The UnPopulist
@theunpopulist.net
6.8K followers 8 following 1.4K posts
Defending liberal democracy against authoritarianism in the U.S. and around the world. https://www.theunpopulist.net
Posts Media Videos Starter Packs
Reposted by The UnPopulist
"Authoritarian consolidation is Trump's true Operation Warp Speed." - @shikhadalmia.bsky.social, ISMA President and Founder of @theunpopulist.net, at #LibCon2025
Reposted by The UnPopulist
As @lutzfernandez.bsky.social writes here, the MAGA obsession with the Epstein files was never about justice for his victims, it was only about their revenge fantasies about liberal elites, and now that's been laid bare:
In my latest piece for The Unpopulist, I wrote about the convolutions of the Epstein story and how the throughline is MAGA using children to achieve their political ends.

For MAGA, what's supposed to be about the children is never about the children.
MAGA’s Epstein Fixation Isn’t About Justice, It’s About Revenge
House Republicans care less about delivering justice to this sexual predator's underage victims and more about punishing their political enemies
www.theunpopulist.net
Reposted by The UnPopulist
In my latest piece for The Unpopulist, I wrote about the convolutions of the Epstein story and how the throughline is MAGA using children to achieve their political ends.

For MAGA, what's supposed to be about the children is never about the children.
MAGA’s Epstein Fixation Isn’t About Justice, It’s About Revenge
House Republicans care less about delivering justice to this sexual predator's underage victims and more about punishing their political enemies
www.theunpopulist.net
"[The American right] wants to destroy the world around them. There's not one single principle or transcendent value. There's just the will to dominance." - Tom Palmer, #LibCon2025
During the shutdown, taxpayer-funded websites began displaying banners blaming “Radical Left Democrats” for the crisis in a clearly coordinated, deliberate, and possibly illegal effort. These aren’t updates meant to inform the public—they are regime propaganda disguised as government service.
Trump's Quest for Unchecked Power: A Video Roundup
Our early-October collection of clips on how the president is exploiting the government shutdown to serve his own ends
www.theunpopulist.net
Reposted by The UnPopulist
A huge affront to academic freedom, indeed.

But a mandate against "belittl[ing] conservative ideas" is also just ... pathetic. And mockable. So mockable. As befits an administration terrified of inflatable frogs.
The ridiculous “Compact” that the Trump administration has proffered to universities maintains that no project or center at a university may “belittle” conservative ideas, which is blatantly restrictive of speech.

@walterolson.bsky.social
Trump's Compact Wants Universities to Give Up Their 'God'-Given Rights
Even if they wanted to, the Constitution bars them from doing so, making his proposal doubly unconstitutional
www.theunpopulist.net
Reposted by The UnPopulist
"It's a mistake to think that MAGA's obsession with Epstein stems from concern about child sex abuse. ... For them, this saga is about exposing elites, particularly Democrats—not about delivering justice to victims."

🔥🔥 from @lutzfernandez.bsky.social in @theunpopulist.net on the Epstein madness.
MAGA’s Epstein Fixation Isn’t About Justice, It’s About Revenge
House Republicans care less about delivering justice to this sexual predator's underage victims and more about punishing their political enemies
www.theunpopulist.net
The ridiculous “Compact” that the Trump administration has proffered to universities maintains that no project or center at a university may “belittle” conservative ideas, which is blatantly restrictive of speech.

@walterolson.bsky.social
Trump's Compact Wants Universities to Give Up Their 'God'-Given Rights
Even if they wanted to, the Constitution bars them from doing so, making his proposal doubly unconstitutional
www.theunpopulist.net
Such is a consequence, now breaking into public view, of a free-floating anti-intellectualism that has been building in right-wing circles, and which is reflected in the Trump administration’s emphasis on cutting science budgets and scientific advisory panels.
The Administration’s Foolish War on Basic Science
Cutting funding for gravitational wave studies won’t save taxpayers much but will jeopardize future scientific breakthroughs
www.theunpopulist.net
Scientists engaged in puzzling out black holes or elementary particles may be surprised to find themselves besieged by political hostility, but that’s what has happened.
The Administration’s Foolish War on Basic Science
Cutting funding for gravitational wave studies won’t save taxpayers much but will jeopardize future scientific breakthroughs
www.theunpopulist.net
“Centrist liberals react negatively when progressives or people on the left are seen to complain too much about modernity, to not fully appreciate the progress that has been made. … Yet, historically, it is the complainers who often help push progress forward.” — @dkthomp.bsky.social
Has Liberalism’s Very Success in Delivering Human Flourishing Doomed It? Steven Pinker and Derek Thompson Discuss at LibCon2025
It’s the only system that puts self-correction at the heart of its project and so can revitalize itself
www.theunpopulist.net
Last week, MIT formally rejected the Trump administration’s preposterous “Compact for Excellence.” That’s good, because agreeing to it is tantamount to ceasing to be a university in any meaningful sense.

@walterolson.bsky.social
Trump's Compact Wants Universities to Give Up Their 'God'-Given Rights
Even if they wanted to, the Constitution bars them from doing so, making his proposal doubly unconstitutional
www.theunpopulist.net
The Trump administration’s fiscal 2026 budget proposal for the National Science Foundation (NSF) slashed the science agency’s budget by 56% from $9 billion to $3.9 billion.

@kensil.bsky.social
The Administration’s Foolish War on Basic Science
Cutting funding for gravitational wave studies won’t save taxpayers much but will jeopardize future scientific breakthroughs
www.theunpopulist.net
Reposted by The UnPopulist
Here’s an explainer on just one of the many neglected investigations sacrificed for the sake of Trump’s cruel immigration crackdown I did for @theunpopulist.net.
To appropriately turn away from an individual sin does not require ongoing remembrance or memorialization—but a collective, national sin of the magnitude of American chattel slavery does, because its effects and lessons remain with us.
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
www.theunpopulist.net
Even if Trump’s fantasies about insurrection were real, nothing in the constitutional system would permit him to unilaterally wage war against any state without congressional support—as Lincoln understood when the U.S. fought a real civil war.
Trump Is Destroying the U.S. Constitution and Amassing Unprecedented Powers by Sending Federal Troops to Invade American Cities
Lincoln faced a real insurrection and still did not go as far as this president
www.theunpopulist.net