As Trump's troops rolled into the nation's capital, attendees at our second annual convening at the Watergate Hotel left recharged and determined to fight authoritarianism
What would the debate over illegal immigration sound like if the Americans who must compete with illegal aliens for jobs and government services were lawyers, newspaper editors and college professors instead of meat cutters, maids and construction workers?
News for you: They already do. I am a naturalized American and not a single journalist was ever threatened by my presence. Not even at Fox News on which I used to appear with some regularity before it turned into sewage.
I attended this gathering in search of insight—hoping to hear from some of liberalism’s most acclaimed voices about its future in the coming century. Instead, from gavel to gavel, the proceedings were consumed by TDS. As John Olson aptly notes below, there was not a whit of self-reflection—no acknowledgment of potential error .
Nor was there any substantive engagement with the deeper structural flaws of democracy itself. No reckoning with Francis Fukuyama’s fragile concept of dignity, which undergirds much of liberal theory. No serious consideration of Steven Pinker’s decades of research suggesting that the unchecked veneration of individuality can lead to societal fragmentation—often requiring illiberal constraints to restore cohesion.
These tensions—between autonomy and order, between idealism and reality—are not abstract. They are viscerally understood by voters. Yet the dozens of PhDs who descended from their ivory towers seemed more interested in congratulating one another than in confronting these contradictions. The message, implicit and explicit, was clear: “We are right. Those ignoramuses who voted for Trump must be put in their place.”
If this is the intellectual posture of liberalism in the 21st century, then its crisis is far from political—it is philosophical. Before lamenting electoral outcomes or vilifying dissenting voters, liberalism must first confront the fragile foundations on which it rests. Its errors at the ballot box are symptoms, not causes. The deeper malady lies in its unexamined principles: a brittle conception of dignity, a romanticized faith in democratic virtue, and a refusal to reckon with the disruptive consequences of radical individualism.
We absolutely welcome reactions to the conference of all kinds. We aren't fudging the numbers in our post—overwhelmingly, attendees have told us that they felt the conference was really good. So there is no problem with offering a dissent. There is, however, a problem with offering a dissent that entirely flows from both (a) your support of the conference's main foil, Donald Trump, and (b) your fundamental misunderstanding of what the conference set out to do in the first place.
Let me address point (a) first. In your reply, above, you portray yourself as a seeker of liberal solutions. But you were also interviewed by NPR, and in that interview you registered your support for Trump's military occupation of the nation's capital. You literally said you've "got no problems whatsoever with President Trump" seizing control of D.C.'s police force and even deploying the National Guard to supplement that effort. If you, as not merely a supporter of Trump but of one of his most nakedly authoritarian and cynical power grabs, expected to vibe really strongly with the tenor of our conference, you were only setting yourself up for disappointment. Because we were always going to call out Trump's abuses of power, and that was always going to rankle someone who finds those abuses of power a breath of fresh air.
Now to point (b). You chide us for not "substantively engaging with the deeper structural flaws of democracy itself." That is true—we were not there to assess the propriety of liberal democracy. We are liberals. We are believers in democracy. We were not there to evaluate whether liberal democracy is right in the first place. Our starting point is that liberal democracy is right and that authoritarianism is bad. We did, however, do a whole lot of self-reflection. But you missed it because the sort of self-reflection you were looking for was of this variety, "Democracy has deep structural flaws. And liberals have been terrible and have made so many mistakes. And Trump and his MAGA movement was an appropriate backlash to those many mistakes liberals committed." That's not self-reflection—that's self-rejection. But the self-reflection was, indeed, present at LibCon2025. I could give numerous examples of it but one will suffice: a longrunning thread throughout the conference had to do with how bad liberals had gotten at reaching people, especially in comparison to the right, and how they need to recalibrate how they present and articulate liberalism, and where, to what people. The feeling was that across all these dimensions liberals had really dropped the ball. But as I said that was just one of many instances of self-criticism. You're like the person who chides a book for not covering what you wanted it to cover. Our starting point is that liberalism is worth defending and authoritarianism is worth opposing. We take stock of where liberalism has gone wrong along the way, but that taking stock does not involve repudiating liberalism in its entirety or suggesting that Trumpism was a justified response to liberalism's shortcomings. Doing so wouldn't make us self-reflective liberals—it would make us non-liberals.
The exact quote was: “in my visits over the years to Washington, D.C., it's gone from being a very pristine, beautiful city, a capital of my country that I can be very proud of. It's degenerated over time. Whether it's tent cities or homeless on the streets, It seems to me that it's gone downhill. And so I've got no problems whatsoever with President Trump trying to solve that problem. Whether he can or not, it's a different story.”
If you listen to the interview, you’ll find that my comment was preceded by President Trump saying earlier that he was trying to “make Washington D.C. the safest, most beautiful capital in the world.” Context matters.
Second, you state “We are believers in democracy.”
What I came to understand—more clearly after attending the conference—is that liberalism, in your framing, functions less as a political philosophy and more as an unquestioned religious creed. That’s not a compliment. A belief system that refuses to interrogate its own premises is just evangelizing dogma.
Third, you offered this as evidence of self-reflection:
“a longrunning thread throughout the conference had to do with how bad liberals had gotten at reaching people, especially in comparison to the right, and how they need to recalibrate how they present and articulate liberalism, and where, to what people.”
That’s not a reflection on liberalism’s ideas. It’s a pedestrian critique of messaging. If liberalism is worth defending, it must first examine its principles:
• a brittle conception of dignity,
• a romanticized faith in democratic virtue,
• and a refusal to reckon with the disruptive consequences of radical individualism.
Until then, your form of liberalism is just one street mob—competing with, but not morally transcending, President Trump’s.
I drove over 1,200 miles round trip and spent more than $1,000 to attend LibCon2025—not for an NPR interview, and certainly not to write you—but because I mistakenly believed that some of the best liberal minds in America might offer something more than an old-fashioned revival meeting.
That belief was misplaced. But my money wasn’t. I had the chance to directly query Mr. Fukuyama, Mr. Pinker, and others. And I found Rabbi Gideon Sylvester, Damon Linker, and Jack Goldsmith particularly compelling. Their contributions reminded me that liberalism still has thinkers capable of nuance, humility, and depth—even if the conference as a whole seemed more interested in reaffirmation than reckoning.
I didn't misquote you. I quoted your exact words. You are of course free to bring in the fuller context of the quote, which you did, but the unfortunate reality for you is that doing so doesn't in any way challenge my characterization of your words. The context is Trump's invocation of a phantom crime wave as a pretext to justify his authoritarian capture of the American capital—one that he is using as a trial balloon for further hijackings of American urban areas for performative purposes. That's the "solution" that Trump has offered. So your full-throated support for Trump's efforts to try "to solve that problem" can only refer to the means by which he's actually trying to solve it. You can't reasonably say, "I've got no problems whatsoever with President Trump trying to solve that problem"—that is, of the degeneration of D.C., which is your characterization from earlier in your answer—but insist that you meant, "Wait, not like like that, though." That's literally a meme—you've self-memed into absurdity by praising a political leader for his efforts but then tried to claim you're not supporting his actual efforts. He has commandeered the D.C. police and sent troops into the streets after a twentysomething DOGEbro got carjacked by an unarmed boy-girl teenage duo. That's what you chose to go on record to support, which is pathetic.
You write:
"What I came to understand—more clearly after attending the conference—is that liberalism, in your framing, functions less as a political philosophy and more as an unquestioned religious creed. That’s not a compliment. A belief system that refuses to interrogate its own premises is just evangelizing dogma."
