Offline with Jon Favreau - JD Vance and the Post-Liberal Right's War on America

Episode Date: September 4, 2025

As the U.S. slides into autocracy, Americans need to be reminded that liberalism can still solve the problems that Trump uses to fear monger. Jerusalem Demsas, founder and editor in chief of “The Argument,” joins Offline to explain what solutions for immigration and the economy would look like, her beef with the post-liberal left, and why she’s staying on Twitter...and maybe you should too. Plus, what she’s seeing on the ground at the National Conservatism Conference in Washington, DC—aka the place JD Vance gets his crazy blood and soil ideas.For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast.

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got some shorts, got a duffel bag. Actually, I'm going to go on and try to get some of these sweaters for the fall. Got to get them fall sweaters. I mean, right now it's like 90 degrees, so probably not right now. But soon, soon. Might as well start buying them now before they're all sold out. So keep it classic and cool this fall with long-lasting staples from Quince. Go to quince.com slash offline for free shipping on your order in 365-day returns. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E.com slash offline. Free shipping in 365-day returns, quince.com slash offline. There's this feeling that Elon Musk's ownership of Twitter makes it impossible to have

any kind of persuasive effect. And, like, I'll just say this. Like, I run into people all the time who, like, saw a tweet of mine, of someone else's, and they were like, oh, did you see this thing? Like, yes, it is not going to get you viral in the same way that some of this, like, kind of Nazi content goes viral. That's true. But I think that that's true in all spaces where you're the minority, right? Like, it's not the case that if you were like the ideological minority in the 1950s and like the New York Times editorial page was like still platforming like open segregationists or whatever, like that it was an even playing field for activists. Like you know what I mean? Like it's not an even playing field anywhere where there are people and eyeballs when you're losing. And so I think to me that that heuristic is is really, really harmful. Hey, everyone. I'm John Favro, and you just heard from the editor of the argument, Jerusalem Demsus.

The argument is a brand new publication that Jerusalem founded. Their mission is to make a positive, combative case for liberalism through rigorous, persuasive journalism. I wanted to talk to Jerusalem because she is currently attending and reporting from the National Conservatism Conference in Washington, D.C. we talk about what that is, but for those who don't know, you've probably heard of turning points USA, you've probably heard of CPAC. The National Conservatism Conference, this is like J.D. Vance's people. This is where he gets most of his crazy ideas from. And you have heard me talk on this podcast and others about J.D. Vance's speech at the Claremont Institute, where he says that being an American is not necessarily about agreeing with the principles, the Declaration of Independence, but it's more about who your ancestors are. So that,

kind of thinking is what you get the National Conservatism Conference. There's many senators, thinkers on the right, and the post-liberal right, others there. Jerusalem is there. We had a fantastic conversation about some of the speakers there, some of the thinking that is now dominating a lot of the MAGA movement, and certainly in the figure of J.D. Vance, who is the frontrunner for the nomination in 2028. So we talked about that. We also talked about the argument, her new publication and liberalism, small L liberalism, and the case she's trying to make why she started the argument. We talked a lot about the post-liberal right, which is represented at the National Conservatism Conference, but we also talked about the post-liberal left and her beef

with the post-liberal left and what she's trying to do to have that discussion as well. So fantastic a discussion. Could have gone on for hours, but I needed to let her get back to the conference so she could report more on it. You can check out the argument on substack. And here is Jerusalem, Demsus. Jerusalem, welcome to offline. Thanks for having me. I want to talk to you about your excellent new publication, the argument where you guys are all living out. A phrase I understand you're trying to trademark, which I love. I actually invented it. No one had ever said that before. And then I said it. And then the trademark company called me. There's actually a company. And they just like, whoa, we got to do it. Hello. We're calling from the trademark

company. We're calling. And yeah, no, it's actually so funny. The crazy thing about starting a small business and you just like learn all these crazy things that you have to do behind the scenes, which I'm sure you figured this stuff out. But I was just like shocked. I was like, shocked at all the stuff you had to do. But yeah, we are currently in the midst of trying to trademark living out. That's great. Thank you. It takes eight months for the patent office to get back to you. So I'll come back on the show in like January and let you know. One of the things that we learned at the beginning is we had a law firm that was still like up in Silicon Valley, even though we're down here in Los Angeles. And so we started handing out contracts to our first hosts. And one of them

let us know that she's like, I think I signed this contract and it says that I owe you DNA samples. Like you own my DNA samples because it was like a tech startup draft of a contract that no one had changed. And I was like, we do not want your DNA. Do not worry about that. We do not. That is not something. I actually think that it's so funny because like you're like, oh, I have this lawyer. I guess they do lawyer things and they send contract out. And they're like, you have to like read these contracts. I don't, I'm without betraying confidence. I send someone a contract. And they were like, hey, like, this one says something about how, like, if I take time off over the holidays, you're going to murder my children? And I'm like, yeah, like, absolutely not.

Like, you're very sorry. You got to redline those contracts. Otherwise, you know, Taylor Lorenz is reporting on them and wired. And then you're off to the races. Okay. So before we get to the argument, which I do want to talk about, I'd like to live out hard with you over the National Conservatism Conference in D.C., which you are currently doing the Lord's work by a time. attending so you can report back to the rest of us. First, for those who may be familiar with events like CPAC and Turning Points USA, but maybe not the National Conservatism Conference or

Netcom, as I guess it's called, that's what the cool kids call it. NACON. Okay, yeah, what's the difference? What is national conservatism? So national conservatism, wow, this is like a 50,000 page dissertation I'm going to write for you. So basically national conservatism, I mean, I think people are most familiar with the most prominent adherence, people like J.D. Vance is someone who's probably the most popularly known person who adheres to many of these principles. He has recently said that he considers himself a part of the post-liberal right. But people who maybe are less well-known popularly, but who are better known among like academia, are people like Adrian Vermeul who's a Harvard law professor or Patrick Deneen who's written books about post-liberalism.

