Philadelphia Political Agnostics

4.5•682 ratings

Philadelphia, PA, US

790 members · Public group

What we’re about

This meetup started in 2015 as a group for people in the Philadelphia area who were concerned with the current political turmoil in America, but who also felt that the prevailing liberal-vs-conservative political paradigm is unnecessarily limiting our ability to think rationally about politics & search for policy solutions. Since we shifted to mostly online meetups in 2020, we've opened the group up to people everywhere. If you like to talk politics but you've got some moderate or unconventional views that leave you feeling out of place at most of the activist groups, party meetings & political rallies in your area, this meetup is for you!

However, if your political views put you on the far left or far right of the political spectrum - i.e. you're a Marxist, anarchist, "woke" left-wing identitarian, fascist/ethno-nationalist, Islamist, Black Hebrew Israelite, Christian fundamentalist, etc., or sympathetic to these positions - please go elsewhere. Also, if you consider yourself a moderate Republican or moderate Democrat but your views are just generic talking points you've gleaned from listening to Fox News & Tucker Carlson or MSNBC & The View, this group is not for you. It may seem uncharitable to exclude people, but from past experience our discussions just don't work very well with these folks, since they tend to be close-minded and see all of our problems as the result of only one of our political parties - i.e. they're not even remotely "agnostic".

"Political Agnosticism" is a term I came up with back in 2015 to represent a non-dogmatic approach to politics that acknowledges uncertainty and the validity of multiple perspectives, and looks for practical solutions without worrying about adherence to an overarching political ideology. The purpose of this agnostic, skeptical & free-thinking approach is to avoid treating politics as a "culture war" based on group identities or a clash of "political religions" based more on devotion to a party than knowledge of the issues. Instead, when we cover a political issue, we look at what experts in various disciplines know (and don't know) about it, tease out the ethical implications, note the tradeoffs between different policy approaches, and then look at potential solutions that encompass everything we've learned.

The only political values that are prerequisites for members are a belief in civility & tolerance towards those we disagree with, a belief in traditional civil liberties like the freedom of speech, freedom of thought, freedom of association, and the right to privacy, as well as respect for institutional norms like separation of church & state, academic freedom, press freedom, government transparency, due process, judicial impartiality, and free & fair elections. These principles of an "open society" form the preconditions for the existence of a non-partisan political forum like ours.

Our general approach to politics is based on a concept we've borrowed from another organization, the Circle of Reason, called "pluralistic rationalism" – i.e. a personal commitment to reasoning, regardless of one's worldview. We start by assuming that reasonable people can differ in their cores values, whether it's framed as a preference for freedom vs security, tradition vs progress, individualism vs communitarianism, meritocracy vs egalitarianism, patriotism vs cosmopolitanism, etc. However, this approach is also premised on the belief that we should all commit to following the rules of logic & evidence-based reasoning. "Pluralistic Rationalism" is based on 3 tenets: (1) Factualism (as opposed to Denialism) for sourcing knowledge, (2) Skepticism (as opposed to Dogmatism) for vetting knowledge, and (3) Moderation (as opposed to Emotion) for expressing knowledge. To learn more about "pluralistic rationalism", see the Circle of Reason's website: http://www.circleofreason.org/

We are committed to creating a space for non-partisan political discussion based on intellectual honesty, mutual respect & civility. That means adopting the conversational principles of charity & good faith, avoiding name-calling, and trying to understand the best arguments that can be made for each side.

The goals for this meetup group are as follows:

(1) We try to understand why people - including ourselves - are predisposed by inherent psychological traits, cultural milieu & life experiences to have different moral intuitions & political orientations. We generally use a mix of the Big Five personality traits & Jonathan Haidt's Moral Foundations Theory, as well as Dan Kahan's work on "cultural cognition".

(2) We look at moral philosophy to try to better understand how moral axioms logically connect to one another and form ethical systems like deontological ethics, utilitarianism, virtue ethics, and contractarianism. We examine how these ethical systems form the basis for political philosophy, legal philosophy, and normative theories in the social sciences.