The reason you think you "came to understand" that is because you misunderstood the nature of the conference, and then imported your own confusion onto us in the form of a smear ("liberalism, in your framing, functions ... as an unquestioned religious creed"). And, further, because you weirdly assumed that because we did not design the conference to ruminate on liberalism in the way that you wanted us to, that must mean that we are unwilling or unable to philosophically ground our commitment to liberalism. Except, your only basis for that claim is that we did not fashion the conference to address liberalism's alleged philosophical shortcomings.
But this is yet further evidence of your incapacity to assess an event on its own terms. The conference did not set out to provide a justification for liberalism, or to embark on an exploration of the inner logic of liberalism, or to hash out an account of the propriety of liberalism. That's not what its purpose was. That does not mean there was no self-reflection or self-criticism. Rather, it means that the self-reflection and self-criticism was not trained on liberalism's first principles, or on the architecture of philosophical liberalism as a normative framework, but on the manifestations of liberalism that have for a variety of reasons failed to durably or even reliably secure sufficient public support. Your own confusion about what our conference was convened to accomplish formed the basis of your smear of us as religious zealots—but, again, that only revealed a *you* problem. All of us are quite capable of offering a philosophical grounding for liberalism—that's just not what the conference was about.
I mentioned this in my last reply, but I'll develop this point further because I think it's at the heart of your mistake. Since you’re a supporter of Trump’s policies and efforts, you have an ideologically tendentious conception of what a liberal engaging in *self-criticism* and *self-interrogation* would consist of. You wanted us to self-examine liberalism’s “first principles,” and to attribute to it deep structural flaws that we actually substantively disagree with, but let me just say, once again, in clear, easy-to-follow font: that was not what the conference set out to do.
The conference *assumed* an acceptance of liberalism’s first principles—not because we have no basis for our commitment to those principles but because evaluating them was not the purpose of that particular event. The LibCon conference series is an attempt to build a movement, not to self-immolate in ways that assist the Trumpian project's efforts to discredit and denounce liberalism. Your suggestion that until we adopt and grapple with your assessment of liberalism’s philosophical shortcomings our liberalism will remain functionally no different than a “street mob” that doesn’t morally transcend Donald Trump’s movement betrays your reactionary motivation. That's just a profoundly unserious thing to say, and ultimately fully discrediting.
The botton line is that you came in as someonone who antecedently agreed with Trumpian propaganda against liberalism, and you were looking for us to shit on ourselves in ways that reflected that antipathy toward it. Sorry, we were never going to do that.
Berny, I appreciate your passion, but your reply confirms the very concern I raised.
You’ve chosen not to defend or define your premises, insisting instead that they’re beyond the scope of examination—at least within the context of this conference. That’s your prerogative. But when a movement assumes its foundations without scrutiny, it risks becoming insular, performative, dogmatic or more importantly fails from its internal fallacies.
I didn’t attend LibCon2025 to watch liberalism “self-immolate,” nor did I expect an echo chamber of my own views. I came hoping to see forward-thinking engagement, especially given how recent liberal politics have alienated large swaths of the public and fueled a reactionary backlash. That didn’t happen.
You’re free to dismiss my critique, or me personally, however you choose. But I’ll leave it to others—especially those who’ve followed this exchange—to decide whether the questions I raised deserved engagement rather than indignation.
There is very deep moral confusion in calling LIBERAL democracy, which,, at its very root, is about containing tyranny of the majority -- aka, the mob -- a "street mob," while praising Donald Trump's naked and ugly populism -- aka real mob rule -- as something equal or better. It shows that words simply have no meaning anymore. You can plug them any way you like to try and discredit whoever it is you don't like. Also weird that you liked so many speakers and yet feel that there was not enough questioning and dissent! What I think you can't stand is disagreement by anyone who is left of center of you. I think you wanted an exclusive focus on how progressives have fucked it all up. But I think the reality is more complicated and it was our aim to bring together liberals of many shades and your own comment inadvertently acknowledges that we succeeded in that. Ultimately, I think someone who repudiates principles like limited government, federalism, free enterprise and praises an authoritarian like Trump for sending in the troops to clean up DC is at root also not a conservative but a statist. (I live in DC and I can tell you that it is a beautiful, gorgeous city with less crime and more areas that are safer than 20 years ago; in fact, where I live now was uninhabitable then. The halcyon days of your imagination didn't really exist.) These were ideals I espoused my whole life and it is painful to see them repudiated in favor of a naked authoritarianism just because "our" dictator is in power. It shows that for the conservative right, limited government was only a convenient mantra to use against the left. Now that it has the power, it is more than happy to wield it for the flimsiest of reasons like "cleaning up the nation's capital." Thanks for making the effort to come for the conference. We'd love to have you there next year too, but, honestly, you'll get more out of it if you engaged in a little self reflection yourself and returned to true conservative ideals (which are also liberal ideals properly understood).
At least we agree on one thing: words have become meaningless.
Nearly ninety years ago, A.J. Ayer’s Language, Truth and Logic warned that without language that is specific and agreed upon, there can be no truth and without truth, no logic. That insight remains painfully relevant. Neither “I think X” nor “you think Y” can claim superiority until X and Y are defined in mutually intelligible terms. You may think Trump is an insufferable authoritarian. Others see the centralization of bureaucratic power in Washington as the true authoritarian threat. Until one or the other offers a principled definition that resonates with the electorate, the argument is simply one of street power, that must not be allowed to escalate beyond the ballot box.
As you believe, we are a democracy. And the people have spoken twice, against the consolidation of power in Washington. Heading into the election, only 23% of Americans believed the country was sailing in the right direction. Three-quarters saw it heading toward an iceberg. [ABC News/Ipsos and other polls.] They understood the danger. They shouted for a new captain. And Donald Trump—flawed, egotistical, and often bullying—was the only option on deck. A Rasmussen report from last week suggests that number has now doubled: 46% believe the ship is on a better course.
I see the dangers in Trump. I detest his style but could clearly see the iceberg along with 75% of my fellow Americans. Liberals, Democrats, and progressives, meanwhile, shouted “Damn the torpedoes—full speed ahead.” Our democracy which you celebrate elected and re-elected him out of alarm.
Scream. Shout. Stamp your feet. Mobilize the liberal mob if you must. The high road is to offer the country something new and better. That’s what I hoped to hear at LibCon25. An acknowledgment of a wrong course—and ideas for a future rooted in limited government, federalism, free enterprise, a valid concept of dignity, a better construction of democracy, and necessary constraints on individual behavior. All should be solid liberal goals.
I’m sorry I misunderstood your intent. I came hoping to find ideas for reform. You came seeking affirmation.
And by the way—finding a couple of good things on any menu, isn’t hypocrisy. It’s discernment.
"Scream. Shout. Stamp your feet. Mobilize the liberal mob if you must." My, you do take a lot of poetic license don't you? No wonder you are cheering on a tyrant marching into the capital based on a delusional, hyperbolic depiction that has no basis in reality. Regardless of whether the conference vibed with you or not, this is a bizarre and false description and at some level you know it. If you are looking for something that fits your words, you should look at the Jan 6 mob trying to hang Mike Pence and overturn the results of an election. They have been pardoned and some given plum assignments in the administration. We will oppose such a perversion of morality with all our might.
You’ve chosen caricature and indignation over engagement—ignoring the actual critiques I offered. If your goal is to oppose authoritarianism with all your might, then you must also confront liberalism’s blind spot: its own form of authoritarianism, cloaked in centralized bureaucratic power.
As liberalism pressed forward without reflection, it became more of what it claimed to oppose—and in doing so, it helped clear the path to the results of the last election.
Shikha Dalmia proposes a mass movement: "We need to fashion a broad countermovement to replace the old right/left divide with a new liberal/illiberal one. That means opposing bigotry and uniting around core liberal values: tolerance, pluralism, equal protection under the law, and accountable rulers." Then, how to make that countermovement a mass movement? First, by figuring out how liberals and their policies became so unpopular that the voters elected Trump and re-elected him, too.