And the National Conservatives Movement is really defined by a couple things, which I'm seeing in my reporting while I'm there, which is, one, they're very, very upset about immigration. And they're upset about immigration, not in just sort of like a, hey, like me, afford to house all these people. Like, how would we make this work? Like, you know, many people noticed there were issues with how the immigration policies under Joe Biden ended up creating some problems in locally. But that's different than what they're talking about, which is very much a redefinition of what it means to be an American away from people who were, you know, coming here, seeking a better life, which is the vast majority of us and our parents and our grandparents. And so,

National conservatism really is focused on this redefinition of American. It's focused on an anti-ending mass immigration. It's focused on a return to like cultural conservative ideas around gender. There's a lot of talk about, you know, trans policies, whether not just around sports, but just really like whether or not people should be even allowed to engage in in this kind of gender expression that people that they find anathema to the basics of what they keep referring to as the Judeo-Christian values of this country is built on. And so, I mean, a lot of this can sound like, oh, isn't this kind of like really just like 1950s conservatism?

Like we're just going back to like an older form. And it's partly that. But even people who are doing, you know, like social conservatives often don't reject that the founders or this founding myth of this country. included a more inclusive version of what it could mean to be an American citizen. Like, yeah, a lot of them are racist. A lot of them are misogynist. That's definitely true. But they also had a more expensive view. Like, okay, like, yeah, like the reason why you were able to persuade many of those people to be more open to immigrants or more open to different ways

of living is they had kind of fundamental, like, small liberal commitments to like, okay, you can be an American even if like Alexander Hamilton, you weren't born here. Or you can be an American even if, like, you know, you're not white or whatever it is. And you can tell this, like, strain running through the conference is just very, very reactionary against any of that. And to be honest, it just feels like very, like, old world style stuff that's not very common in America. Yeah, it's – I became familiar with this around, like, J.D. Vance's rise and, of course, and some of his, you know, mentors, I guess, like Patrick Dean and and Peter Thiel and this whole crowd. And it's interesting because what you just said about the founding, It's like, you know, there's a version of the American story where we have these ideals

and the story of America is people trying to live up to these ideals, often failing, but at least the ideals of the founding are the North Star that allows us to sort of move forward and progress. And there's a difference between saying, okay, well, these are ideals, but in practice, you're not abiding by these ideals and saying, these actually aren't our ideas. deals anymore. And it seems like that's what they're saying right now. Exactly. And I think it really can't even be like under-emphasized just how important that contradiction and exploiting that contradiction has been for for liberals and activists throughout American history. I mean,

there's something called a Jeremiah ad, which is like a speech. It comes from the book of Jeremiah. But, you know, the most famous American one is the city on a hill where you are actively, like the speakers are trying to point out this like fundamental contradiction and then push people towards resolving that contradiction towards uh uh in a liberal fashion but like i mean not everyone but many people are trying to do that um i am trying to do that um in a liberal fashion and and the thing that happens though when you point out contradictions that people can resolve them the other way too they can go like oh oh is that what our ideals mean then we're just not actually going to have that anymore. And I think that to me, like, that's really the fundamental axis right now that American

politics is, is on, is like this question of do we have these shared ideals and then, you know, differences of opinion about how to fulfill those ideals, difference of opinion about, you know, it's maybe empirical questions about how you design policy. Or are we having like this even more, like, fundamental debate about who gets to be an American? How do we decide that? How do we even engage with other people's like humanity? Do we start at this question of, you know, where were your grandparents buried? Is that how we start our questions about who matters? And I mean, to me, this is something that even conservatives of, you know, the 70s, 80s, like they were not talking, they were not talking like this in, you know, the vice presidential level of our politics. And now it's

something that, you know, I've talked about this recently with another journalist friend. I mean, this is something that J.D. Vance was talking about now at his Claremont speech most recently, where he was very explicit, I think, in talking about what it means. to be an American away from people like me who were not born here. I think we should start a club of people who are obsessed with the Claremont speech. Because I've now talked about it with so many guests. I had like a whole offline episode with this where I talked to with Ben Rhodes about it. I've talked to Ezra about it because I know he has talked about it in his podcast.

I'm about it now. And it's not just J.D. Vance. Like I got mad online last night before bed, which is of course. Something new and different for you. Yeah, which is the best. It's the best time to get mad online right before bed. right then you sleep well um and over a speech and i wonder if you heard this being there from uh missouri senator eric smit um and a clip of which is now his pin tweet uh which says quote

our ancestors would be astonished to learn that they were fighting for a quote proposition they believed they were forging a nation a homeland for themselves and their descendants america belongs to us and only us if we disappear then america too will cease to exist And this is, of course, similar to J.D. Vance's speech where he, you know, basically shits on the Declaration of Independence. And it's like, that's just, that's both over-inclusive and under-inclusive. Over-inclusive in that, basically, if you're just someone anywhere in the world and you say you believe in the Declaration of Independence, then you suddenly get to be an American and under-inclusive because if you fought on the wrong side of the Civil War and didn't

believe in the Declaration of Independence, you should still be American. You should still have a claim to America. I don't know. I kind of think, I think that this is the central fight that we need to have right now. And I'm trying to figure out how to, because it can feel academic and theoretical and like we're talking about philosophy and history. But I think it's very real. And so far I haven't heard too many Democratic politicians or anyone, you know, who's not enamored with national conservatism, really make the counter argument in a compelling way. but I don't know what you think about that. Yeah, I mean, it's funny because, I mean, part of when I started the argument was this, like,

kind of commitment that, you know, nobody needs more academics spending, like, I don't know, two hours of their time lecturing them about liberal democracy. And like, you're right, clean hit, you're right, liberal democracy matters. And you're, you're correct. And, you know, I read the stuff and I'm scribbling away my notes too. But also just like, it's clearly not how most people, I think honestly, probably almost everyone and doesn't really think through their politics in like that kind of methodical way. The way that they think through their politics, I think largely has to do with their issues that