(3) We try to increase our level of rationality by learning how to spot logical fallacies, cognitive biases, flawed statistics, and various forms of groupthink. We often look to the bloggers of the "rationalist community" (e.g. Eliezer Yudkowsky, Scott Alexander, Julia Galef, Spencer Greenberg, Stefan Schubert, Zvi Moshowitz, Ozy Brennan, Sarah Constantin), the board members of the Center for Applied Rationality (CFAR), as well as the hosts of the Bayesian Conspiracy podcast (Steven Zuber, Eneasz Brodski, Katrina Stanton, Jace Dickey). We could also include "rationalist-adjacent" bloggers like Tim Urban (Wait But Why), Matthew Adelstein (Bentham's Bulldog) & Jack Despain Zhou (Tracing Woodgrains), data journalists like Nate Silver & Nate Cohn, tech gurus like Paul Graham & Vitalik Buterin, and scholars like Daniel Kahneman, Philip Tetlock, Keith Stanovich, Scott Aaronson, Nick Bostrum, John Nerst, Samuel Hammond, and Zeynep Tufekci who've promoted a similar style of detached, analytical thinking & strategic forecasting.

(4) We try to educate members on both the fundamentals and the latest research from the social sciences, and we discuss how this relates to current events & trending political topics. Aside from looking at academic research, a lot of our reading material comes from data/explainer journalism sites, econ & policy blogs, as well as the major public intellectuals & pundits from across the political spectrum.

(5) We try to imagine alternative types of political & economic systems that could provide better outcomes for the future based on both theory & empirical data. This often involves looking at various "maps of the policy landscape" like the Cato & Fraser Institutes' Human Freedom Index, SPI's Social Progress Index, the Economist's Democracy Index, the UN World Happiness Report, and others, even as we acknowledge the way their limitations, particularly the way they try to quantify qualitative factors that are often vague or inherently subjective.

(6) As part of our effort to break away from the narrow range of ideas represented by the two major political parties, we often look at constellations of ideas that could be described as syncretic, contrarian or heterodox. This often involves looking to intellectuals who've resisted the major populist & identitarian currents on the left and right, such as the scholars associated with Jonathan Haidt's Heterodox Academy, Peter Singer's Journal of Controversial Ideas, Keith E. Whittington's Academic Freedom Alliance, and Yascha Mounck's Persuasion.

(a) For critical insight on trends within conservatism, we often refer to conservative pundits who've criticized the GOP's ideological capture by Trump, e.g. David French, Sarah Isgur, Jonah Goldberg, Charles Sykes, Kevin Williamson, Anne Applebaum, Bret Stephens, George Will, Mona Charen, and other writers at sites like 'The Dispatch' and 'The Bulwark'. Also of interest are the Obama-era "reformicons" (e.g. David Frum, Yuval Levin, Ross Douthat, Reihan Salam, Ramesh & April Ponnuru, David Brooks, James Pethokoukis) who tried to steer the party more towards the interests of the middle & working classes in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, only to end up politically homeless when Trump took over the GOP. (Note: I specifically didn't include some neocons like Bill Kristol, Max Boot, Stephen Hayes, etc., since they've never appeared to modify their hawkish foreign policy views in light of the disastrous Iraq War they championed.)