The Right used to mean support for rights-protecting government and capitalism. This is liberal. Even as recently as 2015, this wasn't a controversial take.
The Left used to mean collectivism. Whether this be religious, nationalist, environmentalist, socialist, communist, or fascist. This is illiberal.
So, what happened?
The reality is that politics has been completely overrun by politically illiterate people. We have a complete lack of expertise in the field. This is what led to the mainstream becoming nothing but environmentalist/socialist madness vs MAGA madness.
Until we address the fundamental issue of competence in our political discourse things are only going to get worse.
A movement of people claiming to be liberal, who cannot even define the term correctly, are neither liberal, nor helping the cause. They are only helping authoritarians win by default, by continuing to fill the discourse with nonsense.
Linking Liberalism and Liberal values to THE ECONOMY, and the financial pain to voters from Trump/GOP policies that are jacking up food prices, electricity bills, mortgage rates and health insurance premiums, is the path to victory in 2026.
Liberalism is clearly the right path to follow; but when also linked to sensible and prosperity-generating Democratic policies--like the recently passed Biden/Dem Infrastructure, Inflation Reduction Act, and CHIPS acts--Liberalism becomes supercharged.
The dems have always been collectivist and therefore illiberal.
The GOP used to have classic liberals in its movement, but since Reagan brought in the religious kooks, it's also become a collectivist party. Today the GOP is even more authoritarian than the democrats.
This is all enabled by an industry of political commentators that are for all intent and purposes, politically illiterate authoritarians.
I think we have a crisis of expertise in politics.
I'd argue that you're underestimating the amount of damage Biden-Harris policies did to the Democratic brand by undermining ordinary Americans' quality of life. Ushering in many millions of impoverished migrants severely undermined living standards for working Americans who were forced to compete with people they never voted to allow in for jobs and basic social infrastructure. There is no way to spin the Biden-Harris migration policy as having been pursued with the American electorate's best interests in mind, which made illiberalism look not so bad by comparison.
I agree that there were some very good things in the big legislation Biden-Harris passed, the problem is that the good things were positively dwarfed by all the bad things: namely that the bills exacerbated inflation when that was American voters #1 concern and that over half the money was siphoned straight into the pockets of Democratic Party-aligned special interests instead of investing in tangible improvements in Americans' lives. As far as broad swathes of America's working class are concerned, "liberals" are the people working hard to lower their living standards and keep them from getting ahead.
There are many things that the B-H administration did wrong by immigrants are a net boon to America and Americans and make untold contributions to their quality of life. Diminishing competition is what leads to poverty and ennui. America would be immensely poorer but for the contributions of immigrants. You should overcome your grievances, roll up your sleeves, and seize the glorious opportunities that this country provides. Immigrants get it. So should you.
My mother's an immigrant, my significant other's from an immigrant family, and many of my nearest and dearest are from immigrant families. That's not relevant with regard to Biden-Harris gleefully ushering in something like 10 million impoverished migrants in just three and a half years against the express will of the electorate. For you to so glibly imply I'm a xenophobe is frankly shameful, Shikha, and I'm disappointed because my distinct impression was that you were better than that. That dismissive attitude exemplifies the vibe that ultimately dissuaded me from attending your conference. You need to engage in some real soul-searching, get off your high horse, and recognize that Americans owing immigrants respect necessarily involves respecting the will and material self-interest of American voters.
We have done a deep dive into the Biden-era immigration policies. Here are some facts! Your harsh rhetoric "gleeful ushering in of 10 million impoverished migrants" is straight out of the nativist playbook whether you realize it or not. It betrays a zero-sum worldview where an immigrant's gain is a native's loss, which is not how the economy works. Heaven forbid that this administration comes for your immigrant loved ones. But if it does, we'll be here sticking up for them. https://www.theunpopulist.net/p/biden-fixed-the-immigration-system
Shikha, I respect you a great deal and The Unpopulist has published many high-quality articles, but it is difficult to believe that that David Bier piece was published in good faith. The suggestion that Biden-Harris was acting to "fix" the immigration system, when in fact they cynically worked hand in glove with NGOs to actively encourage many millions of migrants to risk their lives to seek asylum under false pretenses, is absurd and quite frankly beneath you and your publication. I've read enough of your work to be confident that in your heart of hearts you are better than that, you are more nuanced than that, and I respect you enough to not believe that you could look me in the eye and assert that claim with a straight face.
The reason why "comprehensive immigration reform" has failed again and again is that border security measures the Reagan-era comprehensive reform had promised failed to materialize even as the population of undocumented people soared. With good reason, voters expected that another round of "comprehensive reform" would likely mean amnesty for millions with border security enhancement once again failing to manifest. As far as the majority of working-class Americans were concerned, the immigration system was already badly broken under Obama and Trump was acting during his first term to move the system back closer to Clinton-era standards. Out of spite and pettiness the Biden-Harris administration intentionally flooded the country with impoverished migrants without any concern at all about how much that would hurt ordinary Americans. It is Biden-Harris who are ultimately most morally culpable for the ugly backlash happening now.
The thing is, Shikha, is that I do have immigrant loved ones who are terrified right now, and I hate that. I disagree with a lot of what Trump's doing. I don't want every single migrant unlawfully present in the U.S. to be deported, many of them are contributing to their communities and are a net gain for America. But millions, especially of those who arrived under Biden-Harris, need to leave or be removed ASAP because any reasonable compromise that will have democratic legitimacy among voters has to balance the legitimate interests of American citizens with the legitimate interests of the migrants. Hispanic voters in Texas would not have defected to the GOP in droves had they not experienced the migrant influx as deleterious to their communities. Once American voters feel that the deliberate Biden-Harris crisis has been reversed, there will be much more appetite for a reasonable compromise.
Glib, unserious punditry like that David Bier article only dampens the prospects for a reasonable compromise in the future. It's low-grade red meat that's disrespectful to your readers, that hardens hearts, and that only helps further polarize a very sensitive and complicated issue. Speaking as a former PR professional, I advise you to retract and disavow that article, apologize to your readership for the lapse of editorial judgment, and go back to David Bier to see if he has any interest in writing something intellectually worthy of the topic.
Trust me that the respect, in light of this performative posturing masquerading as PR advice, and your hundreds of words hysterically denouncing an article of ours while studiously avoiding anything even resembling a cogent counterargument, is not mutual.
LOL! Apologies, but I don't think you could have been a very successful PR flak if that's the kind of idiotic advice you dispensed. Most good ones I know offer evidence and analysis and have more finesse than engaging in fact-free name calling and psychoanalysis. But you are very much within the MAGA mold: If the evidence doesn't fit your preconceptions, you'll just attack it as false. That's the kind of mentality that leads to the firing of the jobs bureau chief for producing bad employment reports. Your pen name speaks volumes though.
1) Both parties--ESPECIALLY the GOP--love migrant labor, because of the big donors that have ownership in industries like farming, construction, hospitality, meatpacking, etc.; that are very dependent upon them. The GOP rails unceasingly against the unwashed hordes swarming the border--but before Trump2, GOP did essentially nothing towards border security. E.g., Obama1&2 saw *higher* annual deportation numbers than Trump1; also, Trump shut down Lankford-Sinema last Spring.
2) Migrants are a net positive for social infrastructure, because they pay into payroll/SS/Medicare at the same rates as citizens--but get nearly nothing in benefits. They also commit crimes at a lower rate, taxing our justice system less.