matter to them. And then they are presented with options of people who have responses to those issues. So I'm concerned about cost of living. I'm concerned about housing costs going on. I'm concerned about inflation or I'm concerned about immigration for whatever reason. And then candidates pop up that give me an answer, either speaking directly with policies to like what they're going to do, like mass deportations is an answer to some of that or, you know, other answers are that you could actually not put it on New York City to house every single migrant that Greg Abbott puts their way. Like, there are many different answers to these questions. And then people develop their politics from that. So I don't think that, and I think this is kind of a, I mean, I think it's kind of an optimistic view of voters in some ways because I think a lot of people look at Trump's reelection as just there's a mass appetite for fascism. And I think I look at that reelection and I think people were upset about high prices, even way more than immigration. If you look at polling, it's like high prices are way above that. And he has had a compelling answer to them. And was I compelled by that answer? No, I was not very compelled by it. But do I find it like reasonable that someone who looked at four years of high inflation

under the Democratic Party and then looks at places where Democrats run politics? And they say, hey, like, seems more expensive to live in New York City and in San Francisco and in Los Angeles and like make some sort of rational determination that like the person more focused on low prices is not the Democrat. I think that's not crazy. And so then the question is if we're trying to fight this liberal trend that's happening on the right, how do you make the case that the things that people care about are best answered under a liberal paradigm? And I think you do that by actually responding to their questions because I think liberals are actually right. Look at what Trump and post-liberalism has actually done for prices. I mean, he's enacted this tariff regime that's

absolutely terrible for people's bottom line. He's not actually addressing housing prices or housing. I mean, like, eventually if we get into recession, I do think that does reduce housing costs. So just going to put that caveat in there that that will be, I guess, a success for the Trump administration if that happens. But I mean, I think to me, it's like actually addressing the things people care about and then associating those things with the overarching liberal paradigm that we're in favor of is really what you do. Because especially when it comes to immigration, there is not an actual answer that a single conservative, a single anti-liberal person has ever been able to give me for how you deal with our demographic issues, how you deal with our economic growth needs

without having more immigration. Like, who's going to build the housing? Who is going to pay taxes in order to make sure Social Security stays solvent? These are, like, immediate questions. More babies. Everyone's going to have to have more babies. The right people are going to have more babies. I mean, like, I'm joking, but that seems like where their answer might be headed.

I don't know. But even that answer is insufficient, right? Because, okay, in 18 years, then you'll have like, so right now you convince me to pop out like five kids. Like, I'm just going to quit my job. I'm going to have a bunch of kids. And then, like, 18 years from now, they're taxpayers. I mean, like, I just don't even see what the link is there. I know, I know. Offline is brought to you by Civitech. So, everyone's pissed off about all the gerrymandering. We have a redistricting war right now. Republicans started it. Gavin Newsom's trying to fight back.

But wherever everything ends up, we're still going to have to vote. in the midterms. That's like the most important thing. Forget the maps. The maps are the maps. We're going to have to go vote. And especially if the maps are unfavorable towards us, even more people are going to have to vote. And the number one rule is that you can't vote if you aren't registered. That's where Civitech comes in. Civitex voter registration solutions are built for democratic and progressive campaigns, organizations, and motivated individuals who are sick of playing defense. We're talking about smart targeting, slick creatives, and strategic follow-ups to break down barriers for voters. For as little as $2, you can contribute to voter

registration programs in your community directly or in much-needed regions nationwide. And if you guys saw that we talked about on the pod, that New York Times story, Democrats have been trailing on voter registration, lost a bunch of voters, a couple million between 2020 and 2024. So far, haven't turned that around. Not great. It is super important to go out and register Democratic voters to support progressive candidates. Go to Civitec.com.io slash office. That's C-I-V-I-T-E-C-H-I-O-S-O-L-L-L-L-Line to start contributing to your community's future. I mean, how much of it is about this idea of it is okay for other people to come here, but they must assimilate to our culture. And this is like a J-D. Vance thing.

You know, just, I mean, it started with Zelensky, but he's doing it all the time now, which is like, he did it with Mamdani, too, right? said in the Claremont speeches, and they're not grateful. You should be grateful. You should be grateful and thank us for this, right? And it almost feels like that his vision of this is, okay, I don't, I want less immigration. Some immigration is fine. But if you are going to be an immigrant here and you aren't part of the dominant culture whose ancestors are, he's very obsessed with, you know, all of his ancestors buried in Kentucky, right? If you don't have nine generations of ancestors buried in Kentucky, then you better be grateful and you better submit to a all the rest of us as as not maybe second class citizens but kind of i mean i'm trying to figure out

like what the theory is there because jd vance of course also is married to someone whose family is not from here yes i mean i i can't get into what is i'm sure a very bizarre and interesting marriage but i don't know i don't really get it but that's not my dog in the fight but i do think that like the thing that you're getting at here they're all like please say thank you please thank us and i think that like taking a step back here like I don't know if anyone's ever been to a naturalization ceremony. So I was naturalized when I was in eighth grade. Sorry, ninth grade, but I was a minor, obviously. So my father just automatically gets it through us. And I just remember the night before, like, I personally am so excited about it.

I'm like, my dad, who's like the smartest person I know does not need his like daughter quizzing him about like basic American facts. But he like lets me do this whole thing where I'm like, okay, dad, like, do you know like the Declaration of Independence? How many people side? Like, he does not need to know this information. But like he's due, I'm so excited for this. I go into my government class the next day, and I'm telling everyone about how, like, my dad's currently getting naturalized. The teacher stops it, and then, like, a bunch of people talk about how, like, when their parents were naturalized or how exciting it is that ceremony, like, immigrants are so excited to become Americans. Anyone who goes to a naturalization ceremony, these are not people

who are like, yeah, like, I guess give it to me. Like, I don't care. Like, that's no one's happening when you go to these places. So, and I think that, like, most people understand that. And so I think that the thing that actually is happening here is, like, there's no way to resolve this for them. There's nothing that an immigrant could say or do or profess that would make people who don't want immigrants to come here believe that they are actually grateful to be an American citizen. But I do think there's something core that we should address, which is like, I think quite legitimate, which is just like, okay, when immigrants come, particularly at a local level, they can impose some costs locally. Like if you need to house them, if you need to pay for public school expansions, like these are real things that happen. And we should be able to easily address those because we know from reams of economic research that the economic benefits of immigration exceed that of the costs that they impose locally. And so we just need to redistribute that to make sure that when immigrants come to a community, they come with those tax benefits that they're going to eventually have.

