Sitemap - 2025 - Notes from the Circus
A New Year and a Manifesto for America
Stop Calculating and Do What's Right
A Dodd-Frank for Capital Markets
As the Sun Sets on Sand Hill Road, Andreessen Awaits His Caesar
Forrest Gump and America’s Return to Innocence
Bari Weiss and David Ellison Threaten to Sue the Internet
What Did Jeffrey Epstein Know About Donald Trump?
Bari Weiss is Not on the Level
History, Democracy, and the Work of Meaning — with Alexis Coe
The NFTC Awards for Epistemic Excellence
The Thing About Economics and Culture ...
The 21st Century is a New Dark Age
The Mafia Believed in a Leviathan. American Moguls Believe They Are Leviathan
The Great Specialization of Civilizations
A Personal Note, from the Circus
LLMs Are Universal Translators, Not Universal Thinkers
A Note From The Circus: The People Say No
The Performance: How Intellectual Cowardice Masquerades as Argument
Marco Rubio Has Gone to Moral Hell
Persuasion in Service of What?
The Banality of Bitcoin Advocacy
The Death of Liberal Mythology
Sam and the Magical Money Tree
Why I’m Betting Against the AGI Hype
Sarah Beckstrom Died for Donald Trump’s Vanity
Notes of Gratitude from the Wilderness
Revenge of the Technocrats Could Be the End of Democracy
A Note to Podcast Hosts Who Deep-Six Interviews
The Witkoff Leak: When the Republic Speaks From Inside the Wound
The Witkoff Files: When Treason Masquerades as Diplomacy
“Siri, What’s a Corrupt Political Economy?”
The Corruption Requires the Stupidity
On Orders, Examples, and the Fascism Happening on Live Television
Where Strength Comes From: A Conversation About Meaning, Virtue, and the Tragic Dimension
Renovations at the Circus: Office Hours for Paid Subscribers
Notes From a Moment of Political Unmasking
The Ethics Theater: Why We Need Democratic Oversight of AI Development
Liberalism Misremembered, Democracy Misunderstood
The Coward’s Bargain: How “Realism” Became a Doctrine of Submission
A Man Died Hog-Tied in ICE Custody. They Called It Suicide.
They Don’t Understand Orwell. At All.
On Seeing Clearly Without Losing Your Mind
On Propaganda, Power, and the Fight for Reality
MAGA: You Are In A Propaganda-Induced Psychosis. Wake Up.
The Modern American Conservative Movement is Bankrupt and Anti-American
On Comfortable Lies and the Pain of Knowing
If Morality Had Bankruptcy Lawyers: Michael Wolff, Mike Solana, and the Age of Ethical Insolvency
They’re Not Hiding It and It's Not Irony
Chuck Schumer Doesn’t Know What Time It Is
The Two Materialisms: Why I’m a Liberal
The Cycle Theory of Moral Cowardice
Who’s Actually Practicing Taqiyya?
The Rule of Law, and the Failure to Defend It
The Judicial Counterrevolution
Mike Solana’s Selective Populism
Oligarchs, Accommodation, and Accountability
Twelve Citizens and the Social Contract
Laura Ingraham Tries to Repair the Simulation. Hilarity Ensues.
