In the face of these developments and under the influence of the oligarchs’ social media algorithms it is perhaps unsurprising that most people do their best to avoid the news and politics and that many have fallen into nihilistic, doomerist gloom." www.liberalcurrents.com/why-we-fight/

"It’s a well-known story by now that many of the media figures who have defined the last decade-plus of Trumpism began their online lives in the irony-rich soil of places like 4chan, Something Awful, and other Internet forums." www.liberalcurrents.com/cringe-is-go...

"Americans commonly suffer from the idea that democracy and dictatorship are binaries instead of a spectrum. But as anyone who’s ever studied democratic backsliding can tell you, the real world doesn’t work like that." www.liberalcurrents.com/why-we-fight/

"At the start, the president talked of regime change and unconditional surrender. Then America and its local ally bombed for a few weeks, killed top leaders, found the regime more resilient than expected, started offering to deal, and got nothing." www.liberalcurrents.com/what-if-iran...

“Politics doesn’t stop in an authoritarian system and the fact that ours is still competitive matters a great deal.” www.liberalcurrents.com/why-we-fight/

“In the span of a year, he has turned The United States—the main author and guarantor of the post-Second World War, rules-based international order—into the biggest threat to that order” www.liberalcurrents.com/why-we-fight/

What are the correct ways to measure athleticism? When does it actually matter? How should we think about fairness and the right to participate? www.liberalcurrents.com/half-the-ans...

"You cannot do this sort of politics if you are not willing to be vulnerable." @aselrod.bsky.social knocking it out of the park. Cringe is the mind killer, y'all. Earnestness is cringe. So is my transition. Who gives a shit? I'll be at #NoKings, smiling. www.liberalcurrents.com/cringe-is-go...

With another No Kings coming up, a reminder that irony and coolness will never save us. Cringe is good. www.liberalcurrents.com/cringe-is-go...

"Despite nearly a month of American-Israeli bombardment, Iran is getting shots off daily, firing drones and ballistic missiles at Israel, American bases, and allied Gulf Arab states, including oil and gas infrastructure." www.liberalcurrents.com/what-if-iran...

"A lot of the toxicity that has spilled out from the internet into our electoral politics began as, or was at least couched as, jokes. But what both journalism like Reeve’s and sociological research shows is that there can be a transformative and accelerating effect to speaking in this register."

"I believe in a politics of grace and persuasion. But I also only believe these things are possible when a relationship exists, when mutual trust and care have been established." www.liberalcurrents.com/cringe-is-go...

Earnestness is the counter to this awful historical moment. It’s the way out. Unabashedly caring about others, about community and ideas, speaking the truth, standing for values. People want to believe in something more than a group sneer that looks down at others. @aselrod.bsky.social nails it.

Am I crazy, getting ahead of myself, or is the Iran war already shaping up to be systemically significant? Unless the US gets a military victory or clear concessions—not looking good—then Iran keeping Hormuz closed breaks the post-WWII US military dominance in the Gulf, with wide reverberations.

liberal's must match fascist resolve - but i don't think we can, or should, mirror their *style* of politics macho, dominance orientated, ironic, endlessly insincere - that isn't us www.liberalcurrents.com/cringe-is-go...