A New Season of Hope
Looking back on this year's battlegrounds, looking ahead to 2026 and beyond.
Latest
The Opposition Report #8
An announcement, Pete Hegseth, Abrego Garcia, and more.
Neon Liberalism #56: The Culture War Eats Foreign Policy
Join Samantha and guest Joe Stieb, assistant professor at UNC Chapel Hill, as they talk about Donald Trump's 2025 National Security Strategy. This strange document treats the European Union as our enemy, Russia as an afterthought, and obsesses over the dangers of "DEI." Stieb argues that
Marriage, Misogyny, and the Pursuit of Happiness: The Right Is Offering a Morally Barren Vision of the Family
Liberals cannot allow the right to monopolize the discourse on virtue and the good life or they will cede space to their rigid and hierarchical visions.
They Were All Our Ancestors
Nationalism chooses sides in the most awful family drama of all time. It sides with the evildoers, and never with their victims, and teaches you to do the same.
Trump's War on Christmas Is a War on Liberalism
After decades of make-believe, the Trump administration is promising an actual war on Christmas that would traumatize religious communities with armed state power.
Half the Answer #54: Touring America with Border Patrol and ICE
Trent and Caitlin catch up with journalist Amanda Moore to hear about her tour of American cities that have been targeted for ICE and Border Patrol operations. Half the Answer can be heard on Spotify, on Apple, on YouTube, on Amazon, and elsewhere via its RSS feed. Resources: https://www.
Ezra Klein, Self-Harm, and Liberal Perfectionism
From the beginning, liberals have felt the need to promote the development and flourishing of human nature in light of the good even if they disagreed about what it might be.
Impeach and Remove the Bastards
A scenario for 2027.
Sovereignty for Me, None for Thee
Donald Trump's 2025 National Security Strategy reveals a radical blood-and-soil conception of national strategy based on maintaining white patriarchal Christian domination at home and abroad.
Neon Liberalism #55: Politics As Culture
Has culture stagnated in the 21st century? Do the last twenty-five years feel like a blur? What can politics learn from the inherent dynamics of cultural change? And is Donald Trump the greatest kitsch artist of our time? Join Samantha Hancox-Li and guest W. David Marx, author of the just-released
American Freakshow: Our Reality TV-Driven Media Is Killing Our Democracy
The lurid details of Olivia Nuzzi's transgressions and the popularity of "The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives" derive from the same culture of voyeurism.
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Neon Liberalism #44: Why Be a Liberal?
Join host Samantha Hancox-Li for a discussion of the difference between liberalism as an assumed default and liberalism as an active project. Even as the progressive base—and Americans generally—grow increasingly outraged at Trump II's attacks on our Constitution, elite liberals in media and journalism wring their
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Neon Liberalism #43: The Future of Feminism
There's a lot of gender happening these days—and feminism, the political movement that ought to be at the forefront of responding to the MAGA backlash, is in its wilderness years. Join Samantha and guest Jude Doyle, author of the forthcoming book DILF, for a wide-ranging conversation about
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Neon Liberalism #42: The Spectacle of Cruelty
Join Samantha and guest Alan Elrod, president and CEO of the Pulaski Institution, as they talk about how the spectacle of deliberate cruelty—troops on the streets, deportations of firefighters, the public performance of vileness—is not an accident or a distraction, but is a core part of the Trumpian
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Neon Liberalism #41: Is the Fed Okay?
Join Samantha and guest Maia Mindel as they talk about Trump's latest attack on the Federal Reserve, give some historical context for central bank independence, and struggle with the difficult question of how to balance technocratic expertise with democratic accountability. Plus some cats. Neon Liberalism can be heard
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Neon Liberalism #40: The Ongoing Immigration Crisis
Join Samantha and guest Dara Lind, Senior Fellow at the American Immigration Council and former immigration reporter for Vox and ProPublica, as they talk the state of Trump's mass deportation program, the question of its constitutionality, and the bigger question of how immigration in America became such a
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Neon Liberalism #39: An Unsettled Age
The future of the world order is more uncertain than it has been since the fall of the Soviet Union—which is to say, up for grabs. Join Samantha and guest Joe Stieb, assistant professor at UNC Chapel Hill and historian of American foreign policy, as they discuss how the
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Neon Liberalism #38: What Is Liberal Currents?
People find us hard to categorize: are we emphatic liberals? Radical leftists? Crypto-libertarian infiltrators? Join Samantha and Liberal Currents editor-in-chief Adam Gurri as they discuss what it means to be a home for mere liberalism, the foundational principles of the liberal project, and how to be a liberal who means
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Neon Liberalism #37: The Authoritarian Logic of Child Abuse
Join Samantha and guest Talia Lavin, author of Culture Warlords and Wild Faith, as they discuss Donald Trump's connections with Jeffrey Epstein, the broader problem of child sexual abuse among Republicans, and how this connects with their vision of a family and a nation dominated by authoritarian, unaccountable
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Neon Liberalism #36: Strange Bedfellows
In recent years, a number of prominent right-wingers have moved left dramatically. In particular, a surprising number of libertarians have abandoned their "fusionist" association with the Republican Party, and become more closely affiliated with the progressive movement. How did this happen? What was fusionism and why did it
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Neon Liberalism #35: Tell Me a Story
Join Samantha and author Robert Jackson Bennett as they discuss the power of fiction to shape politics, from 20th-century detective fiction to modern-day QAnon. Along the way they discuss the fiscal-military state, the meaning of liberal society, and why it matters that conservatives have fun engaging with conservative narratives. Neon
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Neon Liberalism #34: Are Liberals Losing the Culture War?
Andrew Breitbart argued long ago that "politics is downstream of culture." Is that true? Is there such a thing as liberal culture? Has Trump II revealed its apparent dominance to be hollow? Or is the death of liberalism overwrought? Join Samantha and guest Alex Lefebvre, author of Liberalism
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Neon Liberalism #33: What Is America?
According to Vice President Vance, America is not an idea: America is a nation. A people. And there are some here who don't belong. Join Samantha and guest Guillaume Attia as they discuss the contrast between America as a nation and America as an idea, the philosophical foundations