And they're not just causing problems on congestion or whatever it is. And I think to me that's a big part of what the problem has been is that there's not been a full-throat at our unit. an explanation that, like, yes, we're going to recognize that there are some obvious costs to growth. There are things that happen when you grow a city, a county, you know, anything, a neighborhood. And that the answer is not like, it's illegal now to have more people. Like, no one's allowed to move from the place that they currently live. The answer has to be that we need to mitigate those costs so we get the larger benefits that we all care about. And so I do think that like the whole assimilation debate that like J.D. Vance is setting up,

like there's no right answer to the question. There's nothing that he, we can answer him. In the before times when it was still possible to occasionally be inspired by something that happens in politics and government, I would always tell people, like, watching a naturalization ceremony is like the surest way to get teary-eyed about America. I mean, it is just, it's like the most wonderful moment. You mentioned, though, naturalization and the challenges with immigration, right? And what I've been trying to figure out ever since the, you know, Trump took office again is how to separate out for people for most of the country this legitimate concern about, okay, we should have control over our borders. We should have secure borders. We should make sure that when we welcome immigrants, that our communities grow in a way that can benefit everyone, right? And like these are all legitimate concerns people have. But the project on the right is not, okay, Democrats have messed that up and mishandled that, and we're just going to fix it. Like, we're just going to make sure that the borders are secure.

No, because, you know, Stephen Miller is very excited about revving up a denaturalization program, which is something that's just sort of gone under the radar here. And I feel like it will not be under the radar for long because I'm sure that's, it's coming soon enough. But when you combine, like, we're going to ramp up. a denaturalization program and we're going to try to eliminate birthright citizenship, you suddenly see a picture of where this is headed. And I'm wondering if you're hearing this at the conference you're at right now when they're talking about immigration. You can see the

picture of it's like, what's happening with citizenship in this country now is it's not by birth and it's not. And if you're already here and you're an immigrant, you've done it the right way, you're still not safe. It's that the people in charge, we get to decide who is a citizen. who is not a citizen. And we get to do it based on, I don't know, how we feel about you, what you believe, where you come from, what you say. And I think that is obviously antithetical to everything that America aspires to be, but it is also massively unpopular in this country. And I just, I'm trying to figure out how to get people to understand that that's the project and not what many people are legitimately concerned about, which is a lot of people moving

here and how are we all going to live together. Well, I think, John, I don't think you have to convince them. I think they're like literally going to witness it happening in real time in a way that I think will. I mean, we're already seeing this, right? I mean, we even before Trump's victory, like me, many other people were saying, you know, yes, it sounds really good to people to say like immigration has gone too far. We need to remove criminals from our country, freeloaders from our country, people who ate America from our country. And then when you actually do a like project of, you know, kicking. people out and you're looking for the low-hanging fruit, it's hard to find the criminals. If it was easy to find the criminals, like, they wouldn't be in the country. It's a difficult project to do this. And so, you know, what you end up doing is you end up going to the rule followers, right? The people who are showing up for their court hearings, the people who are going to school, the people who are paying their taxes, who, of course, you know where they are because they're following all the rules. And then you see the unpopularity of it skyrocket. Right.

Like, we're seeing this already with Trump's deportation agenda. It's causing real thermosetic backlash to immigration, anti-immigration attitudes in this country. And I think that like the really complacent thing to do is to go like, okay, we can just wait for like everyone to rock it back to being pro immigration in the polls and then it'll be fine. And like, that's not a good idea. I mean, that's quite literally what happened with Biden. I was going to say in many respects. But I think that like it gives you an opportunity to say like, listen, like you were right. There are these real tangible concerns. I mean, this is not, and this is for, you know, elected candidates to say, Like, you guys need to make the pitch to voters that, like, you have an actual response to the real core concerns that they have, that you don't think it's racist to be concerned if, you know, your kid's school already has max capacity.

And then a bunch of folks are going to come in and, like, there's no money to build another school. And so your kid's education is going to suffer. Like, you are setting up people to be xenophobic when you don't allow them to live a good life unless they're sacrificing to allow immigrants to come here. And I just think that, like, in many respects, liberals, and I'll include myself here, too. Like, it can become very easy to talk about immigration as, like, a sacrifice we need to make. Like, look at all those poor people everywhere else. Like, don't you feel bad? Don't you have to give stuff to them?

And it's like, that's a terrible way to pitch a massively important economic policy. It's, hey, you have all these things you care about. Social Security. You care about your roads. You care about building new housings that your kid can live nearby. You care about there being enough daycare workers. You care about someone being able to be a careworker for your grandfather when he goes into a nursing home. All of those people do not exist in this country.

