How Persuasion Will Cover the Trump Presidency
A set of guiding principles for what we hope to offer you over the next four years.
For the next four years, Donald Trump will be the most powerful man on earth. The implications for everything from domestic politics to international affairs are immense. But even as I pondered the consequences of Trump’s victory over the course of the past week, I also spent many hours thinking about an admittedly more parochial matter: how Persuasion can rise to this historical moment.
Persuasion was founded in July 2020 to fight for philosophically liberal values: for free speech and free inquiry, for due process and the rule of law. Over the past decade, these values have come under serious attack from right-wing populists and left-wing identitarians, from terrorists and from dictators. Faced with these attacks, our mission has been to defend, to reinvent and to rejuvenate our political tradition—the philosophically liberal tradition that, for all of its purported failings, has done enormous good for the world.
What does it mean to serve this mission in the years to come?
Our approach is likely to evolve over time. But here are three preliminary principles about how we should proceed which our team adopted at a recent editorial meeting:
Focus on Important Changes, Not Ephemeral Fights
Much of the media is inevitably going to obsess over Trump for the next four years. This will hopefully include serious investigative work into the actions of his administration and incisive critiques of its missteps. But if his first stint in office is any indication, it will also include hyperventilating condemnations of stray remarks, misleading accounts of what he is actually doing, and even accusations that turn out to be baseless.
At Persuasion, we plan to focus on what matters. We will sidestep the daily drama that is likely to engulf us in years to come. Don’t expect us to weigh in on every irresponsible tweet Trump sends. But if and when his actions violate the principles of philosophical liberalism or the democratic norms that guarantee the enduring enjoyment of our rights in a significant way, we will be the first to hold him to account, explaining to our readers why what he is doing constitutes a threat. (We have done this already with a number of pieces exploring the policy implications and philosophical underpinnings of Trump’s agenda.)
Being an honest broker also means being forthright when the administration gets something right. There are good reasons for philosophical liberals to worry about the administration’s plans, which are for example likely to include a concerted effort to weaken or bypass limits on presidential power. But I would love to be proven wrong. And there may well be some areas, such as a more robust opposition to formal and informal forms of censorship, in which the White House could pursue actions that restore the strength of key civil liberties. If it does, we will say so.
Rejuvenate the Liberal Tradition
The outcome of last Tuesday’s election is not owed to the popularity of Donald Trump; it is owed to the unpopularity of the alternatives.
The United States, like much of the rest of the democratic world, is now suffering from a deep crisis of trust. Most people simply do not believe that their institutions share their values or are effective at delivering for them.
A big part of the reason for this distrust is that institutions have ceased being guided by the principles of philosophical liberalism. To name but one obvious example, the rise of identitarian ideas and practices that are deeply—and often explicitly—opposed to liberal universalism helps to explain why most Americans no longer trust the country’s universities.
But when I said, on the night of the election, that it is time for us to look in the mirror, I did not just mean the progressives who have abandoned liberal principles; I also had in mind those of us liberals who have been too complacent about our failure to deliver on our promises and principles.
Writers who blame liberalism for everything that is wrong in the world while forgetting that these ideals also stand at the root of our society’s greatest achievements are playing an intellectually shoddy game of three-card monte. But if we are to make sure that liberalism triumphs over the course of the 21st century, we need to get serious about the job of rejuvenating this tradition.
Over the last year, we have begun the work of this rejuvenation with wonderful essays by the likes of Jonathan Rauch, Teresa Bejan, Joseph Heath, William Galston, and Emily Chamlee-Wright. For the next four years, we will double down on that effort, asking how liberalism can offer a more inspiring vision of the future, and earn back the support it appears to have squandered. And in partnership with American Purpose and Francis Fukuyama, we will also keep our eyes on the international fight for liberal values and liberal democracy.
Keep Swimming Against the Stream
When Persuasion was founded, many things that have now come to be widely understood could not be said in polite company. Mainstream publications would not admit that the ideas of Robin DiAngelo and Ibram X. Kendi were incendiary and incoherent. They would not acknowledge that destransitioners like Keira Bell exist. They would not entertain the possibility that Covid originated in a lab leak. They were in denial about the extent to which minority groups were shifting towards the Republican Party. Most of all, they did not want to grapple with the fact that the left’s embrace of identitarian ideas was paving the way for Trump to roar back into power.
Even when it does not directly touch on these long-held taboos, the framing of too much reporting in supposedly reputable publications now seems to follow the question of cui bono? (who benefits?) A spirit of faction has, too often, substituted for the principles of intellectual curiosity and professional skepticism. And all of that helps to explain why trust in the media has plummeted so far so deep.
