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A Song for Alex Pretti and Renee Good
Don't Resist, Just Obey
 • Kyle Varner, MD
1:00:32
Does America Need a Deeper State to Save It? A Conversation with Tyler Cowen and Francis Fukuyama
Two of the foremost thinkers of our time debate whether America has enough 'state capacity' for effective governance
 • Shikha Dalmia
In Trump's 'Dual State,' Dissenters Face Extrajudicial Executions, Loyalists Enjoy Protections
America's system of justice has fundamentally broken because the regime believes it can justify attacks on citizens via lies rather than in a court of…
 • Kyle Varner, MD
Trump's Tyranny Is No Laughing Matter: A Video Roundup
Our late-January collection of clips on the president's contempt for America’s sacred governing norms
 • Landry Ayres
The Dark Ideology Behind Stephen Miller's Immigration Crusade: Part II
He believes immigration threatens Western civilization itself, echoing the same xenophobia once directed at his own ancestors
 • Greg Sargent
Trump’s Attempted Greenland Grab Has Turned America Into a Predatory Power
His bid might have been thwarted for now, but America will be regarded as a global threat going forward
 • Berny Belvedere
Stephen Miller’s Assault on America’s Immigrant Legacy: Part I
The man whose Russian Jewish ancestors fled persecution now oversees a sweeping deportation machine designed to terrorize immigrant families
 • Greg Sargent
We'd Have Been Committed for Predicting Half of What Trump Has Done
We, not our detractors, were the clear-eyed and clear-headed ones, but that is no comfort right now
 • Jacob Grier
Trump Has Hollowed, Weaponized, and Perverted the Department of Justice
Its Civil Rights Division is now protecting gun owners instead of disadvantaged minorities facing discrimination
 • Paul Rosenzweig
Trump Attacks Minneapolis, Venezuela, and Threatens Greenland: An Executive Watch Roundup
Our mid-January selection of the president's latest and greatest assaults on the rule of law. These two weeks have been a bumper period for abuses since…
 • Executive Watch
The Colorado Governor Should Reject Trump’s Demand to Pardon a Convicted Election Saboteur
Jared Polis will jeopardize our democracy by freeing Tina Peters
 • Andy Craig
Life in a City Occupied by ICE
How Minneapolis residents are coping after their own government declared war on them
 • Taylor Carik
The Iranian Regime Is Nothing but an Occupying Force Now: An Interview with Roya Hakakian
Its very illegitimacy might make it more brutal if it hangs on
 • Berny Belvedere
All-Party Primaries Can Release Us From Our Partisan Doom-Loop Trap
Our republic is being destroyed by an electoral system that ignores the vast majority of the voting public
 • Danielle Allen
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Shikha Dalmia
Does America Need a Deeper State to Save It? A Conversation with Tyler Cowen and Francis Fukuyama
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Landry Ayres
Trump's Tyranny Is No Laughing Matter: A Video Roundup
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Berny Belvedere
Trump’s Attempted Greenland Grab Has Turned America Into a Predatory Power
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Andy Craig
The Colorado Governor Should Reject Trump’s Demand to Pardon a Convicted Election Saboteur
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The UnPopulist Staff's 2025 Holiday Recommendations
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Liberalism & Religion

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46:47
A Persecution Complex Links the Pilgrims and Christian Nationalism: A Conversation With Tyler Huckabee
Evangelicals are espousing a faith based on their political project, not a sincere interpretation of the Bible
 • Berny Belvedere
Can Each Side's Faith Break the Cycle of Mutually Assured Destruction for Israelis and Palestinians?
An epistolary exchange between an Islamic scholar and a rabbi points to the concept of universal empathy in their traditions as the key
 • Michael G. Holzman and Mustafa Akyol
Political Triumphalism Is Contrary to the Spirit of Yom Kippur
The Jewish holiday’s emphasis on repentance requires confronting our past sins, not burying them
 • Michael G. Holzman
Yoram Hazony’s National Conservatism Wants to Abandon Liberal Democracy so that the Jewish People Maintain Hegemony in Israel
He wants to give Protestant America the right to disempower other faiths and ethnic groups so that Israel can do the same
 • Michael G. Holzman
Authoritarian Rulers Are Co-Opting the Sphere of the Sacred to Consolidate Control
China’s attempt to designate the new Dalai Lama in violation of longstanding Tibetan tradition is the most visible example of this trend
 • Amal Chandra
1:00:46
A Revival of True Christianity Would Also Revive American Liberal Democracy: A Conversation with Jonathan Rauch
The turn away from Jesus and lust for power is ruining the Protestant faith and the polity
 • Berny Belvedere
We Need to Restore a Healthy Protestantism to Save American Liberalism
An incisive book by an atheist convincingly shows how both major strands of this faith tradition lost their way
 • Berny Belvedere
Bishop Budde Wasn’t Breaching Her Clerical Charge by Speaking Truth to Trump from the Pulpit
Her choice of the prophetic role drew on a long tradition in American democracy and it was the right call
 • Michael G. Holzman

