Liberal Currents

"Tensions reached new heights following the fatal shooting of Tyrin Johnson by Tennessee National Guard troops in August. Despite claims by authorities that the guardsmen were threatened with a weapon, a subsequent autopsy showed that the twenty-year-old Johnson was shot in the back."

“Pearson is uniting outrage over the treatment of Memphis with frustration over affordability and opposition to data centers.” www.liberalcurrents.com/better-win-a...

“Memphis remains policed by a joint task force of ATF, FBI, and DHS agents, sent by President Trump in September of 2026, aided by a deployment of Tennessee state patrol and a sizable contingent of Tennessee national guard members sent by Republican Governor Bill Lee.”

"It is difficult to look at the gerrymandering of Tennessee's Ninth and not see the shape of 21st-century Jim Crow politics." www.liberalcurrents.com/better-win-a...

"The key problem with run-offs (as opposed to instant runoffs, which Americans call 'ranked choice voting') is that the second round usually has lower turnout than the first. … Brazil is different here again, however. They have mandatory voting." www.liberalcurrents.com/editors-note...

"Life under liberalism is creativity. … It is the creativity of those engaging in 'experiments of living,' as J. S. Mill memorably put it—pioneering unconventional lifestyles today that might become entirely conventional later." www.liberalcurrents.com/liberalism-i...

"No one can know how that or the midterms will go, but there is reason to hope. And if they do go well, it will have been a very bad week or so for global fascism." www.liberalcurrents.com/editors-note...

i know politicians are terrified of public opinion on immigration, but given how badly the other side has failed, i really think if we had a bit of courage many people would hear us out www.liberalcurrents.com/we-need-to-g...

"People who believe their choices don't matter choose poorly." Indeed.

"We need to be able to paint a picture…to say what these abstractions mean for the people who live where the factory opens, what it means to the local kids when a library opens up where there wasn’t one before." www.liberalcurrents.com/liberalism-i...

on the internet people will call almost anything liberalism. war with iraq, death by firing squad, npic infighting, everything. so a few weeks ago at liberal currents, we put out a challenge to all the editors: what is liberalism, actually? today we get our first essay, from lc founder adam gurri:

“What I will offer you instead is something simpler, and perhaps harder: a vision of life under liberalism, as distinct from the political project.” www.liberalcurrents.com/liberalism-i...

"Given our name and our mission statement, we often face the question 'what is liberalism?'" www.liberalcurrents.com/liberalism-i...

The weekly roundup of what we’ve done at Liberal Currents has strong criticism for antisemitism and some praise for anti-populism. www.liberalcurrents.com/weekly-round...

"America was pushed into its second nadir by a well-funded anti-democratic movement that spent several decades building the social and legal infrastructure of American fascism. Digging ourselves out of the competitive authoritarian pit will likely be a slow process."

Neon Liberalism #96: Bret Devereaux explains why we're all still obsessed with World War 2, why Hearts of Iron IV is a gateway to (mis)understanding the war, and most importantly: what fascism was and why it failed. www.liberalcurrents.com/the-lies-of-...

"The plausible techno-dystopian future we’re staring down is not one where a digital demon kills us all, but one where we... concentrate immense wealth and control of information in a small number of tech-industry figures whose personal interests do not align with the public interest."

"Too much truth, and everyone is paralyzed by guilt. Too much politics, and you end up hunting witches instead of putting out the fires consuming your world. "Given its evident skill at alienating its audience, I think it’s fair to say 'Digger' is not interested in the balance."

"Meta’s proposals for ‘fixing’ the product to address the harms done to kids do include innovation in safety features. But Meta trying to claim credit as a pioneer in making their product safe for kids is absurd and repugnant." www.liberalcurrents.com/the-techlash...

"Meta built products to be addictive to users, driving engagement through features like endless scrolling, and designed algorithms parasitic on outrage or even on mental illness, including body dysmorphia and suicidality." www.liberalcurrents.com/the-techlash...

You can now listen to the audio version of my essay for the Reconstruction Papers from @liberalcurrents.com www.liberalcurrents.com/to-rebuild-d...