And the rights answer that you can just reallocate them from other sectors that Americans should be doing those jobs ignores the fact that Americans are doing other jobs that are also important. There are many, many things. When we're at an economy that's like near-ish full employment, like we have like pretty good unemployment numbers that we've had for like a couple of years now. Like you can't just pull people away from other sectors and act like there's no. cost to the economy. You actually need to be additive about the number of people coming into this country in order to make sure you can fulfill all the things we want to do. So to me, it's like, you know, I totally agree. I think there has to be a way of, there is a way of acknowledgment. I mean, Democrats have done this many, many times. I think that like,

it is very possible for us to find a happy medium as liberals that isn't just, I hate immigrants or I love immigrants and anyone who doesn't let them in is a secret racist. Yeah, because also if you want to see racism and you want to see Zinafo. look around because now ICE is not making their mission about security, but they're saying defend our culture, right? And it's all about our culture. And I think I'll say this too, though, like, because like, you know, I think also people can think for a long time that he doesn't mean you, right? Like people, I will talk to people all the time, folks who are Latino, people who are even recent, people in my own family who are recent immigrants or who were immigrated at some point

in their lives. And when, you know, I think Trump, one of his superpowers, that when he talks about immigration and the problems of it, when he says, like, oh, criminals are coming here and they're pouring across their borders, many, many people do not hear him as just saying all immigrants. They do think it is segmented towards just the bad immigrants. And I mean, I have, in my reporting, I've talked to immigrants all the time who, like, think he's just not talking about them. And now, as Stephen Miller has been charged of, like, this, you know, nightmare, you can tell that, like, Stephen Miller personally, he does mean you. He means every single one of you. And,

he means even more expansively than I think people think. And when you take people like, you know, a lot of these posts were right to their logical conclusion, it doesn't just mean people who immigrated here. It's people whose like parents may be immigrated here. That maybe like you also should be a second class citizen in some respects. I mean, there was, I don't know who it was, but there was some, there was some viral post about ranking the kinds of American and it was like heritage American who has like Mayflower ancestry or whatever. I'm like, this is not, I think, right now mainstream at all. But I do think it's important to know that there is a real faction of the right that's very, very close to power who wants that kind of thinking to be mainstream. And it's not new. It's not interesting. It's not cool. It's quite literally how most of the rest of the world and most of human history used to do everything. It's not a better way of doing things. It's a way that we moved on from an evolved past because it literally means that your stability in a country is always up for debate. Because one day you can feel like, oh, I'm on the inside. And the people who run the country are on my side. They look like me. They like me. And the next day, all of a sudden, they're like, no, we actually didn't mean you.

And I mean, my family, we're Eritreans. We're growing up in Ethiopia. And we had to leave because in a drop of the hat, there was just an immediate decision that Eritrians were no longer allowed to be in the country. And so we had to just leave very, very quickly. And so I think that people can be a little bit naive about, I will not be implicated by this. But that's not how it works. Like someone else can get in charge who dislikes you. And if we have made it possible that the person who is president can appoint people.

or can personally decide that you're no longer an American, that just makes everyone unsafe. I don't know if you saw the Washington Post story, I think it was from yesterday, that they were talking about how ICE has lowered their standards because they're trying to recruit as many people as possible. And so, you know, now the people who want to join ICE are these people who are, you know, the most radicalized anyway. And there's this one guy who said, he's like, yeah, I'm joining because I'm really upset. I'm in IT. And he's upset that Indian Americans are are taking his IT jobs is what he thinks. And what he wants to say is now I'm going to be in ice and I can bash your head against the sidewalk and tell you to go home. Like, that's why he's

joining ice. And it's like, this is, this is happening, right? Like, this is where it's going. This is not theoretical. We talked about immigration. You tweeted a pretty wild quote from a founder of national conservatism, who's a dual Israeli-American citizen named Yoram Hazoni, who said this at the conference on Tuesday, quote, nobody ever said that to be a good Nat-Con, you have to love Jews. Go take a look at our statement of principles. It's not a requirement. What?

Yeah. It's very interesting being a netcon because I, like, I don't know if your, your viewers can tell. I'm a very expressive person. I like move a lot when I hear things. So I heard that. I like, shout straight. I was like looking around like the room. Like, is there a camera for me to look at?

Yeah. And I think it was, it was quite bizarre because obviously in some respects, he was trying to sound like expansive of national, like, it's okay if you hate Jews, like, or to be fair, it's okay if you don't love Jews. Like, all you need to do to be a national conservative is, I guess, hate other kinds of people. But I think that, like, he then goes on after that remark to talk about how he, he has loved coming to the National Conservatism Conference for many years now because he liked to be the kind of person who, when people were accused of anti-Semitism, he would get to jump up and say, they're not actually anti-Semitic. And that that's a false accusation

of anti-semitism. And it made me think about that for a while because, I mean, obviously, it's kind of like a weird dichotomy. At one level, he's saying, like, it's okay if you don't love Jews. And then at the other level, he's saying, like, but, you know, I love being the guy who gets to defend people who are accused of anti-Semitism. And, you know, he goes on to talk a little bit about how he has seen increased amounts of disrespect or doesn't see, like, people as, it's okay not to love Jews, but there's like a line at which you become too. You know, rude to Jewish people, I guess. And I do think in some ways this is like, you know, tiger, you know, eating my own face party type stuff. Because, yeah, of course, if you, like, create a system in which the definition of American is, like, do the current people in power feel like you have the correct ethnic heritage that's going to implicate like the Israeli-American guy in the room? Like, that's not going to be expansive of you, too, you know? Offline is brought to by Mint Mobile. You know it doesn't belong in your epic summer plans, getting burned by your old wireless bill.

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How much diversity of thought are you encountering at this conference? Like, what are the, what are sort of some of the dividing lines within the national conservatism movement? Yeah, I think that's most interesting things is, you know, one thing that's good about going to these conferences, because many of the speeches themselves are televised on C-SPAN or something. But it's nice to get to, like, walk around and sort of just, like, hear how people are talking or reacting to things.

I was, you know, I was sitting working on some notes for another project, and I overheard a group of young students talking about how they thought that, you know, people were being too boring and low energy and focused on the founding fathers too much. And it was interesting because to them, like, they were saying, like, why are you guys so obsessed with this, like, past history? Why isn't there some kind of, like, focus on, you know, this modern focus on our modern day, our current entrepreneurs and our current, like, visionary leaders, et cetera. And this generational dividing line, I think, actually kind of mirrors a lot of the

generational dividing line. You see within liberalism, too, where, like, you know, I started this podcast with you talking a little bit about how, like, we don't need more of this sort of like relitigating 500-year-old, like, you know, theories about about how liberal democracy works in America. And I think that in many respects, they're coming up against this generational issue, where, you know, you can wax poetic about what it means to be an American in this sort of, like, very academic way that many of the post-liber right do. And that can be attractive to some people. And it can be effective at convincing people like J.D. Vance, who, you know, is also a word cell, unfortunately. And it is really focused on reading up on this sort of literature. But I think that, like, they're going to hit a wall if they're not willing to say the quiet part out loud with these younger people.

