Check out this @ismapolicy.bsky.social panel from LibCon2025 on the rise of extremist subcultures on the right.

One of the frustrations of being an editor/organizer is that I don't get to do my own thinking and work. One of the joys is that I get to platform absolutely first rate conversations by brilliant minds such as this one at LibCon2025. Moderator @jonrauch.bsky.social open.substack.com/pub/theunpop...

YES!!!

open.substack.com/pub/theunpop...

Can AI heal the divides social media created? Tools like Polis in Taiwan found consensus on same-sex marriage and Uber regulation by surfacing common ground across polarized groups. A fascinating LibCon2025 (@ismapolicy.bsky.social) panel explores whether AI can strengthen democracy.

Putin came to power through regular constitutional procedure in 1999. Within months he raided independent media, within years he caged the richest man in Russia, and by 2003 he'd rigged parliament to remove all pro-democracy parties.

@vincedmonroy
"One of the clearest lessons from history is that appeasing an aggressor will never lead to peace."
-Vladimir Kara-Murza

The full quote is about Vladimir Putin, but it applies to Donald Trump as...
#democracyhashtag/democracy" class="hover:underline text-blue-600 dark:text-sky-400 no-card-link">#democracy #usaref="/hashtag/usa" class="hover:underline text-blue-600 dark:text-sky-400 no-card-link">#usa #gopref="/hashtag/gop" class="hover:underline text-blue-600 dark:text-sky-400 no-card-link">#gop #fascists/hashtag/fascists" class="hover:underline text-blue-600 dark:text-sky-400 no-card-link">#fascists #fascism"/hashtag/fascism" class="hover:underline text-blue-600 dark:text-sky-400 no-card-link">#fascism

👉 Vote 'em Out!

@andrewstroehlein
"One of the clearest lessons from history is that appeasing an aggressor will never lead to peace."
-Vladimir Kara-Murza

The full quote is about #VladimirPutin, but it is equally applicable ...
#democracyhashtag/democracy" class="hover:underline text-blue-600 dark:text-sky-400 no-card-link">#democracy #usaref="/hashtag/usa" class="hover:underline text-blue-600 dark:text-sky-400 no-card-link">#usa #gopref="/hashtag/gop" class="hover:underline text-blue-600 dark:text-sky-400 no-card-link">#gop #fascists/hashtag/fascists" class="hover:underline text-blue-600 dark:text-sky-400 no-card-link">#fascists #fascism"/hashtag/fascism" class="hover:underline text-blue-600 dark:text-sky-400 no-card-link">#fascism

👉 Vote 'em Out!

A populist—like Trump, like Modi, like Putin—is, above all, a gifted storyteller who can tell a false story well. He specializes in a false narrative, a horror story about “the other,” well-told. The only way a populist can be fought is by telling a true story better.

Putin came to power through regular constitutional procedure in 1999. Within months he raided independent media, within years he caged the richest man in Russia, and by 2003 he'd rigged parliament to remove all pro-democracy parties.

Putin came to power through regular constitutional procedure in 1999. Within months he raided independent media, within years he caged the richest man in Russia, and by 2003 he'd rigged parliament to remove all pro-democracy parties.

Putin's favorite KGB job was recruiting—and he's good at it. He told Bush a fake story about a cross surviving a fire, offered Obama a "reformist" puppet president, and sent Trump an oil painting after praying for him in church. Three presidents, same manipulation playbook.

Free speech warriors like Bari Weiss rail against woke speech, but they're not just conspicuously silent about the suppression of pro-Palestinian speech—the greatest attack on the First Amendment I’ve seen in my 50 years in America—but actively supportive of government efforts to stifle such speech.

“Because it’s a contest of storytelling, the sworn enemies of the populists are people like me: journalists, writers, filmmakers. This is why all over the populist world—in America, Russia, India—there’s a war against the free press.”

Liberals Will Win by Telling True Stories Better Than Demagogues Tell False Stories
open.substack.com/pub/theunpop...

Feed: "The UnPopulist"
By: Suketu Mehta on Sunday, December 28, 2025

open.substack.com/pub/theunpop.... Suketu Mehta

“A populist—like Trump, like Modi, like Putin—is, above all, a gifted storyteller who can tell a false story well. The only way a populist can be fought is by telling a true story better.”

Tom Palmer’s words hit with precision: “[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.” #LibCon2025

www.youtube.com/shorts/NxNSD...

LAURA K. FIELD: “One of the most important reasons to spend time with the new right is to understand just how out of step they are with ordinary people, and with traditional American values like equality, freedom, pluralism, and ordinary patriotism.”

Well, according to what I’ve seen liberal consensus and agreement has agreed with the rw on arming Israel, on allowing violence on migrants (deportation is violence) so, those would be the common ground. For more, see Mamdani vs Trump and you’ll see bipartisanship in squishing him.

There's no reverence for America's constitutional history, no celebration of the achievements of eliminating bigotry and slavery and Jim Crow. The opposite. They seek to destroy institutions, to come at them with sledgehammers. They are revolutionaries. They are nihilists.

The American right is no longer conservative in any recognizable sense. They do not seek caution in implementing changes. They no longer seek to conserve established old institutions.

This illuminating conversation at LibCon2025 about what the new right really is after now up at @theunpopulist.net. You will want to hear/read it if you want to understand these terrifying new ideologies: www.theunpopulist.net/p/the-neo-ri...

The Neo-Right Rejects Liberalism Because It Wants to Rule by Brute Force Not Consensus: At @theunpopulist.net: @zackbeauchamp.bsky.social @lkatfield.bsky.social Damon Linker and Tom Palmer with a nice intro by @andycraig.bsky.social y

www.theunpopulist.net/p/the-neo-ri...

Feed: "The UnPopulist"
Published on Monday, October 27, 2025