LibCon2026 Will Start Imagining a Post-Authoritarian Future: Sign Up Now

ISMA’s conference this July is where liberals move beyond diagnosis and begin hammering out a second Reconstruction Agenda

ISMA’s LibCon2026 will gather the greatest liberal academics, journalists, commentators, and advocates to begin the work of reconstruction (The UnPopulist illustration)

A phrase I’ve used in my work for The UnPopulist is “turnkey tyranny.” It captures, first and foremost, the American presidency’s descent into a near-monarchy, a set of accumulated powers so vast that whoever occupies the Oval Office inherits the full machinery of authoritarianism, already armed and ready. And it means liberalism’s challenge is twofold: to resist the current occupant, who represents the gravest threat to liberal-democratic values in the history of the office, but to also go beyond resistance and begin the painstaking work of institutional reconstruction with the aim of preventing any future occupant from doing the same damage.

That is the animating idea behind the Reconstruction Agenda, a project I direct for The UnPopulist. It is centered on rebuilding American democratic institutions. And it is the theme of this summer’s LibCon2026—held on July 16 and 17 at the Watergate Hotel in Washington, D.C.—the most ambitious edition of ISMA’s annual conference yet.

We invoke the first Reconstruction, in the 19th century, not as a cautionary tale but as a model of ambition. Faced with the wreckage of the Civil War, its architects knew that resistance had to give way to building. They amended the Constitution, refashioned institutions, and laid the legal and civic foundations for a genuinely more equal republic. Now, the task of the new Reconstruction lies before us. That is precisely what LibCon2026 will be all about.

LibCon2026 Is All-In on Reconstruction

LibCon2025, last year’s conference, set an exceptionally high bar. Attendance filled the room for every panel, the Q&As were sharp and substantive, and the response from attendees and participants was overwhelmingly positive. Damon Linker called it “a huge success” and singled out ISMA President and The UnPopulist Editor-in-Chief Shikha Dalmia for deserving “considerable praise for conjuring this event and its rapidly expanding network of participants and supporters out of thin air over the past two years.” Anne Lutz Fernandez described it as “sobering and energizing, confirming and challenging, deep and expansive.” Linda Chavez called it “amazing.” Sydnee Lipset called it “another triumph.”

One international attendee put it this way: LibCon2025 was “an invitation to action rather than mere reflection,” with panels that went “beyond diagnosis and focused instead on concrete prescriptions to safeguard liberal values in the 21st century.”

That is precisely the spirit LibCon2026 will carry forward—and deepen. And that “concrete prescription,” as we’ve been noting, has a name: Reconstruction. This will not be the conference for those who favor navel-gazing, inert theorizing, and conceptual paralysis.

LibCon2026: A Preview

Starting on July 16, you’ll hear from those who have thought most seriously and concretely about what it takes to defend, repair, and rebuild liberal democratic institutions. That includes the following liberal luminaries:

• Bob Bauer, former White House Counsel to President Obama and co-author (with Jack Goldsmith, who spoke at LibCon2025) of After Trump: Reconstructing the Presidency—a book whose title anticipates our theme almost precisely.

• Adam Bodnar, Poland’s former minister of justice, who spent two years attempting to dismantle over a decade and a half of authoritarian institutional capture from within.

• Francis Fukuyama, a LibCon legend and chair of The American Purpose in Persuasion.

• Felix Maradiaga, the Nicaraguan democracy leader and Nobel Peace Prize nominee who spent more than 600 days in solitary confinement under the Ortega dictatorship before being stripped of his citizenship and exiled.

• Adam Serwer of The Atlantic, one of the sharpest analysts of how democratic norms erode in real time.

• Anne Applebaum of The Atlantic, whose writing on authoritarianism has made her an indispensable chronicler of democratic collapse in the world today.

• Nathan Law, the youngest person ever elected to Hong Kong’s legislature, who led the Umbrella Movement, fled Beijing’s crackdown, and now carries a bounty on his head.

That is just for starters. The rest of the lineup, which is still being finalized, is just as dazzling: Sarah Longwell, David French, Walter Olson, Jonathan Rauch.

We have an early-bird special going on right now that’ll give you all access for $600 through June 5—after which it goes to $850. All-access means exactly that: every panel, the Friday lunch, and the receptions and dinners on both evenings. You could also obtain the basic package for $150, which we heavily discount for students, faculty, and those who work for non-profits. If you’ve been thinking about coming, now is the time to commit.

But it gets better. The day before LibCon2026, our partners at the Center for New Liberalism—progressives committed to abundance policies—will be hosting their fifth annual New Liberal Action Summit in Washington, D.C. on July 16. They’ll bring together hundreds of grassroots activists, elected officials, and policy experts who are shaping the modern liberal agenda. As they note:

Liberal values won’t defend themselves. At a moment when democratic principles in America and around the world face their darkest moment in nearly a century, it’s more important than ever to build a coalition of young, center-left leaders ready to go on the offense for liberalism.

They get it!

You should consider attending their conference, especially since CNL is kindly offering The UnPopulist’s readers a free ride. Go to this link and use passcode DEFENDLIBERALISM for a free ticket. 

© The UnPopulist, 2026

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