Because I think the other people, they were just like, I mean, the guys had they just left. like they were sitting in the hallway while people were still talking because they were so bored by like what was going on in these rooms. And to me, like, obviously on this podcast and we're talking about the highlights here. But like overall, like a lot of it's like, I mean, most conferences are like this. It was like quite boring. A lot of it's very, very boring. Like as a journalist, you feel like focus and like really take notes and like whatever. But like it was not that interesting in many parts of the room. And so I think that like to me, what's what's really interesting about what the future of this looks like is, you know, does this become an actual animating movement? beyond this like handful of people who have been convinced of these very, very reactionary ideas and does it tap into like a growing reactionary sentiment that can actually multiply across generations or is this like more of like an aberration? Is this more of like a moment where like, yes, Trump and Vance in particular have managed to get power for a variety of reasons in my view largely due to liberals failures, not, not really due to their own, you know, great, great work. I mean, to be clear, there's quite a close election both times that Trump won.

This is not like a resounding victory despite like a lot of headwinds against Democrats in both of those campaigns. And what that means is that like, you know, is this an aberration? Can we move on for this? And the question there is how much power will they consolidate in the next couple of years? And the question is, does the intellectual grounding of this movement have to capture some of these people attentionally win? And that's what made me think of like your TPPs and your CPUSAs, which seem geared more towards. the attention economy that we exist in

where they're looking for more viral moments they're saying the quiet part out loud they're all having fun maybe too much fun at some of these conferences and like they're trying to attract the younger generation while all these folks are trying to sort of theorize everything and I don't know how much

it actually needs to do that if it's still the underpinning of this movement but you know yeah I mean I think that like the problem is that, like, it's actually kind of a difficult ideological shift they're trying to create in America. Like, most people do actually think that, like, hey, like, we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal. Like, that's, like, a thing that, like, we have, like, that beaten into us in some respect, both, like, culturally, like, educationally,

like, socially, like, even, like, the very fabric of how we interact each other, like, the fact that, like, in this country, most people live in communities where there are people from, like, quite literally, like, dozens of different ethnic groups that are in their background. Like, even if you live in a pretty white place, like, there are people who parents are German and Czech and like Poland. It's just like not the way that most people around the world have gotten to live and like not just that I think groups are all quite different, but like that they emigrated there recently and then they have become quite American. Like I have family members who like emigrated out of Eritrea to other countries and like they don't really like out of

Ethiopia to other countries and like they don't really like, you know, they're not considered like the nationality of that country. But like the way that we walk around the world is like in the U.S. is that, like, you don't just see someone of a different race and automatically assume that they're not American. That's actually not normal for most people in this country. And so I think the thing that happens with, like, these more, you know, attentionally attuned place, like, TPSA or, like, all these other, really, like, more, more viral places is that, like, they'll do, like, classic racism stuff and, like, classic misogyny stuff. But, like, you can, you can believe those things and still think that, you know, that, like, immigrants can come here. I do think there's a problem here where, like, I do think that, like, it's going to be a hard, hard pivot for a lot of these folks, like, even Schmidt and, like, Vance, et cetera, to turn this into a more popular movement. Like, they're only really doing this at these very esoteric conferences, like Claremont or National Conservatives. Like, when you see that in a speech at a stump speech, that's when I will be like, okay, this is actually catching fire. I mean, I do think this is where, you know, there's never much optimism in any of our discussions these days.

But I do see it as an opportunity for us, right? is that like they are not standing on a popular ground with with this shit and and I think that by elevating it by us elevating it and saying like this is not just like same with fucking Eric Schmidt right like no one knows most people in the country don't know who Eric Schmidt is random senator from Missouri could have been the attorney general who knows but like J.D. Vance is the vice president of United States and the frontrunner for the nomination right in 2028 and so that's like a very serious thing so that brings me to let's talk about the argument speaking of opportunity So I had the pleasure to chat with you about this a couple of months before you launched over coffee here in L.A.

I was immediately interested. For people who either aren't familiar or only familiar with bits and pieces of the discourse around the argument, even better, what's your pitch? What are you guys hoping to achieve? What gap are you hoping to fill? Yeah. So the argument is a new publication. You can find us at theargumentmag.com. And what we are doing is trying to make a positive, combative case for liberalism.

And we're doing that by focusing on the issues people really, really care about. So things around cost of living and abundance, which is, you know, great new book by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson, but has built on a movement of pro-housing, YMB, and pro-energy, abundance activists for a long time. So focusing on those issues, focusing on technology and society, like the ways that technology is rapidly changing our society. And, like, most of the coverage around this is, like, quite dumery. And, like, it's not to say that that's not, you know, a reasonable view to have. that like, hey, like, it's really messing up the job market, et cetera. But, like, what is the liberal answer to this? Like, how do we want to regulate these industries? Like, what do we want to do? I mean, to me, a very basic question is, why isn't it, like, massively, financially

costly that a chatbot has sexual interactions with the minor? Like, immediately. Why aren't there, like, millions of dollars of fines immediately levied against these companies? And there's obviously questions here about, like, how would you operationalize this? How would this work, etc. But like why is so little of our discourse focused on making the case that like liberalism can have an answer to the big problems people are concerned about with whether it's job loss, whether it's the hiring markets, whether it's education, like what does education look like under this? And so we're focused on on building, on building that in the space of cost of living, in the space of technology and society and the space of gender where I think that for a long time,

you know, Democrats have and liberals have like kind of been afraid to like have conversations around like, you know, either defending trans people who are, have like a basic freedom of gender expression or explaining like what our vision of a new egalitarianism looks like. And so we've ceded a lot of this ground into the right who says things like, oh, actually, it's only men that are actually harmed in society right now as a result of gender inequality. The real losers are men. And like part of the problem is that, you know, feminists for a long time have been talking about how patriarchy and how these systems hurt men, right?

