Why is libertarian bothsideism perverse? Humans are flawed. Even the best are imperfect. But in refusing to distinguish between evil and flawed, evil gets a pass: Till normies behave perfectly, both sides are bad. Bothsideism has the pretense of perfection but leads to nihilism and trivializing evil

Also didn’t realize this article was Shikha but this was a good record of what “libertarians” did during the past ten years: www.thebulwark.com/p/how-trump-...

very strange to read a piece whose premise seems to be “i think you are too stupid to go look at the magazine i run and the writers i employ and see if i am telling the truth”

In the last month ICE has bought warehouses in: - Hagerstown, MD: $102 million - Surprise, AZ: $70 million - Hamburg, PA: $87 million - Tremont, PA: $120 million - San Antonio, TX: $82 million - El Paso, TX: $123 million - Social Circle, GA: price unknown This is unprecedented.

Reason publishes how its staff are voting. Which is a kind of admirably honest exercise, I suppose. But it rather undercuts "I told you so" if your answer was this. In all they had twelve third-party voters, six non-voters, three Harris, two write-ins, and two who said undecided but maybe Trump.

I am trying to get some work done today, but, boy, they just won't stop rewriting history!

Yep. Many of us who weren't sufficiently Trump-curious had to find other places to work. The libertarian movement had one job, and it failed, and now it wants credit for success.

💯

More libertarians warning against Trump:

Yes, some libertarians *did* try to warn you about Trump. But you canceled them for it.

A tale told in two screenshots :)

Well, this very much resonates with my experience.

And this is what some of them were tweeting after Trump got relected:

LOL! And some of them were cautiously optimistic when Trump got reelected:

They are saying Kid Rock handed his Grammy to lil’ Kyle Rittenhouse during the halftime show. (Not true. Kid Rock has never won a Grammy).

From Paine to King and Gandhi, peaceful civil resistance has always required inner discipline. In the wake of Minneapolis, the question that @emilychamleewright.bsky.social and @uncanonical.net asks is simple and hard: how do we resist without becoming what we oppose?

When moral outrage is justified, as with the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, how do we keep it from swallowing us whole? In this @theunpopulist.net piece, my friend @uncanonical.net and I explore how liberal restraint and spiritual compassion can help us avoid becoming what we resist.

This is the other reason it's pointless to look for any kind of ideological decoder ring to Trump foreign policy. The largest part of it is just whoever is shoveling the most cash at them, and the rest is the same but for flattery.

This from @anneapplebaum.bsky.social is why all the talk of Trump being dovish or isolationist, or on the flip side as a tough hawk, was always just wishcasting from people who hold those views themselves. Which is why the administration is an incoherent grab bag, the absurdity of Rubio and Gabbard.

"How do we bear witness and resist without letting our shock and outrage corrupt who we are?" Minneapolis has the answer. Lovely piece by @uncanonical.net and Emily Chamlee Wright at @theunpopulist.net. Particularly relevant today as we feel new revulsion and shame. open.substack.com/pub/theunpop...

"The vision of the U.S., from at least 1945 to the present, as a more or less stable and steady power whose foreign policy had some elements of predictability ... I think this is permanently gone." — @anneapplebaum.bsky.social

Trump makes me want to sit in the shower for the next 3 years. But there is not enough water on the planet to wash off his stain. He took down the offensive Obama pics after pushback from Black Reps like Tim Scott. But how can they go back to doing business w/ him and still maintain their dignity?

South Minneapolis a hornet’s nest of resistance this AM. Car commuters everywhere, multiple observers on every corner, ICE patrols getting smothered by completely oppressive neighborhood watch. Incredible job guys, you’re all heroes

a thing I said to my therapist this week - all of this is the closest proximity I have ever felt to evil in my life. that’s what will be so hard to ever forget. the dedication to fucking with this boy and this family is just so evil without any purpose whatsoever.

1: The one consistency in Trump's foreign policy is his contempt for America's allies who won't rip their taxpayers off to give him corrupt deals —and affinity for kleptocracies that will.

NPB, aside from its other issues, is the kind of traditional bipartisan event nobody should attend if he's going to be there. Don't show up and observe the norms as if he's a normal president. Symbolism matters, don't give it to him. Let him speak to a room full of only his own braying jackasses.