(b) For critical insight on trends within libertarianism, we often refer to "cosmopolitan libertarians" (a.k.a. Beltway libertarians) at the Cato Institute & its "liberaltarian" offshoot the Niskanen Center, the GMU economics department (e.g. Tyler Cowen, Alex Tabbarock, Robin Hanson, Bryan Caplan, Russ Roberts, Walter E. Williams, Arnold Kling), the members of the '200-Proof Liberals' blog - successor to the now-defunct 'Bleeding Heart Libertarians' blog (e.g. Jason Brennan, Chris Freiman, Kevin Vallier, Matt Zwolinski, Jacob Levy, Steve Horwitz, Sarah Skwire), as well as the 'Fifth Column' podcast (Kmele Foster, Michael Moynihan, Matt Welch) and writers at the magazine 'Reason' (e.g. Nick Gillespie, Robby Soave, Elizabeth Nolan Brown, Katherine Mangu-Ward, Peter Suderman, Ilya Somin, Eugene Volokh), and the anti-Trump libertarians at the new Substack 'The UnPopulist' (e.g. Shikha Dalmia, Cathy Young, Trevor Burrus, Aaron Ross Powell, Berny Belvedere, Radley Balko). The debates within Gene Epstein's Soho Forum and the Cato Institute's 'Cato Unbound' blog (although the latter is now defunct) are good venues for seeing the clash of ideas between libertarians & non-libertarians. (Note that I've excluded the paleolibertarians at the Ludwig von Mises Institute, the objectivists at the Ayn Rand Institute, and the left-libertarians at the Molinari Institute & C4SS since they seem to be more siloed in their echo chambers - although I'm fairly open to revising this opinion.)

(c) For critical insight on trends within progressivism, we often refer to liberal & centrist journalists who've criticized the biases of legacy-media outlets from within (e.g. Jonathan Chait, Adam Gopnik, George Packer, Damon Linker, James Bennet, Caitlin Flanagan, Megan McArdle, Pamela Paul, Josh Barro, Conor Friedersdorf, Jonathan Rauch, Shadi Hamid) and those who've moved to independent platforms like Substack (e.g. Andrew Sullivan, Matt Yglesias, Emily Yoffe, Freddie deBoer, Matt Taibbi, Jesse Singal, Katie Herzog, Zaid Jilani, Lee Fang). Many of these people signed the open letter against cancel culture in Harper's magazine back in July 2020. Left-leaning scholars who've broken with the progressive orthodoxy on key issues (e.g. Camille Paglia, Kathleen Stock, Anne Applebaum, Mark Lilla, Scott Galloway, Richard Reeves) also fit into this loose intellectual cluster, as do the advocates of the "Abundance Agenda" (e.g. Ezra Klein, Derek Thompson, Steven Teles, Jerusalem Demsas, Marc Dunkelman, Binyamin & Yoni Applebaum, Misha Chellam).

(d) For critiques of trends within both conservatism & progressivism, we often look to the scholars at the Heterodox Academy (e.g. Jonathan Haidt, John Tomasi, Nadine Strossen, Musa al-Gharbi, Lee Jussim, Phil Tetlock, Scott Lilienfeld, Alice Dreger, Allison Stenger, Nicholas Christakis, Eric Smith, Sean Stevens, Yascha Mounck, Eric Kaufmann) and the moderate "enlightened centrist" faction of what used to be called the "Intellectual Dark Web", e.g. Sam Harris, Steven Pinker, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Sarah Haider, Douglas Murray, Claire Lehmann, Helen Pluckrose, Peter Boghossian, Glenn Loury, John McWhorter, Coleman Hughes, and the various other writers & editors at media outlets like 'Quillette' and 'Areo Magazine' (although the latter is now defunct). Some other heterodox pundits like Bill Maher, Razib Khan, Richard Hanania, Meghan Daum, Amy Chua, Debra Soh, Melissa Chen, Meghan Murphy, Konstantin Kisin, Michael Shellenberger, Freddie Sayers, Winston Marshall, Bari Weiss, Nellie Bowles - as well as other writers at 'Unherd' and 'The Free Press' - could be considered the successors to the IDW. (Note I've excluded some of the former IDW members like Dave Rubin, Jordan Peterson, Brett & Eric Weinstein, Maajid Nawaz, and James Lindsay since they appeared to go off the rails amid the COVID pandemic & 2020 election due to "audience capture" and knee-jerk contrarianism. I've also excluded Joe Rogan due to his interest in pseudoscience & conspiracy theories, and Ben Shapiro is excluded because he seems more like a garden-variety conservative pundit.)