Fireproofing the Presidency

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Trump Is Using Fake Emergencies to Grab More Power than King George III
He has complete contempt for the legal and statutory limits to his authority so more laws will not constrain him
 • Chris Edelson
Trump’s Leaked Plan to Deploy the Texas National Guard Against Illinois Will Tear Apart the Union
If it goes forward, it will plunge the country into an unprecedented constitutional crisis
 • Andy Craig
A Trump Appointee Slaps Down Pam Bondi’s Malign Lawsuit Against Maryland Judges
Her attempt to weaponize the DOJ and intimidate them for upholding basic due process for vulnerable migrants failed
 • Walter Olson
The Truth Is, There Are No Legal Limits on an American President’s Warmaking
And the public no longer really cares about distant wars whose bill won’t come due for a while
 • Trevor Burrus
The Judiciary Will Become Virtually Powerless in Protecting Your Rights if the Current Budget Bill Becomes Law
Senate Republicans have proposed an even worse version of a House provision that will require citizens suing the government to post enormous sums in…
 • Clint Bolick
Don't Be Fooled, Courts Can't Really Stop Trump From Assaulting Law Firms
He has too many means to intimidate them that judicial relief cannot touch, scaring them away from representing politically disfavored clients
 • Walter Olson
An Effective Resistance Strategy Against Trump’s Constitutional Assaults Needs to Mobilize Both Courts and Public Opinion
History shows that the two work in tandem and we shouldn’t pick one or the other
 • Ilya Somin
The Supreme Court Should Resist Handing Sweeping Removal Powers to this President in the Name of Constitutional Purity
If an authoritarian weren’t in the White House, conservative justices could have justified doing so
 • Corbin K. Barthold

World

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Trump’s Attempted Greenland Grab Has Turned America Into a Predatory Power
His bid might have been thwarted for now, but America will be regarded as a global threat going forward
 • Berny Belvedere
The Iranian Regime Is Nothing but an Occupying Force Now: An Interview with Roya Hakakian
Its very illegitimacy might make it more brutal if it hangs on
 • Berny Belvedere
Trump Is Ensuring That His Venezuela Attack Has No Upside for Anyone
Venezuelan democracy, America, and the world are all going to lose
 • Nicholas Grossman
Trump’s Betrayal of Venezuela’s Democracy Movement Is Hard to Overstate
If he continues to snub María Corina Machado, the heroine of the opposition, America will bear responsiblity for the country’s next tragic chapter
 • Larry Diamond
Trump’s Bogus Rationale for Invading Venezuela Is an Impeachable Offense
The Framers would have regarded this president as an out-of-control lunatic in desperate need of reining in by Congress
 • Andy Craig
A Banner Year for Domestic and Global Censorship by the US
The Trump administration is using state muscle in unprecedented ways to suppress speech it dislikes
 • Katherine Stewart
Trump and Putin Are Trying to Rescue Hungarian Strongman Orbán from Electoral Defeat
It is unclear if they'll succeed but they show that the world's autocrats are working hard to keep each other in power
 • H. David Baer
Even by a Strict Definition, Elon Musk Is a Fascist
He is weaponizing Tolkien to promote violence by ‘hard men’ against Asian immigrants
 • Toby Buckle
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