Headwaters: September 7

The weekly roundup of what we’ve done at Liberal Currents includes a pair of essays outlining possible futures for liberal democracy at the end of the end of history.

Articles:

“After September,” Samantha Hancox-Li: The grief lingers, and the mistakes cannot be overturned, and the dead do not return from their graves.
“Donald Trump Wants to Bury America With Him,” Alan Elrod: His speech at the GOP's midterm convention came off like a Jim Jones sermon.
“The Mass Party of the Future,” Samantha Hancox-Li: Liberalism's problem isn't structural. Liberalism's problem is that we got out-hustled.
“The End of History and the Final Girl,” Katherine Alejandra Cross: Anton Jäger’s "Hyperpolitics" is, at its best, late marginalia for "The End of History and the Last Man." At its worst, Jäger, like Fukuyama, is a prisoner of his political pieties.
“You Won’t Win the Revolution,” Alan Elrod: The descent of stable societies into ones of endemic violence rarely produces anything but new forms of tyranny and terror.
“Meet the Democrats,” Justin Briley: The party is not an abstract cabal powered by fever dreams, but a living, breathing coalition held together by a ceaseless grind and people with the will to face it.

Podcasts:

“The Midterms Will Be a Referendum on MAGA” (Neon Liberalism #90, with Greg Sargent): How elites got hoodwinked by the vibe shift.
“It's Not Just the Supreme Court That's Broken” (Out of the Jaws #11, with Charles Star): The Texas drag ban and more.
“Can the Final Girl Slay the Last Man?” (Liberal Currents Live #6): Liberal democracy's fight to survive the fascist night.
“Trump, Israel, the Iran War, and the Death of the Two-State Solution” (Half the Answer #102, with Y. L. Al-Sheikh): What is the current state of affairs in Israel, Palestine, and the surrounding nations?

Editor’s Note:

“You, Too, Can Forget 9/11”: On a solemn occasion, Republicans’ message to America’s youth is a promise about their future.

Selections from The Reconstruction Papers:

Chapter 8: “The Liberal Economy: The Car Without an Engine Goes to the Mechanic,” by Maia Mindel.
Chapter 7: “Reconstructing the Senate,” by Kevin J. Elliott.

Some of what we’re reading elsewhere:

Jessica Marsden, on Brazil’s democratic recovery: “The institutions only worked because the people inhabiting those institutions were determined to protect democracy. … If Flávio Bolsonaro wins the presidential election next month and is able to appoint a few more justices, the Supreme Court may be a much less effective check on future bids for authoritarian consolidation.”
Will Bunch, on local cops turned lawless feds: “Since the start of the year, ICE—flush with a whopping windfall of $170 billion shoveled by Congress to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to amp up immigration raids and detention—has dangled pledges to many tiny police departments.”
Blaise Gainey, on the host state for the GOP’s convention: “From the start of 2025 through July of this year, nearly one-third of the Republican National Committee’s itemized individual contributions—almost $29 million—came from Texas.”