3) Biden/Harris Industrial Policy: CHIPS, IRA and Infrastructure were all passed over near total GOP obstruction. Combined, they have the potential to generate well-paying jobs, and significantly expand GDP. From a Natsec perspective, they support our military supply chain capacity for drones warfare. Which will be essential for our survival when China comes for us. They are also supporting the shift to carbon neutral; possibly in time to save us from the worst of Global Warming.
3b) Roughly 65% of the projects made possible by Biden/Dem industrial policy were located in GOP Congressional districts. Not Dem ones...
3c) How was investing in Infrastructure NOT a direct investment in American's lives?
4) While the bills slightly exacerbated inflation, the US had by far the absolute lowest consumer inflation in the industrialized world. Bar none. Despite facing the same global supply-chain snafus, and with even greater levels of per-capita social rescue spending. If it had been Trump in the WH instead of Biden, you can bet your bottom dollar that FOX News would've been running nonstop segments on how much worse inflation was in every other country. Americans would've been thanking their lucky stars for our world-beating inflation levels.
5) Trump's massive import tax scheme will prove to be the most damaging initiative ever implemented by a US President. A direct tax on every man, woman and child. Devastating to US manufacturers dependent upon imported copper & steel; or who need the export market to survive. It will unnecessarily push up inflation. Unless he TACO's--which he still might, softening the inflationary blow.
5a) The BBB--along with Trump's gutting of the IRS--will add trillions of dollars to the deficit--ANNUALLY. Which will translate into increased borrowing costs for all citizens and businesses. Do you have a mortgage? Car Payments? Well, they're going up.
5b) Pushing 17 million off of Medicaid next year, will utterly DEVASTATE Red states like Iowa, where 22% of Iowans will be cut from the program. When all of those Iowans get sick or injured, they'll go to the ER; where the costs to treat them will be passed along to insured folks like yourself. When many dozens of rural hospitals shut their doors, they will DEVASTATE their local economies, and force the sick and injured to drive further for care.
6) Dems not only suck at messaging; but don't have FOX News--and its lesser imitators like Newsmax--in their corner as 24/7 propaganda support. It's FOX that can take credit for the vast majority of Culture War momentum gained in any election cycle for the GOP. I'd give examples, but it's late and I need to sleep.
I'd prefer we approach this dialogue in the spirit of a mutual quest for the truth, rather than "rebutting." I am less interested in "winning" an argument than arriving at mutual understandings to help us all move forward together with some comity. To speak to your specific points:
1) I certainly agree that many Republicans have historically been hypocritical when it comes to migration. The unlawful presence of so many millions (far exceeding the actual needs of construction, farming, and other industries) is undoubtedly due to bipartisan misgovernance. However, your characterization of Obama's migration policies is not accurate. The Obama administration changed the technical definition of deportation to include people turned away at the border, whereas colloquially deportation means removing migrants from the national interior, and in so doing was able to inflate its deportation numbers while in fact doing very little to remove people from the national interior. And, if you look at the details of the Lankford-Sinema bill, it was not a good-faith compromise to try to solve the border crisis but in fact a bait-and-switch designed to enshrine the unprecedented influx of the Biden-Harris years into law as the new status quo.
2) I live in New York City and the arrival of so many migrants under Biden-Harris has been a disaster for poor and working-class Americans (and legal immigrants) who rely on city services. Quality of life in NYC has plummeted. It's math: most migrants arrive in abject poverty and as such reduce American prosperity per capita. Criminal statistics do not reliably account for immigration status so there's no real evidence that immigrants commit crimes at a meaningfully lower rate than American citizens. Plus, every single crime committed by an undocumented immigrant should never have occurred at all.
3) There are many elements of Biden-Harris industrial and antitrust policy that I strongly approved of. The problem is that the bills did exacerbate inflation and that so much of the legislation was pork barrel excess to pay off Democratic constituencies that has simply not translated to tangible results for the majority of the American public.
4) I agree that in an alternate reality with Trump in office 2021-2025 the Fox News narrative would have been to downplay inflation. Inflation was indeed lower in the U.S. than in many other places. That being said, Biden-Harris actively pursued policies that made inflation worse. "The Inflation Reduction Act" was something close to the opposite of what the bill actually accomplished.
5) I agree that there will be a substantial hangover from many of Trump's economic policies, many of which I disagree with. That being said, other countries have long levied value-added taxes, essentially tariffs by another name, that have put American manufacturing at an unfair disadvantage. Given that significant onshoring is necessary for national security reasons, tariffs can be an appropriate tool to encourage that. The goal is not always the lowest cost for any given good, but overall prosperity for ordinary Americans in terms of balancing costs of living with attaining living wages. It's better to pay more for furniture constructed by American workers in the Carolinas than less for furniture constructed by essentially slave labor in China.
6) I started my career at a PBS news show. PBS and especially NPR are as implicitly left as Fox News and Newsmax are explicitly right. The New York Times and most surviving newspapers lean left, MSNBC is explicitly the left's answer to Fox, CNN leans left. There's the Nation magazine, Mother Jones, etc. Academia writ large leans very left. I couldn't agree more that today's crop of Democrats are not competent communicators, but it's not for lack of 24/7 propaganda support.
If "Fox can take credit for the vast majority of Culture War momentum", why is that? Why does Fox get more viewers than CNN and MSNBC combined? Why does Greg Gutfeld get 3.3 million viewers while Stephen Colbert gets 2.4 million?
FOX News is the gold standard of conservative TV, with 85% of GOP voters last Nov as per Ipsos watching it for all/some/most of their news. And 80% of those viewers believed alternative-facts views like a) The "Biden-economy" was *already* in recession (it wasn't); b) Crime and unemployment were at historic highs (instead of historic lows); c) Inflation was *still* at 2020 levels of 8% (it was down to 2.2%).
So why exactly *do* 8o% of conservative voters want to live in an alternative-facts fantasyland? Do you also believe immigrants are eating the dogs and cats in Ohio?
But you make blanket statements about PBS being as far Left as FOX is Right. Since FOX deliberately adds a large percentage of fabulist or made-up nonsense content to its programming, is that what authentic conservative "news" actually is? If PBS tries to stick to the facts, is that why it's supposedly Liberal?
In that case, the solution is obvious. As soon as you can convince the Fox viewers that they choose Fox to seek titillation for their base, hateful impulses, they will quickly switch to CNN and MS-NOW.
I believe this is the path of resistance we need to be taking.
What struck me the most in Shikha Dalmia's speech was the emphasis on moral clarity vs moral purity, which is the root of fanaticism and divisiveness of all stripes.
I understand why institutionally The Unpopulist might feel it could be advantageous to post something like this humblebrag, and there's nothing wrong with some healthy self-promotion, but it's just a little too on the nose. Speaking as a former PR flack, when I see a press release like this with strained verbiage like "two riveting days and nights," I am forced to wonder if it might be covering up for the reality being closer to the opposite. I considered attending this year and balked when I saw Bill Kristol was a paid speaker, all in all this post does not help persuade me to definitely want to attend the next time.
I hope I hear about Libcon 2026 in time to try to attend. I guess I hope even more that it will be held somewhere in the US, right out in the open, instead of some secret place to avoid the not-so-secret police.
What would the debate over illegal immigration sound like if the Americans who must compete with illegal aliens for jobs and government services were lawyers, newspaper editors and college professors instead of meat cutters, maids and construction workers?
News for you: They already do. I am a naturalized American and not a single journalist was ever threatened by my presence. Not even at Fox News on which I used to appear with some regularity before it turned into sewage.
News for you: A naturalized citizen is not an illegal alien.
I was not a naturalized citizen 10 years into my journalistic career. And you are resting on technicalities.
If the difference between legal immigration and illegal immigration is merely technical, then all laws and all crimes are mere technicalities.
I’d like to offer a dissent.