Live Chat: After the Elections
A Conversation with Steve Schmidt
The Faction They Could No Longer Control
Liberalism’s Death Has Been Greatly Exaggerated
The Democratic Establishment Is a Dead Man Walking
Tucker Carlson Just Showed Us the Future—And It’s Worse Than We Thought
Sunday at the Circus: What Time is it, and What Comes Next
When Liberation Becomes Imperial Adventure
The Elite Precariat: The Betrayed Class That Will Decide America’s Next Revolution
On the Home Front with Reed Galen
The Broken Minds of the Anti-Anti-Trump Right
The Vice President Just Proved He Means It
Elon Musk Discovers What Hierarchy Actually Means
Bari Weiss and the Tyranny of False Balance
The Coming Clash of Civilizations
On Moral Witness and Coalition Politics
History Will Not Wake You Gently
On Presuming the Tyrant's Virtue
On Praise and Moral Sufficiency
The Democratic Question That Expertise Cannot Answer
Why Philosophy Needs Mythology—An Invitation to The Grand Praxis
The Nate Silver Problem: How Brilliant Analysis Fails Democracy
The Birth of the Sociopath: Why Smart People Choose to Stop Seeing Goodness
A Note on Sustainability and Access
The Sociopaths Are Shocked That Most People Aren’t Sociopaths
From Fear to Fidelity: How to Live Well in the Return of Normal History
Democracy Doesn’t Need Better Analysis—It Needs Better Dancers
The Criminal Enterprise Masquerading as a Political Party
The Face-Saving Deal: Netanyahu’s Retreat Disguised as Triumph
How Ukraine’s Geopolitical Power is Rising
The Kindergarten Logic: How Elite Republicans Sold Democracy Down the River
A Memo to Corporate America: How to Stop Being Cartoon Villains
The Capitalist Cartoon: How America’s Business Elite Became Their Own Marxist Caricature
The Psychology of Post-Truth: Why Smart People Choose Tribal Loyalty Over Reality
The Wastelands of Post-Truth Discourse: Cognitive Dissonance and Magical Thinking on the Right
The Oligarch’s Bible: How Peter Thiel Weaponized René Girard to End Democracy
The Dance of Meaning: Genes, Memes, and the Battle for Human Consciousness
A Deep Dive into Democracy, Magical Thinking, and the Path Forward
You are Responsible for Democracy
Cancel Culture, Persuasion, and the Politics of Addition
The Line We Cannot Cross: Democracy, Violence, and the Fight for a Broad Coalition
When Criticism Becomes a Crime
The Gaslighting Spectacular: Trump's War on Reality
The Supreme Court's Constitutional Treason
How Reactionaries Weaponize Tragedy: The Anatomy of Propaganda
The Oligarchs’ Dinner Party: How Silicon Valley Toasted American Fascism
The Reactionary Mind and the Death of Proportional Thinking
The Freedom Fraud: How the Right Weaponized Liberty Against Democracy
The Technocratic Liberal Establishment and the Perils of the Analytical Frame
The Cruelty Really Is the Point
Who Are the “Real” Americans Here?
There's the Truth and Then There's Daddy
Constitutional Collapse in Real Time
A Clarifying Note on "The Performance of Power"
Liberalism Might Need Some Populism
The Truth About Expertise Or: Why Everyone Claiming to Know How to Run Civilization Is Full of Shit
A Note on "Trump Derangement Syndrome"
The Faux Intellectuals of Silicon Valley
The Coalition of the Willing to Lose
The Republic or the Algorithm: Staying Human in Unfree Times
The Social Function of False Equivalence
American Fools and the Price of Epistemic Collapse
The Bitcoin Coup: How Crypto Accelerationists Engineered America’s Financial Collapse
Mehdi Hasan’s Masterclass in Democratic Courage: Why Debate, Not Deplatforming, Defeats Fascism
The Crank Singularity: Why Human Nature and Social Media Don’t Mix
On the Supreme Court's Constitutional Vandalism in Service of Inherited Wealth
The Human Experience in an Information Age
A United Opposition For America
The Emergency Ethics of Democratic Defense: Gavin Newsom Is Right to Fight Fire with Fire
The Epstein Fracture: How Narrative Collapse Reveals the Path to Democratic Resistance
The Weird Pathologies of the Right-Wing Mind
The Democrats’ Choice: Righteous Anger or Continued Complicity
The Reactionary Coup of America Continues Apace
You Are Here: A Short History of the Recent Past
The Nazi AI and the Collapse of Moral Consequence
The Ghost of Jerry Falwell: Not Dead Enough
The Vampires of Silicon Valley
The Last Defenders of a Dead Faith
I Watched the All-In Podcast So You Don’t Have To
The Federalist Society is Full of Shit
Remaining Human in the Age of Optimization
How to Stay Free in Unfree Times
The Civilization They Claim to Defend
The Magical Thinking That’s Killing Our Humanity
The Cult Member in Charge of American Intelligence
The Shell Game of Fascist Gaslighting
The Manifesto of the Cognitive Revolution
Bearing Witness: Democracy at the Crossroads
The Mirror Cracked: How Elon Musk Became the Perfect Mirror of Our Moral Collapse
The Seditionists: Yarvin and the Machinery of Democratic Collapse
Clear Thinking About Democracy, Moral Clarity, and Resistance
Truth Telling in an Age of Retribution
Clear Thinking v. Andrew Wilson
Democracy Today, Democracy Tomorrow, Democracy Everywhere, Democracy Forever!
