iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

The UnPopulist @theunpopulist.net · 2h

Radley Balko says video has contradicted ICE accounts of vehicle confrontations. #Immigration

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The UnPopulist @theunpopulist.net · 06/10/2026

Radley Balko warns that ICE partnerships could spread a militarized culture into local policing. #Immigration

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The UnPopulist @theunpopulist.net · 05/10/2026

How do we defend liberal democracy? Speakers call for limits on presidential power, a stronger Congress, and rebuilt institutions.

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The UnPopulist @theunpopulist.net · 04/10/2026

Radley Balko argues that political control of immigration judges and appeals undermines due process, leaving people at risk of deportation before a federal court can hear their case. Recorded September 2026.

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The UnPopulist @theunpopulist.net · 03/10/2026

@shikhadalmia.bsky.social asks how Trump’s deportations differ from Obama’s. Radley Balko argues that targeted investigations have given way to broad raids on immigrant communities. Recorded September 2026.

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The UnPopulist @theunpopulist.net · 02/10/2026

@shikhadalmia.bsky.social reflects on arriving in Reagan’s America and describes the hostility immigrants face under Trump. Recorded September 2026.

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The UnPopulist @theunpopulist.net · 02/10/2026

We're celebrating our 5th birthday this Wednesday evening in DC. Can you make it? Sign up here or just email (berny @ theunpopulist . net) to RSVP. www.facebook.com/events/14080...

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The UnPopulist @theunpopulist.net · 01/10/2026

"It's been breathtaking to watch Indian Americans like me go from being a model minority to a reviled minority almost overnight." — @shikhadalmia.bsky.social

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The UnPopulist @theunpopulist.net · 01/10/2026

What happens when powerful public figures make open bigotry feel acceptable? @dsallentess.bsky.social on Trump, Musk, and the normalization of racism and antisemitism.

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The UnPopulist @theunpopulist.net · 01/10/2026

In immigration court, the judge and the prosecutor both work for the executive branch, and Trump can fire the judges. Heck of a system, as @radleybalko.bsky.social explains.

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The UnPopulist @theunpopulist.net · 30/09/2026

The image of dominance is not the same as dominance. @jamellebouie.net explains how authoritarian spectacle works—and why puncturing the image matters. From LibCon2026. #LibCon2026

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The UnPopulist @theunpopulist.net · 29/09/2026

America’s promise has always been unfinished work. Revisit the LibCon2026 opening film: historical voices and struggles for freedom, equality, and national renewal. #LibCon2026

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The UnPopulist @theunpopulist.net · 28/09/2026

Populism may persist, but its support is not fixed. Craig and Shull discuss why even strongly attached Trump supporters can change their views about presidential abuses of power. Recorded August 2026.

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The UnPopulist @theunpopulist.net · 27/09/2026

At LibCon2026, Francis Fukuyama argues that federal agencies need room to exercise judgment within the law, with more attention to outcomes and less to procedure.

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The UnPopulist @theunpopulist.net · 26/09/2026

At LibCon2026, Adam Serwer traces the tension between civic virtue and tyranny in American political culture—and asks why some people resist a strongman while others yield.

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The UnPopulist @theunpopulist.net · 25/09/2026

At LibCon2026, Jan-Werner Müller explains how federalism can give democratic opposition an institutional foothold when national power becomes concentrated.

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The UnPopulist @theunpopulist.net · 24/09/2026

At LibCon2026, Adam Serwer argues that people who break the law for an administration must face accountability—and that failing to act invites another attempt.

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The UnPopulist @theunpopulist.net · 23/09/2026

Renée DiResta explains how longstanding anti-vaccine activists used the COVID pandemic to spread distrust beyond individual vaccines to the medical establishment itself.

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The UnPopulist @theunpopulist.net · 23/09/2026

We're officially 5 years old! 🎉 🎂 Here's a toast, in video montage form, from our most recent event: LibCon2026.

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The UnPopulist @theunpopulist.net · 22/09/2026

At LibCon2026, Francis Fukuyama argues that a president who dismisses briefings and expertise risks making major foreign-policy decisions without understanding the consequences.

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The UnPopulist @theunpopulist.net · 21/09/2026

What do two national surveys reveal about populist attitudes among Trump voters? Craig and Shull discuss declining support for presidential rule-breaking, drawing on a June 2026 survey.

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The UnPopulist @theunpopulist.net · 20/09/2026

What would your ballot look like under proportional representation? Lee Drutman (@leedrutman.bsky.social) explains an open-list system that lets voters choose a party or a candidate. #ElectoralReform

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The UnPopulist @theunpopulist.net · 19/09/2026

Age limits for elected federal office. Fixed Supreme Court terms. Guardrails on presidential pardons. This video essay makes the case for three constitutional reforms to strengthen American self-government.

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The UnPopulist @theunpopulist.net · 18/09/2026

What changes when a policy’s loudest supporter experiences its consequences firsthand? Berny Belvedere (@bernybelvedere.bsky.social) on Milo Yiannopoulos, immigration enforcement, and empathy that arrives late.

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The UnPopulist @theunpopulist.net · 17/09/2026

Why has Trump built such strong support among white evangelicals? David French (@davidfrenchjag.bsky.social) explores fundamentalism, certainty, and political loyalty from inside his own religious tradition. From LibCon2026. #LibCon2026

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The UnPopulist @theunpopulist.net · 16/09/2026

What happens when powerful public figures make open bigotry feel acceptable? Danielle Allen on Trump, Musk, and the normalization of racism and antisemitism. From LibCon2026. #LibCon2026

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The UnPopulist @theunpopulist.net · 15/09/2026

The image of dominance is not the same as dominance. Jamelle Bouie explains how authoritarian spectacle works—and why puncturing the image matters. From LibCon2026. #LibCon2026

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The UnPopulist @theunpopulist.net · 14/09/2026

A pardon does not have to be the last word on accountability. David French makes the case for impeachment and disqualification at LibCon2026. #LibCon2026

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The UnPopulist @theunpopulist.net · 11/09/2026

Milo’s trajectory is wild: went from premier alt-right provocateur to feeling deep shame over ever having supported Trump.