I attended this gathering in search of insight—hoping to hear from some of liberalism’s most acclaimed voices about its future in the coming century. Instead, from gavel to gavel, the proceedings were consumed by TDS. As John Olson aptly notes below, there was not a whit of self-reflection—no acknowledgment of potential error .
Nor was there any substantive engagement with the deeper structural flaws of democracy itself. No reckoning with Francis Fukuyama’s fragile concept of dignity, which undergirds much of liberal theory. No serious consideration of Steven Pinker’s decades of research suggesting that the unchecked veneration of individuality can lead to societal fragmentation—often requiring illiberal constraints to restore cohesion.
These tensions—between autonomy and order, between idealism and reality—are not abstract. They are viscerally understood by voters. Yet the dozens of PhDs who descended from their ivory towers seemed more interested in congratulating one another than in confronting these contradictions. The message, implicit and explicit, was clear: “We are right. Those ignoramuses who voted for Trump must be put in their place.”
If this is the intellectual posture of liberalism in the 21st century, then its crisis is far from political—it is philosophical. Before lamenting electoral outcomes or vilifying dissenting voters, liberalism must first confront the fragile foundations on which it rests. Its errors at the ballot box are symptoms, not causes. The deeper malady lies in its unexamined principles: a brittle conception of dignity, a romanticized faith in democratic virtue, and a refusal to reckon with the disruptive consequences of radical individualism.
We absolutely welcome reactions to the conference of all kinds. We aren't fudging the numbers in our post—overwhelmingly, attendees have told us that they felt the conference was really good. So there is no problem with offering a dissent. There is, however, a problem with offering a dissent that entirely flows from both (a) your support of the conference's main foil, Donald Trump, and (b) your fundamental misunderstanding of what the conference set out to do in the first place.
Let me address point (a) first. In your reply, above, you portray yourself as a seeker of liberal solutions. But you were also interviewed by NPR, and in that interview you registered your support for Trump's military occupation of the nation's capital. You literally said you've "got no problems whatsoever with President Trump" seizing control of D.C.'s police force and even deploying the National Guard to supplement that effort. If you, as not merely a supporter of Trump but of one of his most nakedly authoritarian and cynical power grabs, expected to vibe really strongly with the tenor of our conference, you were only setting yourself up for disappointment. Because we were always going to call out Trump's abuses of power, and that was always going to rankle someone who finds those abuses of power a breath of fresh air.
Now to point (b). You chide us for not "substantively engaging with the deeper structural flaws of democracy itself." That is true—we were not there to assess the propriety of liberal democracy. We are liberals. We are believers in democracy. We were not there to evaluate whether liberal democracy is right in the first place. Our starting point is that liberal democracy is right and that authoritarianism is bad. We did, however, do a whole lot of self-reflection. But you missed it because the sort of self-reflection you were looking for was of this variety, "Democracy has deep structural flaws. And liberals have been terrible and have made so many mistakes. And Trump and his MAGA movement was an appropriate backlash to those many mistakes liberals committed." That's not self-reflection—that's self-rejection. But the self-reflection was, indeed, present at LibCon2025. I could give numerous examples of it but one will suffice: a longrunning thread throughout the conference had to do with how bad liberals had gotten at reaching people, especially in comparison to the right, and how they need to recalibrate how they present and articulate liberalism, and where, to what people. The feeling was that across all these dimensions liberals had really dropped the ball. But as I said that was just one of many instances of self-criticism. You're like the person who chides a book for not covering what you wanted it to cover. Our starting point is that liberalism is worth defending and authoritarianism is worth opposing. We take stock of where liberalism has gone wrong along the way, but that taking stock does not involve repudiating liberalism in its entirety or suggesting that Trumpism was a justified response to liberalism's shortcomings. Doing so wouldn't make us self-reflective liberals—it would make us non-liberals.
Berny, first, don’t misquote me.
The exact quote was: “in my visits over the years to Washington, D.C., it's gone from being a very pristine, beautiful city, a capital of my country that I can be very proud of. It's degenerated over time. Whether it's tent cities or homeless on the streets, It seems to me that it's gone downhill. And so I've got no problems whatsoever with President Trump trying to solve that problem. Whether he can or not, it's a different story.”
If you listen to the interview, you’ll find that my comment was preceded by President Trump saying earlier that he was trying to “make Washington D.C. the safest, most beautiful capital in the world.” Context matters.
Second, you state “We are believers in democracy.”
What I came to understand—more clearly after attending the conference—is that liberalism, in your framing, functions less as a political philosophy and more as an unquestioned religious creed. That’s not a compliment. A belief system that refuses to interrogate its own premises is just evangelizing dogma.
Third, you offered this as evidence of self-reflection:
“a longrunning thread throughout the conference had to do with how bad liberals had gotten at reaching people, especially in comparison to the right, and how they need to recalibrate how they present and articulate liberalism, and where, to what people.”
That’s not a reflection on liberalism’s ideas. It’s a pedestrian critique of messaging. If liberalism is worth defending, it must first examine its principles:
• a brittle conception of dignity,
• a romanticized faith in democratic virtue,
• and a refusal to reckon with the disruptive consequences of radical individualism.
Until then, your form of liberalism is just one street mob—competing with, but not morally transcending, President Trump’s.
I drove over 1,200 miles round trip and spent more than $1,000 to attend LibCon2025—not for an NPR interview, and certainly not to write you—but because I mistakenly believed that some of the best liberal minds in America might offer something more than an old-fashioned revival meeting.
That belief was misplaced. But my money wasn’t. I had the chance to directly query Mr. Fukuyama, Mr. Pinker, and others. And I found Rabbi Gideon Sylvester, Damon Linker, and Jack Goldsmith particularly compelling. Their contributions reminded me that liberalism still has thinkers capable of nuance, humility, and depth—even if the conference as a whole seemed more interested in reaffirmation than reckoning.
I didn't misquote you. I quoted your exact words. You are of course free to bring in the fuller context of the quote, which you did, but the unfortunate reality for you is that doing so doesn't in any way challenge my characterization of your words. The context is Trump's invocation of a phantom crime wave as a pretext to justify his authoritarian capture of the American capital—one that he is using as a trial balloon for further hijackings of American urban areas for performative purposes. That's the "solution" that Trump has offered. So your full-throated support for Trump's efforts to try "to solve that problem" can only refer to the means by which he's actually trying to solve it. You can't reasonably say, "I've got no problems whatsoever with President Trump trying to solve that problem"—that is, of the degeneration of D.C., which is your characterization from earlier in your answer—but insist that you meant, "Wait, not like like that, though." That's literally a meme—you've self-memed into absurdity by praising a political leader for his efforts but then tried to claim you're not supporting his actual efforts. He has commandeered the D.C. police and sent troops into the streets after a twentysomething DOGEbro got carjacked by an unarmed boy-girl teenage duo. That's what you chose to go on record to support, which is pathetic.
You write:
"What I came to understand—more clearly after attending the conference—is that liberalism, in your framing, functions less as a political philosophy and more as an unquestioned religious creed. That’s not a compliment. A belief system that refuses to interrogate its own premises is just evangelizing dogma."
The reason you think you "came to understand" that is because you misunderstood the nature of the conference, and then imported your own confusion onto us in the form of a smear ("liberalism, in your framing, functions ... as an unquestioned religious creed"). And, further, because you weirdly assumed that because we did not design the conference to ruminate on liberalism in the way that you wanted us to, that must mean that we are unwilling or unable to philosophically ground our commitment to liberalism. Except, your only basis for that claim is that we did not fashion the conference to address liberalism's alleged philosophical shortcomings.