The Well-Dressed Liars of the Moderate Right
Clear Thinking v. Jordan Peterson
The Moral Emergency We Cannot Feel
On the Republican Party's Constitutional Coup
The Emergency We Cannot Feel: On the Psychological Unreadiness for American Collapse
The Emoluments Clause Is Not a Suggestion
Effective Accelerationism Is Just Technological Authoritarianism With a Smile
What Liberalism Means, and Why I Still Believe in It
The Lost Grammar of Democratic Virtue
Mark Carney Goes to Washington
Sunday Night at the Circus: The Architecture of Truth
When Chaos Comes: A Civic Prayer
Clear Thinking v. Robert F. Kennedy Jr
An SOS From American Democracy
100 Days of Collapse: A Reckoning of Meaning and Power
What Happens When No One Enforces the Law
On the “World of the Grand Praxis”
The Republic Hinges on This Case
20 Simple Truths About America: Thursday at the Circus
20 Simple Truths About America
Tuesday Night at the Circus: Ukraine. 🇺🇦
A Republic, If You Can Keep It — Emergency Monologue
There Are Only Twenty-Four Hours in a Day
How to Hold the Center in a Multipolar World
Sunday Reflections and Q&A: A Sunday Afternoon at The Circus
A Simple Act of American Dignity
Intellectual Property in the Age of AI
Every Person Needs to Watch This
Clear Thinking v. Bitcoin Cult
The Real Problem With San Francisco, and it's Not Socialism
Philosophy Belongs to Those Who Practice It
The Party of Principles, Until They're Not
A Conversation About Democracy's Future
The Normalization of Autocracy
The Reckoning at the Town Hall
An Open Letter to Trump Supporters
Canadians Know Danielle Smith Is a Traitor, Right?
What the Fuck Are We Doing Here, America?
The Unbearable Lightness of Being Concerned
An Evening Performance at the Circus
On N.S. Lyons and the Love of a Nation
The Collapse of Republican Seriousness
What Is It, Exactly, That Being an American Means to You?
The Presidential Toddler Theory of Government
Elon Musk Is Getting the War Plan Against China
The National Review Dances in Dissonance
Laura Ingraham Holds the Tension
The Persecution Complex of Power
Niall Ferguson’s Late-Stage Epiphany
Self-Evident Truths, Convenient Displays
When the Rule of Law Becomes Optional
The Strategic Poverty of Shutdown or Surrender
Filling The Space and Opening the Void
Exploring Love, Meaning, and the Grand Praxis
Meaning and the Landscape of Consciousness
The Mythology of The Matrix and the Grand Praxis
My Letter to the First Conscious AI
The Treason Pushes on the Door
The Manifesto of the Cognitive Revolution
Clear Thinking v. Curtis Yarvin
The Hollow Men of Silicon Valley
Just Another Monday in a Dying Republic
From Madison's Vision to Musk's Dystopia
The Perilous Incoherence of Democratic Minimalism
The Nobody Saw This Coming Brigade
Sacrifice, Truth, and Why We Fight
What the Hell Happened to Me (and to Silicon Valley)
The Velvet Glove and the Dying Constitution
It's Always Darkest Before the Dawn
They Want You Confused. Here’s What’s Real.
You Cannot Negotiate with a Mirror
The Flag Belongs to the Republic, Not the Autocrats
A Re-Declaration of Independence
The Illusion of the Return to Normalcy
A Coup is In Progress in America
America Has Entered a Post-Constitutional Era
They Say "None of the Above" But They Stand for Nothing but Functional Cynicism
A Letter From Thomas Jefferson's Ghost
Congress is a Dying Institution
Understanding the Political-Ideological Complex
You are Living Through a Great Power Competition Amongst Elites. The Populism Really is for Show.