John Chrobák

Liberalism.org - Coming Soon An Online Magazine for Free & Open People. Coming soon.

I am thrilled to announce my big new project, Liberalism.org. Coming 3/12. It’s is a journal of liberal ideas, edited by @jkuznicki.bsky.social, with new podcasts from me and @uncanonical.net. It’s a project of @theihs.org, and has a superstar lineup of contributors. Sign up to get notified here:

Chart showing change in the use of online platforms. Over the past few years, four of them have grown in overall use among U.S. adults – TikTok, Instagram, WhatsApp and Reddit. TikTok: 37% of U.S. adults report using the platform, which is slightly up from last year and up from 21% in 2021. Instagram: Half of U.S. adults now report using it, which is on par with last year but up from 40% in 2021. WhatsApp and Reddit: About a third say they use WhatsApp, up from 23% in 2021. And 26% today report using Reddit, compared with 18% four years ago. While YouTube and Facebook continue to sit at the top, the shares of Americans who report using them have remained relatively stable in recent years.

UPDATE: Americans who use
YouTube 84%
Facebook 71%
Instagram 50%
TikTok 37%
WhatsApp 32%
Reddit 26%
Snapchat 25%
X (Twitter) 21%
Threads 8%
Bluesky 4%
Truth Social 3%

Full Pew Research Center report: https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2025/11/20/americans-social-media-use-2025/

I watched Yarvin’s Sheldonian lecture. What struck me is that he’s describing real institutional failures, but he completely misdiagnoses the cause. He treats “democracy” as the problem, when the actual collapse is upstream.

"No kings" doesn't sit right as a slogan as it implies US exceptionalism

The US might not have had kings but it built a political system which gave power to oligarchs and technocrats to protect similar forms of oppression

This is not a democratic alternative to "kings", more an evolution

The latest issue of the Journal of Illiberalism Studies #JIS is out now! 👀

Read the full issue here: www.illiberalism.org/jis-summer-2...

@ieres-gwu.bsky.social

Where Is the Line? On Ezra Klein, Ta-Nehisi Coates, and the struggle to define the boundaries of what is acceptable in America

Where Is the Line?

On Ezra Klein, Ta-Nehisi Coates, and the struggle to define the boundaries of what is acceptable in America. If we can’t even agree to hold the line against Trumpism, democracy must perish.

New piece:

steady.page/en/democracy...

📢 Call for Papers! #CFP

The Journal of Illiberalism Studies is actively seeking paper submissions exploring the relationship between AI and ideology. Paper proposals due Oct 31.

See details here: tinyurl.com/yck9jdtj

@raphdemiasmorisset.bsky.social @ieres-gwu.bsky.social

Unmasked: the man behind one of the fastest growing far-right YouTube channels — Guardian US Chris Booth’s channel – rife with neo-Nazi ideology, antisemitism and racism – garnered 2.3m views and likely thousands of dollars from YouTube in about two months

trust & safety policies sure doing a bang up job these days

apple.news/AIVL5yd2vRQ6...

Ngram of the day: birthright citizenship books.google.com/ngrams/graph...

Our brand new monograph, discussing the findings of our work together during the last seven years, is now out for @oxfordacademic.bsky.social‬ and free to read and download!

The conditions that have led to what’s happening in the US today exist in democracies around the world.
They are an inevitable outcome of our collective failure to adapt to fundamental changes in the information ecosystem on which our democracies were originally built.

🚨 New article with the brilliant @joshuafmolloy.bsky.social

We dive into the online community of right-wing body builders (RWBB) 🥚🥩🥛

open access: sciendo.com/article/10.2...

🧵 The CNN piece on Bongino and Patel is one of the clearest real-world examples of a key phenomenon in disordered discourse:
The agents who stoke it can become its victims, especially when their disordered discourse meets the reality of the institutions it captures.

If Walmart’s eating the tariffs, then what is the alleged purpose of the tariffs? To lower our national trade deficit with…Walmart?

A new issue of the Journal of Illiberalism Studies #JIS is out now! This issue is focused on Christian nationalism and the 2024 election and features contributions from speakers at our conference organized with @smpagwu.bsky.social @ieres-gwu.bsky.social and @faithandjustice.bsky.social

A Liberal Victory Does Not Mean Populist Furies Are Dead in Canada For that, the party will have to correct its abysmal governing failure and deliver economic results

Today's piece in NYT on the anti-Trump bump (re CA & AU elections) made me think of this excellent piece from @theunpopulist.net. Celebrating temporary repudiations of radical right politics is fine but, as @janetbufton.ca concludes, "[liberalism] has to address its own shortcomings and fight back."