"Ramaswamy ran an attack ad featuring his opponent Amy Acton’s mother, saying that Acton has 'a serious problem, she is a liar… She’s lied her entire life.' But the reason for Acton’s estrangement with her mother is known: her mother married a known pedophile and enabled him to molest Acton."

“Ramaswamy’s ad embraces a woman who enabled sexual abuse—and uses the language of ‘parental estrangement’ to mobilize MAGA voters who can’t understand why their children won’t take their calls. But they know the reason. They just don’t want to accept it.” www.liberalcurrents.com/editors-note...

“Translation, millennials are ungrateful. We just don’t care about family and loyalty and love. We see everything as transactional; we simply don’t appreciate what our parents have done for us.” www.liberalcurrents.com/editors-note...

"As the contrast between President Trump’s first and second terms have shown so far, there’s an enormous amount of corruption and brutality and misgovernment that US voters are willing to forgive—or even vote to reinstall—if they think it’ll also bring them lower prices and higher wages."

"While it’s true that I’m less guilty of the climate catastrophe than is the head of Exxon, it’s also true…that many of us wish we could simply punish some bad guys for what is, in truth, an 'unsustainable' way of life that we all share and that only a small number of us are willing to give up."

“Anyone who is on the liberal-democratic side of the current divide between ascendant populist authoritarianism and liberalism in defensive retreat should see Digger as on their side, even (or especially?) if they don’t actually like it.” www.liberalcurrents.com/the-anti-pop...

"There’s an inherent romance to a morality tale: the wicked brought low, the righteous rewarded. Iñárritu gives us not an ounce of that romance. Instead, he rubs our faces in the truth." www.liberalcurrents.com/the-anti-pop...

"We’ve dealt with society-altering technological change before—channeling it to elevate rather than harm the public interest. We’ll have to work out new specifics for AI, but we have a proven approach to use, and it does not rely on putting all our trust in the industry and its evangelists."

Out of the Jaws #15: David Griscom joins Ryan and Adam to talk about Texas's surprising political history, the current election, and the derangement of the Texas GOP in lockstep with the national GOP. www.liberalcurrents.com/texas-has-al...

Let’s fight the good fight and let’s also continue to build a community that best expresses the values we seek to protect. www.liberalcurrents.com/help-us-learn/

Half the Answer #110: Doug Gordon, cohost of "The War On Cars" and coauthor of "Life After Cars," joins us to explain why we should work toward a world that isn't defined by nigh-compulsory car ownership. www.liberalcurrents.com/what-a-futur...

"You cannot criminally charge Musk for investing in Skydance. But he has committed many, many crimes. Quite frankly, he should be target number one for congressional investigations and a 2029 DOJ prosecution. He is the perfect confluence of guilt, importance, and unpopularity."

"Swallowing Warner Bros. Discovery was going to be a very difficult task, and debt taken on to finance the deal led to a downgrading of their credit. Not to worry—the richest man in the world, already cozy with the other billionaires involved in all of this, will swoop in to help right the ship."

"Yesterday in Vanity Fair, Matthew Cole dropped a bombshell of a story… Jared Kushner had a bank account in the United Arab Emirates in which he had received hundreds of millions of dollars. The funders of this account were 'UAE ruler Mohamed bin Zayed and Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia.'"

Yes, the real danger isn't so much that the AI will choose the targets but rather that the humans responsible will wash their hands of it and say the black box told me to bomb there.

"We often talk about how much worse the second term has been, and it has been worse. But that is not because they were just innocent men in the first term." www.liberalcurrents.com/jared-kushne...

"On top of life-and-death concerns, AI slop is flooding the internet and accelerating the spread of misinformation. It’s making propaganda better designed and cheaper to produce. It’s increased cheating in education, and it’s causing learning loss." www.liberalcurrents.com/the-plausibl...

“Jamelle Bouie compares AI to railroads, an incredibly disruptive innovation that transformed society and the economy, while concentrating wealth—and by extension political power—in the hands of a few owners.” www.liberalcurrents.com/the-plausibl...

“Fixating on apocalyptic scenarios ignores real-world problems involving the actually already existing AI. We have proven methods to address disruptive technology, but for anyone who opposes the use of those methods, apocalyptic fantasies can be a useful distraction.”