Like, that's like not a new thing. But for many years now, I think that really imagining what a new egalitarianism, a new feminism looks like in the 21st century has really not been at the core of a lot of what liberal ideas and liberal coverage has focused on. And so to me, like these three issue areas, I think of as kind of the most important domestic policy issues that liberalism has to answer if it's going to come back are at the core. And so at the argument we're going to have a real, real, real.

open debates. I think the big thing that I've really been trying to cultivate is an actually ideologically diverse group of people who all have like small illiberal commitments, but they span the spectrum from, you know, socialists to libertarians to even people on the right who, you know, I may have very different beliefs with around policy, but I think that they have still the same commitments I do to, you know, one country where every citizen has equal dignity under the law. And so to me, like, how do we forge this as the new axis in American politics and American thought? And it's having the debates that people actually care about and showing them that liberalism can answer their questions and is willing to engage with difficult conversations around immigration, around gender, around, you know, growth and the politics and economics of growth. And so we're already off to a rip-roaring start. People got mad before we even published a single essay.

And that's how you know, you know, we're already spurring arguments. But yeah, I mean, it's already been a really great time. We have folks like, you know, Matt Bruneg, Matt Iglesias, Kelsey Piper, who's. from Vox, Jordan Weissman, who was at Slate and Yahoo and Semaphore, Laksha Jane, who's a great pollster, is doing original polling for us, and it's just been really exciting.

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has been around for over 15 years and backs over 90 independent winemakers around the world to make the wine you love to drink. Now is the time to join the Naked Wines Community. Head to Nakedwines.com slash offline. Click enter voucher and put in code offline for both the code and password for six bottles of wine for just $39.99 with shipping included. That's $100 off your first six bottles at Nakedwines.com slash offline and use the code and password offline for six bottles of wine for $39.99. We've spent a lot of time talking about the post-liberal right. Talk to me about your beefs with the post-liber left, as you've talked about at the argument. Yeah. So I think the post-labor right is a much easier entity to talk about because, A, they call themselves that.

They will say, like, hello, welcome. My name is J.D. Vance, and I'm a member of the post-liber right. And they're also in power right now, right? So they're the people who I think are, without a doubt, the most important. important threat to American democracy and to American liberalism. But as I've said, as we've talked about this whole episode, like, to me, the way that you defeat this is by presenting an alternative and a democracy to present an alternative to the American public. And right now there's like, you know, it's very inchoate, right? There's a bunch of different people making a bunch

different arguments across the political spectrum on left of center. But I do think there's a strain of ideas and thoughts that I would categorize as part of this broader post-liberal left thinking that I think is like really, really dangerous. I think both it's wrong on the merits, but I think it's not actually competitive with the post-liber right. It's just basically buying into a lot of their frameworks. Part of this is just a negative sum view of the world. Like people who think that if someone is gaining, that means someone else is losing. So, you know, on the right, that's like if immigrants are coming here and gaining, that means that Native-born Americans are losing. On the post-liber left, it's often like businesses. If businesses are gaining,

if a developer is making money on housing, that means you're losing out. Like, yeah, developers to make housing and they make a profit off of it and then you get to live in a house. Like, that's how it works. Now, do we want to make sure the developers aren't being corrupt? Do we want to make sure that there are inequality issues addressed through the tax code or through other measures? Like, yes. But this positive some view of the world that I think most liberals have, that it's possible that many people and many entities can gain simultaneously. Like, that to me is like completely rejected by the post liberal left. And they also, I think, like, are very pro tariff. I mean, we saw this even in the Biden administration. We saw a real,

real turn towards protectionist economic policy, which I think is both bad on the merits, but also just is really just feeding into the Trump tariff view of the world, that like other people, other countries gaining manufacturing ground is a cost to us. And so I think that strain is really, really problematic. And to be honest, like, I have heard increasing like views from people on the left about immigration that I find very, very concerning beliefs that, you know, I was at Chatham House rules. So I can't say who said it. But there was a very prominent person who is in the left of center movement who said that, you know, social democracy of a generous social democratic state is incompatible with high levels of immigration, that we need to just accept that there's just no way to have a generous welfare state and have high levels of immigration. And to me, like, this is like an opening salvo, a bunch of people who, you know, this is a tradition that exists for a long time in parts of the left.

That is views that workers and immigrants are inherently at odds with one another. And I think that's really, really a dangerous thing to feed into. And I think that that's not the way we should move forward on. And the last thing I'll say is, like, I think the most common one that most people talk about is, like, a real deep commitment to free speech and free expression. I think that liberals are obviously better than anyone who's under is much better than what's going on right now. I mean, clearly we're seeing this with Ramesa, the student at Tufts or Mahmhud Khalil. Like, we're seeing this, like, very clear oppressive anti-speech behavior by the Trump administration and by the Trump administration and by members of the post-liber right. But like, I do think a culture of free speech has really been

not tolerated on the left for a long time. I mean, even a level of just, you know, can we have debate over implementation of our shared values can often lead to a level of vitriol. And like, you know, cry me a river a little bit if you're like an Atlantic writer and like someone's being mean to you online, like whatever, right? Like, but that's not really the point. It's not about like, oh, should you spare people's feelings when they would work at these big institutions? The point is if you have a culture of activism where the people in the tent can't openly ask questions or talk about issues and like the way they're implemented without feeling like, oh shit, someone's going to think I'm like a bad lib. I'm a bad leftist. I'm a bad whatever.