(e) For critical insight on trends within the emerging "bipartisan populist" sphere, we may refer to some members of the new think tank 'American Compass' (e.g. Oren Cass, Chris Griswold, Abigail Ball), writers at Julius Krein's journal 'American Affairs' (e.g. Michael Lind, David P. Goldman, Joel Kotkin), the strange bedfellows at Sohrab Amari's magazine 'Compact' (e.g. Edwin Aponte, Patrick Deneen, Matthew Schmitz, Geoff Shullenberger, Alex Gutentag, Adam Lehrer, Michael Tracey), so-called "reactionary feminists" who criticize both unrestrained capitalism & the sexual revolution (e.g. Mary Harrington, Louise Perry, Mary Eberstadt, Nina Power, Helen Andrews), and several "post-left" writers formerly affiliated with the "Dirtbag Left" (e.g. Amber A'Lee Frost, Angela Nagle, Aimee Terese, Oliver Bateman, Malcolm Kyeyune). We could also refer to the 'Breaking Points' online news show headed by Krystal Ball & Saagar Enjeti (with co-hosts Emily Jashinsky & Ryan Grim; and their former 'Rising' co-hosts Kim Iversen & Batya Ungar-Sargon), Glenn Greenwald's post-Intercept output (e.g. the 'System Update' podcast), the writers at 'The Liberal Patriot' blog (Ruy Teixeria, John Halpin, Michael Bahareen), as well as some of the journalists at the socialist magazine 'Jacobin' who are partly sympathetic to bipartisan populism (e.g. Jennifer Pan, Dustin Guastella, Paul Prescod). This loosely defined intellectual space is still evolving from conversations between anti-woke "class-first socialists" and "post-liberal conservatives" and is less ideologically coherent right now, although it has similarities to earlier Third Way ideologues like producerism and communitarianism. In some cases, figures in this movement have taken positions at odds with the core tenets of classical liberalism, but the left-right dialogue seems to be moderating some of their stances. (The comedians-turned-pundits Jimmy Dore & Russell Brand might fit into this space, as would Tucker Carlson, but I've excluded them as they've all promoted conspiracy theories so - like some of the former IDW members I listed above - they don't help us toward a rational view of politics. There's a similar problem with Anna Khachiyan & Dasha Nekrasova's 'Red Scare' podcast - they're too uninformed on policy & prone to knee-jerk contrarianism for shock value. The "MAGA Communism" guys have a similar problem.)

-- The common feature among all of the new media projects & public intellectuals listed above is that they are openly critical of intellectual blindspots & bad ideas coming from both the left & right, although most of them are not always *equally* aware or critical of problems on both sides of the political spectrum.

(7) In order to do our part combatting political polarization, we borrow ideas from a range of organizations that are currently working on enabling mutual understanding & civil dialogue, such as David Blankenhorn's Braver Angels project, Frank Burton's Circle of Reason, Alexandra Hudson's Civic Renaissance, Liz Joyner's Village Square, Joan Blades' Living Room Conversations, John Gable's AllSides team, David Nevins & Debilyn Molineaux's Bridge Alliance, Lisa Swallow & Kareem Abdelsadek's Crossing Party Lines, Tim Dixon & Gemma Mortensen's More In Common project, David Brooks's Social Fabric Project (a.k.a. Weave), Michael Smerconish's The Mingle Project, Charles Wheelan's Centrist Project (now called "Unite America"), Irshad Manji's Moral Courage Project, the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism (FAIR), and others.

