Headwaters: August 31–September 6, 2026

The weekly roundup of what we’ve done at Liberal Currents includes two accounts of MAGA attacks on American higher education and how they are meeting with resistance and compliance.

Articles:

• “A Progressive Push in Purple New Hampshire,” Alex Jobin: Congressional hopeful Carleigh Beriont says left-leaning politics can succeed in the Granite State.
• “Religion, Humanities, and the Public Good,” Matthew Gabriele and Shaily Patel: The right wing's assault on Religion and Humanities programs is an assault on our ability to understand the world, from Hindutva abroad to Christian Nationalism at home.
• “After 1989,” Guillaume A. W. Attia: The current crisis of democracy was not inevitable, but a result of hubris and shortsightedness among generations of statesmen.
• “Bending the Knee at Yale,” Saul Austerlitz: Why is it that Maurie McInnis and her fellow elites crumbled so instantaneously?
• “The World That Woke 2.0 Seeks to Build,” Silvaria Lysandra Zemaitis: We can learn from the Civil Rights Movement, but we can also learn from its opposition.

Podcasts:

• “Labor Economist Explains: To Fix Inequality, Start Young” (Neon Liberalism #89, with Kathryn Anne Edwards): What makes for a good economy on a generational scale?
• “Very Normal, Sir: Trump's Canadian and Iranian Quagmires” (Half the Answer #101, with Greg Sargent): Trump's unprovoked trade war with Canada and his chaotic attacks on Iran have him hemorrhaging support.
• “Russia and Ukraine: All the Ruin That Putin Can Buy” (Liberal Currents Live #5): Vladimir Putin does not care about Russian lives or Russian territory. For dictators like him, those things are negotiable.

Editors’ Notes:

• “The Culture of Elite Conformism Enabled the Capitulations of the Second Trump Term”: We need a Reconstruction not only of our institutions but of our system of producing elites.
• “Midterms Are Coming”: The event horizon approaches.
• “The New Fugitive Slave Controversy Is Already Upon Us”: The crisis is older than the second Trump term.
• “They Hate Us For Our Freedoms”: The existence and idea of freedom and cosmopolitan diversity is an existential threat to authoritarians big and small.

Videos and shorts:

• “What Comes After Trump?”: Adam Gurri looks at the destruction, at what we will be left with in even the most optimistic case, and he discusses what we can hope for, what it is up to us to build.
• “Trans Rights in the UK Right Now”: Silvaria Lysandra Zemaitis, Samantha Hancox-Li, and Toby Buckle explain in 90 seconds how dire the situation is.
• “Trump Is Bad at Naming Stuff”: The president has two (2) ideas.

Selections from The Reconstruction Papers:

• Chapter 6: “Fixing Federalism,” by Adam Gurri.
• Chapter 5: “Fixing Article V,” by Robert Black.

Some of what we’re reading elsewhere:

• Jessica Orozco, reporting on the suicide of Pierre Damas Bel in the Springfield News-Sun: “Bel was one of hundreds of Springfield Haitians who had been fitted with ankle monitors or detained by ICE after their temporary protected status officially expired in late July.”
• Jim Swift, on the siege of Springfield: “This is what Trump is doing to our towns and cities. In the name of cracking down on immigration, he has ripped our social fabric apart. And it is small acts of decent human beings—people who don’t want to live in a society in which the state terrorizes families, schools, and churches—that is keeping it together.”
• St. John Barned-Smith and Ko Lyn Cheang, reporting in the San Francisco Chronicle: “ICE has not paid any of its providers for detainees’ care since Oct. 3, 2025, according to agency regulatory filings and the ICE website. In an internal directive issued shortly after, obtained by the Chronicle and not previously reported, ICE declared ‘emergency operations,’ sharply limiting offsite medical care and access to medication.”