At @theunpopulist.net my conversation with the brilliant @anneapplebaum.bsky.social about what a catastrophe this administration is on the world stage and how there may be no coming back from this. open.substack.com/pub/theunpop...

ICE agents have killed more Americans since Trump took office than immigrants, documented and undocumented put together. So tell me who poses a bigger threat to the safety of Americans?

This remarkable fact caught my eye in a piece that I don't otherwise agree with "One remarkable fact is that today.. customs officers and Border Patrol agents have committed crimes at a per capita rate that is greater than the crime rate for people who immigrated here illegally" tinyurl.com/2bkkc22b

Rand Paul making sense ...

Excellent, worth reading. www.theunpopulist.net/p/the-fashio...

It was an honor and pleasure to meet such serious, dedicated and good-hearted individuals who see our current moment with clarity and gravity but without losing their sense of humor. Thank you for a thinking of, organizing and hosting a very productive and lovely afternoon @walterolson.bsky.social .

What is weird is that there would have been fewer groups speaking out against Pretti's killing if he didn't have a gun. File it in "Only in America!" :)

In Trump's America, POTUS can mount a $10 billion lawsuit against a federal agency he controls for leaking his tax returns that he himself is supposed to reveal. But not only can families of those killed by ICE agents not really sue federal agents responsible but face investigations themselves.

"The children’s mother called the school early Thursday to tell them she’d been detained and asked school leaders to bring the kids to her at the Whipple Federal Building ... because there were no family members ... to care for them. “We had to deliver them to a detention center,” Kuhlman said.

My writing today in the @sfstandard.com: Too many Silicon Valley leaders have divested themselves of the responsibility to speak out against the Trump administration. We can’t shrink away and hope the crisis fades. It’s time for all of us in tech to do and say more.

That Tom Homan's appointment to head ICE is being celebrated shows, as I noted to David Bier in my podcast with him, that. Also, Homan in Trump's previous term was no slouch when ti came to deportation raids: open.substack.com/pub/theunpop...

At @theunpopulist.net by @johanknorberg.bsky.social: Unless America reverses course and rediscovers its openness and confidence, historians will mark this moment as when it followed other great civilizations down a suicidal path: open.substack.com/pub/theunpop...

Hilarious! Watch to the end!

We could have also called this the Occupation Song. Powerful, haunting, ode to Alex Pretti and Renee Good: youtube.com/shorts/3ghHT...

The most important things we can do is to bear witness—not look away, stare this horror squarely in the face—and pay homage to the patriots who've sacrificed their lives to protect their neighbors and communities. That is what this haunting song does. @theunpopulist.net. tinyurl.com/mppa98t5

This is extra fun because this week I am putting the finishing touches on a political philosophy paper, in which I argue that a number of the leading accounts of legitimate political authority probably can't apply to representative democracies unless they have a sufficiently independent bureaucracy.

Alex Pretti was an ICU nurse who cared for veterans. On Saturday, he rushed to assist a woman shoved by a federal agent. His last words were: "Are you okay?" Border Patrol beat him and shot him dead while he held only his phone.

Two supersmart dudes duke it out on whether America's problem is that it doesn't have a functional bureaucracy. At @theunpopulist.net. This was envisioned as a friendly discussion but it turned into a duel :) open.substack.com/pub/theunpop...

Brilliant and comprehensive by @jonrauch.bsky.social: "Fascist best describes it [what Trump is doing], and reluctance to use the term has now become perverse." www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

Please help them:

"To continue calling the shooters in Minneapolis “law enforcement officers” is not a professional courtesy; it is an act of collaboration that validates the lie that power still flows from the consent of the governed." -- Kyle Varner

This analysis deploying the Fraenkel framework might be single best thing written on the Pretti execution thus far. At @theunpopulist.net. Must must read: open.substack.com/pub/theunpop...

Thank you, @schumer.senate.gov!

There are only 2 kinds of people in US: Those who support everything Trump does. They are safe and have rights. Then there is everyone else. They can be subjected to beatings, detention, death and disappearances. They have no 1st, 2nd, 4th or 14th Amend rights.