Upcoming events

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Thu, Nov 6 · 4:00 PM EST
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Online
HxA Event: "Class Matters” with Richard Kahlenberg
Online
Event Title:
“Class Matters” - A Conversation with Richard Kahlenberg about His Latest Book

How to Watch:
This online event is FREE but you'll need to register to get the Zoom link in your email (check your Junk folder if you don't see it):
https://heterodoxacademy.org/events/class-matters-a-conversation-with-richard-kahlenberg-about-his-latest-book/

Event Topic:
What is the fairest path to building real diversity in higher education? Join Heterodox Academy (HxA) for a conversation with Richard Kahlenberg about his latest book, Class Matters: The Fight to Get Beyond Race Preferences, Reduce Inequality, and Build Real Diversity at America’s Colleges. Kahlenberg, who directs the American Identity Project at the Progressive Policy Institute and teaches at George Washington University, argues that focusing on class rather than race in college admissions is the key to expanding opportunity, reducing inequality, and strengthening fairness in higher education. Drawing on decades of research and personal experience, he shows how shifting the lens from race to class can both broaden diversity and address America’s widening economic divides.

Moderated by Nicole Barbaro Simovski, this virtual pop-up event will explore core themes of Kahlenberg’s book, including:
- Why class-based admissions policies may better serve equity and diversity goals
- How current approaches mask systemic advantages for the wealthy
- The implications of the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision ending racial preferences
- What a new framework for fairness in higher education could look like
This 60-minute webinar will preview key insights from the book and include time for audience Q&A and discussion. Register now to secure your spot!

About the Speakers:
* Richard Kahlenberg is Director of Housing Policy and Director of the American Identity Project at the Progressive Policy Institute and a professorial lecturer George Washington University's Trachtenberg School of Public Policy and Public Administration. His past books include Excluded: How Snob Zoning, NIMBYism, and Class Bias Build the Walls We Don't See (2023) and A Smarter Charter: Finding What Works for Charter Schools and Public Education (with Halley Potter, 2014).
* Kahlenberg will be joined in conversation by Nicole Barbaro Simovski, Director of Communications, Marketing, and Events at HxA. Simovski has a PhD in experimental psychology with a specialization in evolution and human development from Oakland University in Michigan and is the creator of Bookmarked Reads, a Substack newsletter that features reviews of non-fiction books on topics including science, education, current affairs, history, and interesting people.

About the Event Host:
The Heterodox Academy (HxA) is a nonpartisan collaborative of thousands of professors, administrators, and students committed to enhancing the quality of research and education by promoting open inquiry, viewpoint diversity, and constructive disagreement in institutions of higher learning. It was founded in 2015 by Jonathan Haidt, a psychology professor at the University of Virginia, Nicholas Quinn Rosenkranz, a Georgetown University law professor, and Chris Martin, an Emory University sociologist.
To learn more about their mission, go to https://heterodoxacademy.org/our-mission/
1 attendee
Sun, Nov 9 · 3:00 PM EST
•
Online
Bi-Weekly Discussion - How Is Party Switching Changing Our Politics?
Online
This is going to be an online meetup using Zoom. If you've never used Zoom before, don't worry — it's easy to use and free to join.

Click on the link above at the scheduled date/time to log in...

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HOW IS PARTY SWITCHING CHANGING OUR POLITICS?

INTRODUCTION:

In this meetup, we'll discuss how party switching is affecting our political system and the broader political atmosphere in the United States over the last decade or so.

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RELEVANT MATERIALS FROM PAST MEETUPS:

In Nov. 2022, we had a meetup entitled "Understanding the Great Realignment" and the 4th section dealt with the possibility that Trumpism" and the "Great Awokening" are realigning the two major parties, leading to a Republican Party with a mix of conservatives & populists and Democrats with a mix of liberals & libertarians, as Jennifer Victor predicted in a Vox article in 2016 entitled "The clockwork rise of Donald Trump and reorganization of American parties". We also discuss Michael Lind's 2014 article on "The Coming Realignment" predicting that the GOP will become more driven by a working-class/middle class coalition in "Posturbia" (suburbs, exurbs & rural areas), whereas the Democratic Party will be based around an multiracial coalition composed of a college-educated elite and lower-wage service workers in "Densitaria" (high-density downtowns of major cities).