That's really bad. And like it's going to be really harmful for your ability to get to better policy because you're not even willing to hear people who you know share your values disagree with you. And so I don't think at all that this is. comparable to the free speech violations we're seeing right now from the right. But I do think it makes it harder for us to actually claim as liberals the mantle of free expression, especially when it comes to things like people who we are most at risk right now, trans children and trans folks who are like right now, like their basic freedom of gender expression is at risk. It's not just going to be whether or not kids should have, you know, whether the medicalization happened too

quickly. Like they were not very serious concerns about this, right? But like Christopher Rufo, who like really pioneered a lot of this anti-trans activism recently posted online on Twitter that, you know, it's not, it's actually we're going after trans adults too. That's not just about children that we're going after the adults as well. And of course, people knew that that was where this was headed. But it's hard to defend freedom of gender expression as a protected principle that like it should be an affront, even if you disagree or you don't understand trans issues or why people would be trans that like maybe you can accept like, okay, well, someone is free to do what they want with their own life. if it doesn't bother me, but it's hard to make that argument when like you're all the time acting like you don't believe in freedom of expression. And so to me, like these elements, they're not really a formal movement at this point in the same way the post-liber right is. But these elements,

these arguments, these ideas are persuasive throughout the left in a way that I think is really dangerous for liberals to be able to mount a real opposition to the Trump administration. Well, that leads me perfectly to my final question and then I'll let you go because you wrote a piece about why you're staying on Twitter, which me too. Me too. We'll die on this ship, John. But I thought your argument was really well put. So why don't you just, why don't you just end with that? Because I would love to hear that because I think it connects to what you're talking about with the importance of argument and debate and free expression and persuading people, which is the essence of our project here. Yes. So Twitter, as we, as we all know, is a cesspool owned by a man

who is single-handedly trying not to destroy just the American democracy, but apparently also democracies in other parts of the world, which is, I guess, a fun side project for him. And so none of what I would argue has anything to do with, like, absolving Elon Musk of what he done with Doge or anything like that. But the argument is really just the goal of everything you do in public, of public speech, even if you're someone with a thousand followers, even if you're someone who just replies, it gets a couple of likes every once in a while, the goal that you have and posting online, should be to, like, push people towards the views that you think are better in society. And there is, quite literally, I mean, I live in Washington, D.C. Like, I run into people

all the time who work on the Hill, who work in think tanks, who work in government, who are lobbyists. These are people who are extremely influential behind the scenes in shaping how our economy and our government works. And they get many of their ideas, they get many of their arguments, and they get many of their thinking from Twitter. Is that a good thing? I'm not going to comment on whether that's positive or negative. Unfortunately. It's where we live. Exactly. And so I think there's this like view, particularly among people who like I are really disgusted by the rise of, you know, anti-Semitism, racism, misogyny, like just open disregard for basic human welfare on Twitter and are like, I don't want to be a part of this. I don't want to be associated with this. I don't want to be here. It feels like dirty to see this stuff. It makes you feel like garbage. And like those things are true. And I actually don't begrudge people who are like, I actually can't do my best work while like. like seeing this kind of thing. But I think that like if it's using a kind of a politics of purity to decide how and where you speak basically means you're going to seed ground everywhere

where you're not already the majority. And right now liberals have lost. They've lost elections. They've lost cultural wars. I mean like I think one easy way is that like now everyone just says like the arsler everywhere you go. People are just saying that. I mean like they're just like quite literally, like, there's so much losing happening right now on the liberal side of the ledger. And so if we segregate ourselves into areas where, like, okay, well, like, no one will say anything offensive here. No one will say something that's going to make me feel upset here. You are basically saying your political activism is going to be confined to Brooklyn, Los Angeles, and, like, San Francisco, not really even San Francisco. And so, like, that to me is, like,

abandoning most of the country to only see the views of people that you think are bad. And so my case for staying on Twitter, my case in general, is not really even about Twitter. My case is like in places where you're uncomfortable, in places where you're seeing people say things that you think are bad, making arguments that you think are opposed to what your definition of America is or to what it means to be a good person, that's the place you need to be. Wherever that is for you, wherever you can do that, you should be there making those points. And I think underlying a lot of what I'm saying is that like persuasion is possible. And we know persuasion is possible Because like I don't know I think most of us have changed our minds at some points

Because we saw something that pushed us one way or the other And so that that's my case But you should go read about it at the argument mag.com Yes I've gone back and forth on the blue sky thing Many times on this on this show so I won't belabor it But it's like if you want if you're on blue sky Because it's just you feel like it's better for your mental health

And you just want to talk to people and interact with people Who you like who agree with you Then great like that's it But don't pretend that you you're going to have the same persuasive power there that you would in spaces like Twitter that are filled with some pretty odious views. That's it. Yeah. I mean, we're seeing also, I mean, Blue Sky's, like, posting numbers, its joining numbers are all on the decline. And I mean, like, again, it would be great if, like, all of Twitter had just sort of, like, reformed on the platform

that was not owned by Elon Musk. But, like, that didn't happen. And so now, now what do we do? Right. So I do think that in many ways that, you know, there's this feeling that Elon Musk's ownership of Twitter makes it impossible to have any kind of persuasive effect. And like, I'll just say this. Like, I run into people all the time who, like, saw a tweet of mine of someone else's, and they were like, oh, did you see this thing? Like, yes, it is not going to get you viral in the same way that some of this like kind of Nazi content goes viral. That's true. But I think that that's true in all spaces where you're the minority, right? Like, it's not the case that if you were like the ideological minority in the 1950s and like the, you know, New York Times

editorial page was like still platforming like open segregationists or whatever. like that it was an even playing field for activists like you know what I mean like it's not an even playing field anywhere where there are people and eyeballs when you're losing and so I think to me that that heuristic is is really really harmful well said keep posting and um enjoy the rest of the conference I hope you attend the um the VIP dinner with Seb Gorka I noticed that's like the final event it's like what a what a finale guest of honor I'm the guest of honor there they're gonna reward me Jerusalem thank you so much for coming on it was so fun talking could do it for several hours so everyone go check out the argument it's awesome thanks john take care as always if you

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