🚨 Happy to share my latest open-access research which examines the use of Twitter’s live-audio conversational feature, Spaces, with far-right communities

I argue that the Elon Musk backed Spaces has emerged as a powerful communicative tool for the far-right

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

The Ruthlessness is the Point: Trumpism and the Ethical Allure of Ruthlessness illiberalism.org | Joshua Cherniss on the ethos and ethics of ruthlessness, and how they've come to be embodied in Trumpism.

New article in our Frontiers of American Reaction series! Joshua Cherniss (@jcherniss.bsky.social) on the ethos and ethics of ruthlessness, and how they've come to be embodied in Trumpism. Check it out!

@ieres-gwu.bsky.social

www.illiberalism.org/the-ruthless...

Marine Le Pen’s victim narrative is already being constructed – but there are ways to stop her criminal conviction benefitting her Le Pen has been barred from politics for four years after being found guilty of embezzlement.

A few thoughts on Le Pen's verdict

It may be her downfall but it is unlikely it will be the far right's until we do not address the central role the mainstream elite has played in its rise

Unfortunately, expect more of the same

theconversation.com/marine-le-pe...

Renaming the EU, Dismantling the Commission: For What Polish and Hungarian Illiberals Seek U.S. Backing - VSquare.org The Trump administration's most influential think tank, The Heritage Foundation, is receiving proposals from illiberal forces in Poland and Hungary on how to shape the future of the European Union. Th...

🤯🇪🇺 The Heritage Foundation, the Trump admin’s agenda-setting think tank, is receiving proposals from illiberal forces in Poland & Hungary on reshaping the EU. Obtained by @vsquare.bsky.social, these include dismantling the EU Commission, the ECJ & renaming the bloc the European Community of Nations.

The Power of Student Protests in the Fight for Democracy: Why Trump and Authoritarians Worldwide Fear Campus Activism Trump's Threat to Universities and the Global History of Student-Led Democratic Change

A few days ago, I posted about how authoritarian leaders fear student activism. I wrote a new article dives much deeper into this pattern – and why Trump's recent threats are so revealing. It's a global, historical phenomenon. (Short 🧵⬇️)

PONARS Ukraine Task Force: Incontrovertible Truths - PONARS Eurasia Fact Checking Russia's Invasion of Ukraine with PONARS Ukraine Task Force As events unfold in Ukraine, PONARS Eurasia has created this page for the Ukraine Task Force to fact check statements made in ...

Fact Checking Russia's Invasion of Ukraine with PONARS Ukraine Task Force:

www.ponarseurasia.org/task-forces/...

Join us on February 28 for a moderated discussion between Patrick Deneen and @samuelmoyn.bsky.social on liberalism and its fate.

RSVP here: tinyurl.com/u2ehzmak

@ieres-gwu.bsky.social

So I’m curious, if the US invades Canada would that falsify the democratic peace theory or prove the US is no longer a democracy?

Dreaming of Russia: Western Ideological Emigration to Russia | illiberalism.org John Chrobak on the emigration of western conservatives to Russia and plans to build an American Village

The organic and bottom-up push for ideological relocation to Russia predates the new official process, but was driven by a community of pioneers who aggressively petitioned officials to make the process easier.

They're still active.

www.illiberalism.org/dreaming-of-...

This is a great short read on a growing trend in Russia: outreach to ideologically aligned foreigners and facilitation of their relocation to Russia.
I wrote about this trend about a year ago but the process has gotten much more formal since then.

Is the far right a global phenomenon? Comparing Europe and Latin America: A scholarly exchange The purpose of the Exchange feature is to publish discussions that engage, advance and initiate new debates in the study of nations and nationalism. This Exchange article is on the subject of the glo...

Delighted to see our 'Exchange' article comparing the far right in Europe and Latin America with @leoniedejonge.bsky.social, Vasiliki Georgiadou, Talita Tanscheit and Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser on early view and available open access
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

How the full -scale invasion accelerated Russia's mission as a ‘civilization-state’ The war against Ukraine has accelerated transformations in Russia’s ideological machinery. In an attempt to rationalize the immense human cost and...

An attempt to capture recent developments in Russia's ideological landscape; even if it just a snapshot amidst major geopolitical shifts. platformraam.nl/artikelen/27...