When Words Are Stolen

The real stakes of semantic fights.

No Kings Shows Our Power (When We Have Messaging Reach)

Basic, liberal, anti-fascist messaging is energizing and persuasive when media actually amplifies it.

Now Is the Moment: Take to the Streets This Saturday

We cannot let this stand.

Neon Liberalism #30: Rethinking International Trade

Are Trump's tariffs a personal madness, or a response to deeper dysfunctions in the world trade system? Yes. Join Samantha and guest Steven Randy Waldman as we talk about why global trade has become so imbalanced, what kinds of dysfunctions that creates, and why a tax on the

Scott Jennings in the Hyperreal and the Myth of the Escape Hatch

Jennings is like a simulation of a Trump enabler.

Half the Answer #17: Everything Is Cuck

Caitlin and Trent talk with Maureen Kosse, a linguist from Colorado who researches the semiotics of alt-right and far-right discourse. We talk about how everything is cuck—the right-wing cannot get over their insecurities about masculinity, sexual control of women, and people of color, and their visceral horror of people

Free Trade, Free Movement, and the Cosmopolitan Coalition

Theirs was a vision of a world united in peace, in a federation of democratic states (if not a world state), with no barriers to the movement of goods and free, enterprising human beings, the baleful presence of oppression, inequality, and inherited privilege long forgotten.

Neon Liberalism #29: Immigration and Terror

Amidst escalating ICE raids, lawless deportations, and the horror of CECOT, immigration has moved to the center of American politics. Join Samantha and guest Adam Gurri, editor-in-chief of Liberal Currents, as we talk about the ground truth: policing immigrants requires restricting the freedoms of citizens. Authoritarianism for the out-group inevitably

Half the Answer #16: Palestine in Context

Trent and Caitlin talk to Layla al-Sheikh, who provides the history and context of the establishment of the Israeli state on Palestinian land, the many displacements and violent ethnic cleansings of the last century in that region, and the evolving relationships of the surrounding nations with the United States. Half

The History of Successful Liberal Reform

When elites feared the system would fall apart entirely, they accepted reform.

The Far Right Canon

The radical right has its own canon of intellectuals—aristocratic, resentful, and a profound challenge to liberal philosophy.

Neon Liberalism #28: Has Feminism Run Out of Steam?

Join Samantha and guest Talia Bhatt as they discuss the state of feminism under Trump II, the enduring relevance of radical feminist ideas, and the uses and abuses of intersectionality in contemporary leftist thought. Neon Liberalism can be heard on Spotify, on Apple, on YouTube, on Amazon, and elsewhere via

How to Prevent the Orbanization of America

A great deal of the opposition has stepped up, but the opposition party needs to start truly acting like one.

Reforging America

A new order for America must involve a comprehensive reconstruction of our political, economic, and civic infrastructure. 

Selective Acceptance of Settled Norms: Tristan Rogers' "Conservatism: Past and Present"

Rogers has written a useful guide to the western conservative intellectual tradition that runs into trouble when it approaches the conservatives of our day.

Is Abundance Based?

The inherent contradiction of abundance conservatism.

The Most Childish Imperialism

How Trump is different from the old imperialists, and how the liberal world must respond.

Universalism versus Nihilism: the True Divide in American Politics

It is imperative that the nihilism destroying our society be named and confronted directly if we are to have any kind of future.

White Fragility Comes to the Naval Academy

Treating America’s soldiers and sailors like scared children, too delicate to read a history of lynching, shows the administration’s deep contempt for them.

Why We Need a Reconstruction of the Liberal Public Sphere

How media systems work, how ours came to be, and where we go from here.

Attacks on Higher Ed and the New Illiberal Electorate

The right-wing destruction of American higher education institutions is a strategic move. Liberals need to answer with a strategy of their own.

Missouri Senator Eric Schmitt's Nazi Staffer

Nathan Hochman was fired from the DeSantis campaign for making a transparently neoNazi video featuring the Governor, and has only doubled down on his white nationalism since.

The Banality of Complicity: Arendt's Guide to Moral Resistance in the Age of Trump

Even in seemingly powerless positions, the choice to withdraw one’s support from corrupt systems remains a meaningful assertion of humanity.

The New York Times Launders Another Fascist

Misogyny, racism, and antisemitism all were glossed over in Ross Douthat's softball interview of Jonathan Keeperman.