Here at Persuasion, we have always prided ourselves in saying what we believe to be true and important, irrespective of who might somehow benefit. I am proud that we were among a small band of misfits who informed our readers about inconvenient facts and unpopular truths at a time when so many bigger and better-resourced outlets failed to do so. And I am also proud that, unlike some writers and publications in the heterodox space, we have been able to criticize the illiberal excesses on the left without in any way throwing in our lot with the enemies of liberalism on the right. It may be unseemly to say “I told you so.” But we did. And we will keep right on doing so.
Over the next four years, we will keep fighting for a lively, free-speaking, multiphonic culture that can actually serve as the basis for a thriving diverse democracy. We will criticize the left if it tries to rerun the #resistance playbook that has failed to build a durable majority over the past decade. And we will try to build the intellectual foundations for a better, saner, more inspiring politics, hoping that somebody turns it into a winning vision in 2028 or 2032.
When I first moved to the United States, less than two decades ago, philosophical liberals were the establishment. We had critics to our right and to our left. But our ideas and practices dominated mainstream institutions.
That is no longer the case. Critics of liberalism now hold unprecedented power. The post-liberals of the right will dominate the new Congress and the new White House. Meanwhile, the post-liberals of the left remain deeply entrenched in schools, universities, and corporate HR departments.
The temptation is to sit around and lament that fact. But it’s high time to get over our injured pride. For too long, liberals have been the staid and sensible defenders of the status quo. But we no longer constitute the establishment or control the status quo. So let’s embrace the virtue of being outsiders. Let’s argue for our ideas with wit and creativity, with joyous verve and a spirit of irreverence.
One last thing: To keep Persuasion on the road, we need your support. We are a non-profit community with a small but dedicated staff that needs to eat and pay rent. We pay our writers and have plans for producing even more ambitious content. So please consider becoming a paying subscriber or making a donation today. Your support means the world to us.
And to my friends in the world of pro-democracy philanthropy: I hope you grapple with the extent of our collective failure over the past decade. Last Tuesday has once again shown that the old playbook does not work. The best way to beat authoritarian populists is at the ballot box. And if the opponents of authoritarian populists remain bereft of fresh ideas, no amount of funding for presidential campaigns or for grassroots organizations falsely claiming to speak on behalf of amorphous demographic groups is going to help them accomplish that feat. So please consider providing us and other 501(c)(3) organizations that are committed to rejuvenating the liberal tradition with the funding we need to thrive and expand.
Thank you for reading. Today. For the past four years. And for the next four years.
Yascha
Follow Persuasion on Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube to keep up with our latest articles, podcasts, and events, as well as updates from excellent writers across our network.
And, to receive pieces like this in your inbox and support our work, subscribe below:
Persuasion is already good at Focusing on Important Changes, Not Ephemeral Fights, and at calling out violations of the principles of philosophical liberalism.
But I joined in July 2020 because of the promise to develop a fighting community based on persuasion. It seemed to start out toward that. But the community part atrophied, and “persuasion” itself was almost never discussed.
Persuasion is hard, extremely hard. We have not learned how to do it, because we don’t discuss it and we don’t test our theories. Instead we talk philosophy—that’s good. But it doesn’t do much good if we don’t learn how to persuade.
Most people think very concretely (even I do and my background is math, theoretical physics and economics). We don’t easily apply philosophy. Rather our philosophy is more likely to grow out of understanding reality, concretely.
We do need to think abstractly a bit — what exactly actually changes minds? — we had best frequently anchor that to empirical observation and experiments trying to persuade friends who are easy targets because they half agree with us. That’s still hard.
Just to illustrate my point (I’ve not yet made too much real progress) the best technique I know is to tell someone a simple, fairly shocking fact that can be well documented from sources they trust. If I can get that across then draw a one-step conclusion to a generalization of it.
In my own life I’ve been deceived many times by far left sources, and every time that I’ve escaped it’s been because I finally found clear facts from trusted sources. It was never due to some philosophical insight.
The only way for us to fight and to learn how to fight, using persuasion, is to work together more collectively. Yascha, you are the perfect person to make that happen. We trust you and trust is the bedrock of community. Please think about this and return to your July 2020 roots.
PS Here's the frightening history that lies behind the Identity Trap and Trump: https://yaschamounk.substack.com/p/help-me-understand-why-trump-won/comment/76518178
"The outcome of last Tuesday’s election is not owed to the popularity of Donald Trump; it is owed to the unpopularity of the alternatives."
This is a distinction without meaning given that the presidential election always comes down to two choices. I would argue that the election results are clear that Trump was the popular choice. I don't know what data you are relying on to back this claim that he was unpopular. He could fill arenas with supporters, and Biden and Harris had to hide in the root cellar and basement due to the embarrassment of their turn outs.
I think a better way to frame this is that Democrat sucked so much that it created a massive popular uprising of hope for change, and Trump was offering the hope for change.
If Democrats want to win, they just need to stop sucking so much.