But this is yet further evidence of your incapacity to assess an event on its own terms. The conference did not set out to provide a justification for liberalism, or to embark on an exploration of the inner logic of liberalism, or to hash out an account of the propriety of liberalism. That's not what its purpose was. That does not mean there was no self-reflection or self-criticism. Rather, it means that the self-reflection and self-criticism was not trained on liberalism's first principles, or on the architecture of philosophical liberalism as a normative framework, but on the manifestations of liberalism that have for a variety of reasons failed to durably or even reliably secure sufficient public support. Your own confusion about what our conference was convened to accomplish formed the basis of your smear of us as religious zealots—but, again, that only revealed a *you* problem. All of us are quite capable of offering a philosophical grounding for liberalism—that's just not what the conference was about.
I mentioned this in my last reply, but I'll develop this point further because I think it's at the heart of your mistake. Since you’re a supporter of Trump’s policies and efforts, you have an ideologically tendentious conception of what a liberal engaging in *self-criticism* and *self-interrogation* would consist of. You wanted us to self-examine liberalism’s “first principles,” and to attribute to it deep structural flaws that we actually substantively disagree with, but let me just say, once again, in clear, easy-to-follow font: that was not what the conference set out to do.
The conference *assumed* an acceptance of liberalism’s first principles—not because we have no basis for our commitment to those principles but because evaluating them was not the purpose of that particular event. The LibCon conference series is an attempt to build a movement, not to self-immolate in ways that assist the Trumpian project's efforts to discredit and denounce liberalism. Your suggestion that until we adopt and grapple with your assessment of liberalism’s philosophical shortcomings our liberalism will remain functionally no different than a “street mob” that doesn’t morally transcend Donald Trump’s movement betrays your reactionary motivation. That's just a profoundly unserious thing to say, and ultimately fully discrediting.
The botton line is that you came in as someonone who antecedently agreed with Trumpian propaganda against liberalism, and you were looking for us to shit on ourselves in ways that reflected that antipathy toward it. Sorry, we were never going to do that.
Berny, I appreciate your passion, but your reply confirms the very concern I raised.
You’ve chosen not to defend or define your premises, insisting instead that they’re beyond the scope of examination—at least within the context of this conference. That’s your prerogative. But when a movement assumes its foundations without scrutiny, it risks becoming insular, performative, dogmatic or more importantly fails from its internal fallacies.
I didn’t attend LibCon2025 to watch liberalism “self-immolate,” nor did I expect an echo chamber of my own views. I came hoping to see forward-thinking engagement, especially given how recent liberal politics have alienated large swaths of the public and fueled a reactionary backlash. That didn’t happen.
You’re free to dismiss my critique, or me personally, however you choose. But I’ll leave it to others—especially those who’ve followed this exchange—to decide whether the questions I raised deserved engagement rather than indignation.
There is very deep moral confusion in calling LIBERAL democracy, which,, at its very root, is about containing tyranny of the majority -- aka, the mob -- a "street mob," while praising Donald Trump's naked and ugly populism -- aka real mob rule -- as something equal or better. It shows that words simply have no meaning anymore. You can plug them any way you like to try and discredit whoever it is you don't like. Also weird that you liked so many speakers and yet feel that there was not enough questioning and dissent! What I think you can't stand is disagreement by anyone who is left of center of you. I think you wanted an exclusive focus on how progressives have fucked it all up. But I think the reality is more complicated and it was our aim to bring together liberals of many shades and your own comment inadvertently acknowledges that we succeeded in that. Ultimately, I think someone who repudiates principles like limited government, federalism, free enterprise and praises an authoritarian like Trump for sending in the troops to clean up DC is at root also not a conservative but a statist. (I live in DC and I can tell you that it is a beautiful, gorgeous city with less crime and more areas that are safer than 20 years ago; in fact, where I live now was uninhabitable then. The halcyon days of your imagination didn't really exist.) These were ideals I espoused my whole life and it is painful to see them repudiated in favor of a naked authoritarianism just because "our" dictator is in power. It shows that for the conservative right, limited government was only a convenient mantra to use against the left. Now that it has the power, it is more than happy to wield it for the flimsiest of reasons like "cleaning up the nation's capital." Thanks for making the effort to come for the conference. We'd love to have you there next year too, but, honestly, you'll get more out of it if you engaged in a little self reflection yourself and returned to true conservative ideals (which are also liberal ideals properly understood).
At least we agree on one thing: words have become meaningless.
Nearly ninety years ago, A.J. Ayer’s Language, Truth and Logic warned that without language that is specific and agreed upon, there can be no truth and without truth, no logic. That insight remains painfully relevant. Neither “I think X” nor “you think Y” can claim superiority until X and Y are defined in mutually intelligible terms. You may think Trump is an insufferable authoritarian. Others see the centralization of bureaucratic power in Washington as the true authoritarian threat. Until one or the other offers a principled definition that resonates with the electorate, the argument is simply one of street power, that must not be allowed to escalate beyond the ballot box.
As you believe, we are a democracy. And the people have spoken twice, against the consolidation of power in Washington. Heading into the election, only 23% of Americans believed the country was sailing in the right direction. Three-quarters saw it heading toward an iceberg. [ABC News/Ipsos and other polls.] They understood the danger. They shouted for a new captain. And Donald Trump—flawed, egotistical, and often bullying—was the only option on deck. A Rasmussen report from last week suggests that number has now doubled: 46% believe the ship is on a better course.
I see the dangers in Trump. I detest his style but could clearly see the iceberg along with 75% of my fellow Americans. Liberals, Democrats, and progressives, meanwhile, shouted “Damn the torpedoes—full speed ahead.” Our democracy which you celebrate elected and re-elected him out of alarm.
Scream. Shout. Stamp your feet. Mobilize the liberal mob if you must. The high road is to offer the country something new and better. That’s what I hoped to hear at LibCon25. An acknowledgment of a wrong course—and ideas for a future rooted in limited government, federalism, free enterprise, a valid concept of dignity, a better construction of democracy, and necessary constraints on individual behavior. All should be solid liberal goals.
I’m sorry I misunderstood your intent. I came hoping to find ideas for reform. You came seeking affirmation.
And by the way—finding a couple of good things on any menu, isn’t hypocrisy. It’s discernment.
"Scream. Shout. Stamp your feet. Mobilize the liberal mob if you must." My, you do take a lot of poetic license don't you? No wonder you are cheering on a tyrant marching into the capital based on a delusional, hyperbolic depiction that has no basis in reality. Regardless of whether the conference vibed with you or not, this is a bizarre and false description and at some level you know it. If you are looking for something that fits your words, you should look at the Jan 6 mob trying to hang Mike Pence and overturn the results of an election. They have been pardoned and some given plum assignments in the administration. We will oppose such a perversion of morality with all our might.
You’ve chosen caricature and indignation over engagement—ignoring the actual critiques I offered. If your goal is to oppose authoritarianism with all your might, then you must also confront liberalism’s blind spot: its own form of authoritarianism, cloaked in centralized bureaucratic power.
As liberalism pressed forward without reflection, it became more of what it claimed to oppose—and in doing so, it helped clear the path to the results of the last election.
Shikha Dalmia proposes a mass movement: "We need to fashion a broad countermovement to replace the old right/left divide with a new liberal/illiberal one. That means opposing bigotry and uniting around core liberal values: tolerance, pluralism, equal protection under the law, and accountable rulers." Then, how to make that countermovement a mass movement? First, by figuring out how liberals and their policies became so unpopular that the voters elected Trump and re-elected him, too.
But that's what we used to have.
The Right used to mean support for rights-protecting government and capitalism. This is liberal. Even as recently as 2015, this wasn't a controversial take.
The Left used to mean collectivism. Whether this be religious, nationalist, environmentalist, socialist, communist, or fascist. This is illiberal.