Back in Jun. 2024, we had a meetup entitled "Which Party's Coalition Will Crack First?" where we explored how the current party coalitions might fracture, focusing on Democrats' struggles with young people and black & Hispanic voters (particularly men), and Republicans' struggles with major corporations and suburban middle-class whites (particularly women). The "Dem Crackup" scenario I outlined in the outline's Introduction section arguably describes the 2024 election: "A backlash against 'wokeness' will help the GOP win back the business conservatives while also attracting more working class voters, leading to major losses for the Democrats & a discrediting of the Democratic establishment. Ironically, this might give the Bernie-style populists a second shot at taking over the Democratic party, as they aim to win back the working class with economic reforms instead of identity politics."

Back in February, we had a meetup entitled "Elites & Counter-Elites". In the 3rd section, we discussed the growing conflict between journalists at legacy print & TV media outlets with declining viewership and "new media elites" like podcasters, social media influencers, and independent journalists at online outlets like Spotify & Substack. In particular, we talked about prominent liberal journalists defecting to Substack in 2020 (e.g. Glenn Greenwald, Matt Taibbi, Bari Weiss, Matt Yglesias, Jesse Singal), as well as the reasons for the shifting political loyalties of controversial comedians like Joe Rogan, Bill Maher, Dave Chappelle, Jerry Seinfeld, Russell Brand, Tim Dillon, Bill Burr, and Jimmy Dore. In the 4th section, we looked at the role of Silicon Valley as an alternative power center vis-a-vis New York & DC that attracts a different sort of elite class, as well as the recent rightward shift of some tech moguls like Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Marc Andreessen, Davis Sacks, and Brian Armstrong.

Back in May, we had a meetup entitled "Can 'Abundance Liberalism' Save the Dems?" We discussed the "blue stats exodus" due to high costs of living that have led 13 million people to migrate to red states, which could hurt the Democrats after the 2030 census if they lose seats in the house and presidential electors. We then discussed Ezra Klein & Derek Thompson's new book Abundance (2025) that promotes increasing the supply of essential goods & services (e.g. housing, healthy food, clean energy & transportation, broadband internet access, healthcare, education, childcare) to make them more abundant & affordable in order to achieve progressive outcomes like reducing poverty and creating more economic opportunities. We also looked at critiques of abundance liberalism from both the libertarian right and the progressive left, and whether - whatever its merits - abundance liberalism has "legs", i.e. can it gain enough electoral support in blue states to achieve some of its proposed reforms, or will it inevitably be crushed by the left-wing populists leading the anti-Trump resistance.

Back in August, we had a meetup entitled "The Return of the 'Socialist Moment' for Dems?" We discussed the Democrats' current low-favorability rating and reckoning after the 2024 election loss, and whether this indicates a desire for the party to become more moderate or more radical. We discussed the popularity of Bernie Sanders & AOC's "Fight Oligarchy" tour and Zohran Mamdani's surprise win in the NYC mayor's primary race, both of which may point to the rising fortune's of the Democrats' progressive/socialist wing. (Note: I wish I'd added a 4th section on the Democrats' struggles in their outreach to young men and their attempt to find their left-wing analogue for Joe Rogan in podcasters like Hasan Piker.)

DIRECTIONS ON HOW TO PREPARE FOR OUR DISCUSSION:

The videos & articles you see linked below are intended to give you a basic overview of some of the theories about why both voters & politicians are switching their party affiliation and how this is affecting our politics. As usual, I certainly don't expect you to read all the articles prior to attending our discussion. The easiest way to prepare for our discussion is to just watch the numbered videos linked under each section - the videos come to about 58 minutes total. The articles marked with asterisks are just there to supply additional details. You can browse and look at whichever ones you want, but don't worry - we'll cover the stuff you missed in our discussion.

In terms of the discussion format, my general idea is that we'll address the topics in the order presented here. I've listed some questions under each section to stimulate discussion. We'll do our best to address most of them, as well as whatever other questions our members raise. I figure we'll spend about 30 minutes on each section.

