A Preview of a Project We'll Pursue if Fully Funded

You heard our call and you answered, overwhelmingly. Over $130,000 raised in the first week. $105,000 raised in the first 48 hours. 

You have proven that the community we have spent the past eight years cultivating, and the trust we have built, have the potential to shake the media industry and the politics of this country.

To reach 26 percent in the first week is an incredible accomplishment for a goal as ambitious as ours. It is clear that people really are furious at the bigger institutions that supposedly represent liberalism in the media. As we prepared to launch our fundraiser, The Atlantic came out with an interview of RFK Jr., with the glossy cover photo treatment. The New York Times said, of the Northwestern payout, "Critics have likened Mr. Trump’s approach to extortion, while others have chalked it up as a cost of doing business with this administration." This is our independent media?

But your support for us stems from more than just your anger at them. And so today I want to step back from the negative, purely oppositional aspect of the Liberal Currents project and provide an example of the good work we are doing to build a positive vision for the future.

There is a project that we have been slowly working towards this year. We call it The Reconstruction Papers. This will be a special edition of our publication with a print run, making it easier for people to hand it around in influential circles. We will draw on a wide variety of subject matter experts in political science, higher education, media studies, and more. These experts will write about how to not only repair the damage that has been done in their area of focus, but how to rebuild and reform into something better than we started with. One of our core commitments at Liberal Currents is not only to be against the forces of reaction, but for a forward-facing liberalism. The Reconstruction Papers is an extension of our eight-year-long mission to provide the intellectual foundation for a liberal future, rather than wallowing in memories of a liberal past.

At Liberal Currents we recognize the value of professionalism, of investing public funds in advancing our scientific and medical knowledge, of public education in all its forms. In a year where a would-be dictator is smashing all of these things without an ounce of subtlety, it is important to stand up for them. But every one of these core institutions of American life was suffering from persistent problems well before Trump came along.

The Reconstruction Papers are meant to be our biggest work to date on providing a concrete way to a better future, not just one in which we lick our wounds from eight cumulative years of Trump and move on. Let’s rebuild the federal executive branch to be the effective, responsive, and accountable body that we know it can be. Let’s bring back the historic partnership between the government, universities, and industry, but in a form that serves the public interest better than ever before. Let’s finally reform the Supreme Court. And of course, our poisonous media environment is a large part of how we got into this mess—let’s take some concrete steps to improve it.

One concrete step you can take today, of course, is to contribute to The Liberal Currents Startup Fund. Reaching our goal will be a significant step towards changing our media system for the better—and guarantee the publication of The Reconstruction Papers in 2026.