So, what happened?
The reality is that politics has been completely overrun by politically illiterate people. We have a complete lack of expertise in the field. This is what led to the mainstream becoming nothing but environmentalist/socialist madness vs MAGA madness.
Until we address the fundamental issue of competence in our political discourse things are only going to get worse.
A movement of people claiming to be liberal, who cannot even define the term correctly, are neither liberal, nor helping the cause. They are only helping authoritarians win by default, by continuing to fill the discourse with nonsense.
It was an excellent conference. It was my first but definitely not my last.
Linking Liberalism and Liberal values to THE ECONOMY, and the financial pain to voters from Trump/GOP policies that are jacking up food prices, electricity bills, mortgage rates and health insurance premiums, is the path to victory in 2026.
Liberalism is clearly the right path to follow; but when also linked to sensible and prosperity-generating Democratic policies--like the recently passed Biden/Dem Infrastructure, Inflation Reduction Act, and CHIPS acts--Liberalism becomes supercharged.
This is the primary problem with this conference in my opinion. It's not clear any of its attendees can even define "liberal" correctly.
Liberal means support for individual rights, rights-protecting government, and capitalism.
The policies of the dems, infrastructure bills, CHIPS acts, etc, are NOT liberal. They are rights-violating and therefore authoritarian.
Liberal has nothing to do at all with "the left."
True.
But which political party more or less completely embraces Liberal values, and which party does roughly the opposite?
All of them oppose liberal values fundamentally.
The dems have always been collectivist and therefore illiberal.
The GOP used to have classic liberals in its movement, but since Reagan brought in the religious kooks, it's also become a collectivist party. Today the GOP is even more authoritarian than the democrats.
This is all enabled by an industry of political commentators that are for all intent and purposes, politically illiterate authoritarians.
I think we have a crisis of expertise in politics.
I'd argue that you're underestimating the amount of damage Biden-Harris policies did to the Democratic brand by undermining ordinary Americans' quality of life. Ushering in many millions of impoverished migrants severely undermined living standards for working Americans who were forced to compete with people they never voted to allow in for jobs and basic social infrastructure. There is no way to spin the Biden-Harris migration policy as having been pursued with the American electorate's best interests in mind, which made illiberalism look not so bad by comparison.
I agree that there were some very good things in the big legislation Biden-Harris passed, the problem is that the good things were positively dwarfed by all the bad things: namely that the bills exacerbated inflation when that was American voters #1 concern and that over half the money was siphoned straight into the pockets of Democratic Party-aligned special interests instead of investing in tangible improvements in Americans' lives. As far as broad swathes of America's working class are concerned, "liberals" are the people working hard to lower their living standards and keep them from getting ahead.
There are many things that the B-H administration did wrong by immigrants are a net boon to America and Americans and make untold contributions to their quality of life. Diminishing competition is what leads to poverty and ennui. America would be immensely poorer but for the contributions of immigrants. You should overcome your grievances, roll up your sleeves, and seize the glorious opportunities that this country provides. Immigrants get it. So should you.
My mother's an immigrant, my significant other's from an immigrant family, and many of my nearest and dearest are from immigrant families. That's not relevant with regard to Biden-Harris gleefully ushering in something like 10 million impoverished migrants in just three and a half years against the express will of the electorate. For you to so glibly imply I'm a xenophobe is frankly shameful, Shikha, and I'm disappointed because my distinct impression was that you were better than that. That dismissive attitude exemplifies the vibe that ultimately dissuaded me from attending your conference. You need to engage in some real soul-searching, get off your high horse, and recognize that Americans owing immigrants respect necessarily involves respecting the will and material self-interest of American voters.
We have done a deep dive into the Biden-era immigration policies. Here are some facts! Your harsh rhetoric "gleeful ushering in of 10 million impoverished migrants" is straight out of the nativist playbook whether you realize it or not. It betrays a zero-sum worldview where an immigrant's gain is a native's loss, which is not how the economy works. Heaven forbid that this administration comes for your immigrant loved ones. But if it does, we'll be here sticking up for them. https://www.theunpopulist.net/p/biden-fixed-the-immigration-system
Shikha, I respect you a great deal and The Unpopulist has published many high-quality articles, but it is difficult to believe that that David Bier piece was published in good faith. The suggestion that Biden-Harris was acting to "fix" the immigration system, when in fact they cynically worked hand in glove with NGOs to actively encourage many millions of migrants to risk their lives to seek asylum under false pretenses, is absurd and quite frankly beneath you and your publication. I've read enough of your work to be confident that in your heart of hearts you are better than that, you are more nuanced than that, and I respect you enough to not believe that you could look me in the eye and assert that claim with a straight face.
The reason why "comprehensive immigration reform" has failed again and again is that border security measures the Reagan-era comprehensive reform had promised failed to materialize even as the population of undocumented people soared. With good reason, voters expected that another round of "comprehensive reform" would likely mean amnesty for millions with border security enhancement once again failing to manifest. As far as the majority of working-class Americans were concerned, the immigration system was already badly broken under Obama and Trump was acting during his first term to move the system back closer to Clinton-era standards. Out of spite and pettiness the Biden-Harris administration intentionally flooded the country with impoverished migrants without any concern at all about how much that would hurt ordinary Americans. It is Biden-Harris who are ultimately most morally culpable for the ugly backlash happening now.
The thing is, Shikha, is that I do have immigrant loved ones who are terrified right now, and I hate that. I disagree with a lot of what Trump's doing. I don't want every single migrant unlawfully present in the U.S. to be deported, many of them are contributing to their communities and are a net gain for America. But millions, especially of those who arrived under Biden-Harris, need to leave or be removed ASAP because any reasonable compromise that will have democratic legitimacy among voters has to balance the legitimate interests of American citizens with the legitimate interests of the migrants. Hispanic voters in Texas would not have defected to the GOP in droves had they not experienced the migrant influx as deleterious to their communities. Once American voters feel that the deliberate Biden-Harris crisis has been reversed, there will be much more appetite for a reasonable compromise.
Glib, unserious punditry like that David Bier article only dampens the prospects for a reasonable compromise in the future. It's low-grade red meat that's disrespectful to your readers, that hardens hearts, and that only helps further polarize a very sensitive and complicated issue. Speaking as a former PR professional, I advise you to retract and disavow that article, apologize to your readership for the lapse of editorial judgment, and go back to David Bier to see if he has any interest in writing something intellectually worthy of the topic.
Trust me that the respect, in light of this performative posturing masquerading as PR advice, and your hundreds of words hysterically denouncing an article of ours while studiously avoiding anything even resembling a cogent counterargument, is not mutual.
LOL! Apologies, but I don't think you could have been a very successful PR flak if that's the kind of idiotic advice you dispensed. Most good ones I know offer evidence and analysis and have more finesse than engaging in fact-free name calling and psychoanalysis. But you are very much within the MAGA mold: If the evidence doesn't fit your preconceptions, you'll just attack it as false. That's the kind of mentality that leads to the firing of the jobs bureau chief for producing bad employment reports. Your pen name speaks volumes though.
I'd like to rebut your points, if you don't mind:
1) Both parties--ESPECIALLY the GOP--love migrant labor, because of the big donors that have ownership in industries like farming, construction, hospitality, meatpacking, etc.; that are very dependent upon them. The GOP rails unceasingly against the unwashed hordes swarming the border--but before Trump2, GOP did essentially nothing towards border security. E.g., Obama1&2 saw *higher* annual deportation numbers than Trump1; also, Trump shut down Lankford-Sinema last Spring.
2) Migrants are a net positive for social infrastructure, because they pay into payroll/SS/Medicare at the same rates as citizens--but get nearly nothing in benefits. They also commit crimes at a lower rate, taxing our justice system less.