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The UnPopulist @theunpopulist.net · 28/07/2026

FDR spoke of "welcome waves of immigration" enriching America with the "blood, culture, [and] traditions of all the races and peoples of the earth." Trump says immigrants are "poisoning the blood of our country." Both presidents reached for the same metaphor and landed in opposite places.

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The UnPopulist @theunpopulist.net · 28/07/2026

7: 👇👇 www.theunpopulist.net/p/court-pack...

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The UnPopulist @theunpopulist.net · 28/07/2026

4: 👇👇 www.theunpopulist.net/p/the-unfort...

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The UnPopulist @theunpopulist.net · 27/07/2026

George W. Bush called immigration "a sign of a confident and successful nation." Donald Trump followed with claims about immigrants "eating the dogs" and "eating the cats." The distance between these two speeches tells you everything about where political leadership on immigration has gone.

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The UnPopulist @theunpopulist.net · 24/07/2026

America's two-party system was engineered by Progressive-era reforms, not ordained by the Founders. Lee Drutman on the fix. www.theunpopulist.net/p/fixing-ame...

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The UnPopulist @theunpopulist.net · 24/07/2026

JFK saw America as a "new world" built by 40 million immigrants and called citizenship a "proud privilege." Trump warns of an "invasion" from "prisons and jails, mental institutions and insane asylums" and promises to seal the border. One vision treats openness as the American project.

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The UnPopulist @theunpopulist.net · 23/07/2026

LBJ: America was "built by a nation of strangers" and flourished from its diversity. Trump: immigrants are "stone cold killers" and "terrorists" destroying the country. This isn't a policy debate. It's a fight over whether pluralism is a strength or a mortal threat.

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The UnPopulist @theunpopulist.net · 22/07/2026

Obama: "Most of us used to be them." Trump: "They're bringing drugs, they're bringing crime, they're rapists." One president sees immigration as the American story. The other treats it as an existential threat. That gap tells you everything about two competing visions of national identity.

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The UnPopulist @theunpopulist.net · 21/07/2026

The clearest command of the Establishment Clause is that no religious denomination can be officially preferred over another. Texas Republicans are violating that command by treating Muslims as a suspect alien class.

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The UnPopulist @theunpopulist.net · 20/07/2026

A year after "Liberation Day," the results are in. Tariffs raised prices on everything, destroyed 89,000 manufacturing jobs, and cost households an estimated $1,500 each. US firms and consumers bore roughly 90% of the burden. Protectionism delivered the opposite of what it promised.

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The UnPopulist @theunpopulist.net · 17/07/2026

William Kristol closes LibCon 2026 by naming the stakes: "an all-of-government assault on liberal democracy" — on election results, the rule of law, civil liberties, and telling the truth about our history. #LibCon2026

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The UnPopulist @theunpopulist.net · 17/07/2026

At LibCon 2026, Ezra Klein argues we "went really off track making freedom fundamentally about consumer choice" — and that a new or very old definition of freedom is where the real political power lies. #LibCon2026

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The UnPopulist @theunpopulist.net · 17/07/2026

Ezra Klein at LibCon 2026 on the trap of institutional success: "First, liberalism captured the institutions, and then the institutions captured liberalism." #LibCon2026

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The UnPopulist @theunpopulist.net · 17/07/2026

Ezra Klein at LibCon 2026: "There's very little blood in modern liberalism. There's a lot of what we don't want." His point—liberalism keeps naming its enemies but rarely offers a vision people can feel. #LibCon2026

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The UnPopulist @theunpopulist.net · 17/07/2026

Devin Pendas (Boston College) at LibCon 2026: "If you have a fair trial in a forest and there's no one there to watch it, did you have a fair trial?" A sharp point about accountability in a media system that reframes every prosecution as persecution. #LibCon2026

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The UnPopulist @theunpopulist.net · 17/07/2026

Manisha Sinha on the price of impunity after the Civil War: had the postwar amendments been enforced and Confederates not pardoned, "we would not in fact have that era of Jim Crow." Reconstruction's unlearned lesson. #LibCon2026

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The UnPopulist @theunpopulist.net · 17/07/2026

At LibCon 2026, historian Manisha Sinha punctures American exceptionalism: the country "has its own authoritarian tradition"—vanquished on the battlefield but able to win the peace, with long periods when democracy and rights were lost. #LibCon2026

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The UnPopulist @theunpopulist.net · 17/07/2026

Radley Balko at LibCon 2026 names the design behind the policy: "cruelty is the point. They want people to suffer because that's a deterrent. And I don't think they should get away with that." #LibCon2026

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The UnPopulist @theunpopulist.net · 17/07/2026

Radley Balko distinguishes lying meant to cover something up from lying that dares you to object: "we're going to lie to you, and you know we're going to lie to you, and there's nothing you can do about it." He finds it terrifying. #LibCon2026

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The UnPopulist @theunpopulist.net · 17/07/2026

Kristie De Peña names the problem with today's immigration enforcement: it's "committed to optics as opposed to credibility." And, she warns, we're seeing it "play out every day." #LibCon2026

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