Zack Beauchamp

The BLS firing is a textbook example of how personalist authoritarianism causes policy nightmares. It's like Trump is trying to prove why liberal democratic guardrails aren't some kind of luxury, but essential for good governance

ADL web gone

Shortly after Trump’s election in November, the Internet Archive registered major changes to ADL’s website. Sections devoted to voting rights, racial justice, and other civil-rights issues were all gone. (3/x)

these are really small donations for someone so famous

something so telling about yarvin's character that he's willing to perform grotesque racism but is too chickenshit to spell out the n-word

The Reactionary Spirit: How America's Most Insidious Political Tradition Swept the World The Reactionary Spirit: How America's Most Insidious Political Tradition Swept the World [Beauchamp, Zack] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. The Reactionary Spirit: How America's Most Insidious Political Tradition Swept the World

This is the "made in America" part of the thesis. Not the US invented reactionary politics, but that the 19th century American South developed the now-ubiquitous strategy of hiding authoritarian politics behind a formally democratic veneer www.amazon.com/Reactionary-...

One of the central themes in my book is that modern authoritarianism operates by taking up the tools and language of liberal democracy — in this case, human rights sanctions — and twisting them towards repressive ends

Indeed

I agree! bsky.app/profile/zack...

I would have had no problem with anti-wokeness if their argument was merely "the left has some bad policy ideas and discourse norms." I actually agree with that!

Instead, they fabricated a left-wing threat to free speech and the survival of liberalism — ironically enabling a right-wing one in Trump

Yes, "defund the police" was a terrible policy. Yes, David Shor's firing was unjust. Yes, "check your privilege" discourse was annoying.

But you what's so much worse? Endless misleading assaults on academia that paved the way for a government attack on a free society.

My take on "peak woke" discourse is always the same: that the people condemning "wokeness" were always a bigger problem than the things they were criticizing.

I think the Trump administration has basically vindicated my anti-anti-wokeness.

Change a few nouns, and Dennis' case against liberalism is nearly identical to the arguments made by people like Patrick Deneen today — right down to the claims that liberalism is just as repressive as its authoritarian rivals

What a Black fascist can teach us about liberalism Lawrence Dennis predicted America would fall to fascism in the 1930s. His errors have much to teach us today.

Today, I wrote about Lawrence Dennis — the leading fascist intellectual in interwar America, who was also a Black man passing as white.

Reading Dennis' work, I found striking parallels between his case for fascism and the arguments made by today's "postliberal"writers www.vox.com/politics/421...

Our LibCon2025 event is shaping up nicely.

You won't want to miss our upcoming panel on the philosophical roots of illiberal movements.

It features @zackbeauchamp.bsky.social, @lkatfield.bsky.social, @tomgpalmer.bsky.social, and Damon Linker.

Register here: form.jotform.com/251499093035...

Trump's collapsing approval rating should give institutions like CBS and Harvard more of a backbone. And yet!

On now! If you missed the first segment, I’m back after the current break

Going to be on MSNBC at noon talking with
@velshi.com about democracy — and how well (or not) we're doing

See, I read that as Colbert giving him (Zohran) a direct chance to answer these charges without any hostile interruptions and a Jewish ally on stage to back him up. That's why the clip looked great for Zohran

In the end, Trump's demand that MAGA drop the Epstein stuff demonstrates how phony his anti-elite posture has always been. This is a key reason why it's such a lethal story for him.

(expanding on a smart @zackbeauchamp.bsky.social piece)

newrepublic.com/article/1981...

The US has not yet become fully authoritarian. The press is quite openly critical, the opposition faces few formal constraints, and election administration is free and fair.

But in the week or so, Trump has been able to do real and serious damage to democratic fundamentals. The crisis is very real.

As someone who has been writing about comparative democratic decline for a decade, I think we've just seen the two most dangerous signs in the US so far. They are:

1) Successful attacks on media, specifically cowing CBS and defunding NPR

2) The Supreme Court's deference to Trump on executive power

Congrats Cas!!

It's so much worse than I thought

Exclusive | Jeffrey Epstein’s Friends Sent Him Bawdy Letters for a 50th Birthday Album. One Was From Donald Trump. The leather-bound book was compiled by Ghislaine Maxwell. The president says the letter ‘is a fake thing.’

www.wsj.com/politics/tru...

My god

People are getting the political stakes of the Epstein story wrong.

There's virtually no chance of a "MAGA rebellion" against Trump that costs him significant base support.

But there's a real chance he alienates disaffected, low-info swing voters — the Rogan types.

“In Trump’s second term, the Defense Department gives $200 million to an AI that calls itself MechaHitler” sounds like an absurd #Resistance fantasy - or would, if it weren’t literally happening

Masterful post by Zack.

But me, as a European who grew up in communist Eastern Europe, I look in bafflement at this: it took all this time and two Trump admin to choose liberalism?

Feels very decadent first world problem, like US won the 20th century and then had to invent a crisis for itself

The lie at the heart of Trump’s entire economic agenda The White House wants to send Medicaid recipients to the mines.

Trump's trade, mass deportation, and Medicaid agendas are all premised on the same wild lie www.vox.com/politics/419...

As I wrote this morning, the Epstein saga is a pure example of Trump's authoritarian personalism dominating MAGA's populist instincts

www.vox.com/on-the-right...