3) Biden/Harris Industrial Policy: CHIPS, IRA and Infrastructure were all passed over near total GOP obstruction. Combined, they have the potential to generate well-paying jobs, and significantly expand GDP. From a Natsec perspective, they support our military supply chain capacity for drones warfare. Which will be essential for our survival when China comes for us. They are also supporting the shift to carbon neutral; possibly in time to save us from the worst of Global Warming.
3b) Roughly 65% of the projects made possible by Biden/Dem industrial policy were located in GOP Congressional districts. Not Dem ones...
3c) How was investing in Infrastructure NOT a direct investment in American's lives?
4) While the bills slightly exacerbated inflation, the US had by far the absolute lowest consumer inflation in the industrialized world. Bar none. Despite facing the same global supply-chain snafus, and with even greater levels of per-capita social rescue spending. If it had been Trump in the WH instead of Biden, you can bet your bottom dollar that FOX News would've been running nonstop segments on how much worse inflation was in every other country. Americans would've been thanking their lucky stars for our world-beating inflation levels.
5) Trump's massive import tax scheme will prove to be the most damaging initiative ever implemented by a US President. A direct tax on every man, woman and child. Devastating to US manufacturers dependent upon imported copper & steel; or who need the export market to survive. It will unnecessarily push up inflation. Unless he TACO's--which he still might, softening the inflationary blow.
5a) The BBB--along with Trump's gutting of the IRS--will add trillions of dollars to the deficit--ANNUALLY. Which will translate into increased borrowing costs for all citizens and businesses. Do you have a mortgage? Car Payments? Well, they're going up.
5b) Pushing 17 million off of Medicaid next year, will utterly DEVASTATE Red states like Iowa, where 22% of Iowans will be cut from the program. When all of those Iowans get sick or injured, they'll go to the ER; where the costs to treat them will be passed along to insured folks like yourself. When many dozens of rural hospitals shut their doors, they will DEVASTATE their local economies, and force the sick and injured to drive further for care.
6) Dems not only suck at messaging; but don't have FOX News--and its lesser imitators like Newsmax--in their corner as 24/7 propaganda support. It's FOX that can take credit for the vast majority of Culture War momentum gained in any election cycle for the GOP. I'd give examples, but it's late and I need to sleep.
I'd prefer we approach this dialogue in the spirit of a mutual quest for the truth, rather than "rebutting." I am less interested in "winning" an argument than arriving at mutual understandings to help us all move forward together with some comity. To speak to your specific points:
1) I certainly agree that many Republicans have historically been hypocritical when it comes to migration. The unlawful presence of so many millions (far exceeding the actual needs of construction, farming, and other industries) is undoubtedly due to bipartisan misgovernance. However, your characterization of Obama's migration policies is not accurate. The Obama administration changed the technical definition of deportation to include people turned away at the border, whereas colloquially deportation means removing migrants from the national interior, and in so doing was able to inflate its deportation numbers while in fact doing very little to remove people from the national interior. And, if you look at the details of the Lankford-Sinema bill, it was not a good-faith compromise to try to solve the border crisis but in fact a bait-and-switch designed to enshrine the unprecedented influx of the Biden-Harris years into law as the new status quo.
2) I live in New York City and the arrival of so many migrants under Biden-Harris has been a disaster for poor and working-class Americans (and legal immigrants) who rely on city services. Quality of life in NYC has plummeted. It's math: most migrants arrive in abject poverty and as such reduce American prosperity per capita. Criminal statistics do not reliably account for immigration status so there's no real evidence that immigrants commit crimes at a meaningfully lower rate than American citizens. Plus, every single crime committed by an undocumented immigrant should never have occurred at all.
3) There are many elements of Biden-Harris industrial and antitrust policy that I strongly approved of. The problem is that the bills did exacerbate inflation and that so much of the legislation was pork barrel excess to pay off Democratic constituencies that has simply not translated to tangible results for the majority of the American public.
4) I agree that in an alternate reality with Trump in office 2021-2025 the Fox News narrative would have been to downplay inflation. Inflation was indeed lower in the U.S. than in many other places. That being said, Biden-Harris actively pursued policies that made inflation worse. "The Inflation Reduction Act" was something close to the opposite of what the bill actually accomplished.
5) I agree that there will be a substantial hangover from many of Trump's economic policies, many of which I disagree with. That being said, other countries have long levied value-added taxes, essentially tariffs by another name, that have put American manufacturing at an unfair disadvantage. Given that significant onshoring is necessary for national security reasons, tariffs can be an appropriate tool to encourage that. The goal is not always the lowest cost for any given good, but overall prosperity for ordinary Americans in terms of balancing costs of living with attaining living wages. It's better to pay more for furniture constructed by American workers in the Carolinas than less for furniture constructed by essentially slave labor in China.
6) I started my career at a PBS news show. PBS and especially NPR are as implicitly left as Fox News and Newsmax are explicitly right. The New York Times and most surviving newspapers lean left, MSNBC is explicitly the left's answer to Fox, CNN leans left. There's the Nation magazine, Mother Jones, etc. Academia writ large leans very left. I couldn't agree more that today's crop of Democrats are not competent communicators, but it's not for lack of 24/7 propaganda support.
If "Fox can take credit for the vast majority of Culture War momentum", why is that? Why does Fox get more viewers than CNN and MSNBC combined? Why does Greg Gutfeld get 3.3 million viewers while Stephen Colbert gets 2.4 million?
FOX News is the gold standard of conservative TV, with 85% of GOP voters last Nov as per Ipsos watching it for all/some/most of their news. And 80% of those viewers believed alternative-facts views like a) The "Biden-economy" was *already* in recession (it wasn't); b) Crime and unemployment were at historic highs (instead of historic lows); c) Inflation was *still* at 2020 levels of 8% (it was down to 2.2%).
So why exactly *do* 8o% of conservative voters want to live in an alternative-facts fantasyland? Do you also believe immigrants are eating the dogs and cats in Ohio?
But you make blanket statements about PBS being as far Left as FOX is Right. Since FOX deliberately adds a large percentage of fabulist or made-up nonsense content to its programming, is that what authentic conservative "news" actually is? If PBS tries to stick to the facts, is that why it's supposedly Liberal?
Because the titillation and hate that appeal to our base impulses always sell better than responsible and sober analysis.
In that case, the solution is obvious. As soon as you can convince the Fox viewers that they choose Fox to seek titillation for their base, hateful impulses, they will quickly switch to CNN and MS-NOW.
We are not aiming to reach fox viewers. We are hoping to reach all those not yet lost in the fox sewage
"We need to fashion a broad countermovement to replace the old right/left divide with a new liberal/illiberal one . . ."
I think this is exceptionally well framed.
I believe this is the path of resistance we need to be taking.
What struck me the most in Shikha Dalmia's speech was the emphasis on moral clarity vs moral purity, which is the root of fanaticism and divisiveness of all stripes.
I understand why institutionally The Unpopulist might feel it could be advantageous to post something like this humblebrag, and there's nothing wrong with some healthy self-promotion, but it's just a little too on the nose. Speaking as a former PR flack, when I see a press release like this with strained verbiage like "two riveting days and nights," I am forced to wonder if it might be covering up for the reality being closer to the opposite. I considered attending this year and balked when I saw Bill Kristol was a paid speaker, all in all this post does not help persuade me to definitely want to attend the next time.
I did attend. See my comments from the bleachers confirming your thoughts.
Congratulations! We need these principled voices more than ever.
I hope I hear about Libcon 2026 in time to try to attend. I guess I hope even more that it will be held somewhere in the US, right out in the open, instead of some secret place to avoid the not-so-secret police.