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I. WHICH VOTERS HAVE LEFT THE DEMOCRATS OVER THE LAST DECADE - AND WHY & TO WHAT END?
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1a) CBN News, "The 'Great Realignment:' Democrats Leave Party in Droves, and What It Could Mean for GOP in November [2022]" (video - 4:40 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-m1esKcOTQ8

1b) Young Turks, "Millions FLEE Democratic Party [in 2024] — Here’s Why" (video - 9:38 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPYDGLdWXZw
- Robert Griffin, "Party Hoppers: Understanding Voters Who Switched Partisan Affiliation [in 2011-2016]"
  https://www.voterstudygroup.org/publication/party-hoppers
- Jeff Stein, "The Bernie voters who defected to Trump, explained by a political scientist" (Vox)
  https://archive.ph/kgKOi
- Grace Turke-Martinez, "Party Switcher Data Doesn't Lie, But It's Easy To Misinterpret: Alarm & Optimism in Key States [in 2022]"
  https://themessinagroup.com/alarm-optimism-in-key-states-for-party-switchers/
- Pew Research, "Changing Partisan Coalitions in a Politically Divided Nation: Party identification among registered voters, 1994-2023"
  https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2024/04/09/changing-partisan-coalitions-in-a-politically-divided-nation/
- Matt Yglesias, "The crank realignment is bad for everyone: A stupid party [on the right] + a bunch of biased institutions [on the left] degrades epistemics across the board"
  https://www.slowboring.com/p/the-crank-realignment-is-bad-for
- Ross Douthat, "The ‘Crank Realignment’ and the Paranoid Center"
  https://archive.ph/GqJTm
- Matthew Yglesias, "When people don’t vote, Democrats win: Everyone needs to learn the new politics of turnout"
  https://www.slowboring.com/p/when-people-dont-vote-democrats-win
- Adam Bonita, et al., "Did Non-Voters Really Flip Republican in 2024? The Evidence Says No."
  https://data4democracy.substack.com/p/did-non-voters-really-flip-republican
II. WHICH POLITICIANS HAVE LEFT THE DEMOCRATS OVER THE LAST DECADE - AND WHY & TO WHAT END?
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2a) WFAA, "Kyrsten Sinema leaves Democrats [in 2022]. How will this impact the Senate?" (video - 1:58 min.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R85XKiEWM8k

2b) The Hill w/ Ross Barkan, "How Did Democrats LOSE People Like RFK Jr., Tulsi Gabbard?" (video - 12:20 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkvbGEOhEDY

2b) ABC News, "Sen. John Fetterman angers Democrats over answer on party affiliation" (video - 2:24 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhUMw0lYVr8
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- Nicole Narea, "Why these Democrats are defecting to the GOP: Four Democratic lawmakers in West Virginia, Louisiana, and North Carolina switched parties recently. Should Democrats worry?"
  https://www.vox.com/politics/2023/4/11/23679162/louisiana-north-carolina-cotham-thompson-lacombe
- Ross Barkan, "How Democrats Lost the Dissident Vote: The Bad News for Democrats on RFK Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard" (Politico)
  https://archive.ph/pYleP
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III. WHICH VOTERS HAVE LEFT THE REPUBLICANS OVER THE LAST DECADE - AND WHY & TO WHAT END?
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3a) Young Turks, "Voters Leaving The Republican Party En Masse [after Jan. 6]" (video - 7:10 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drBxCk0wtmk

3b) MSNBC w/ Rich Logis, "'There is going to be a cannibalization of itself': Former Trump supporter on MAGA breakdown [amid Epstein files debacle]" (video - 9:57 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86tcoDjJWbk
- David de la Fuente, "Romney-Clinton Voters Can’t Deliver a Democratic Majority [in 2018]"
  https://www.thirdway.org/memo/romney-clinton-voters-cant-deliver-a-democratic-majority
- Philip Bump & Lenny Bronner, "Some Republicans are switching parties [after Jan. 6th] — but not many: We should perhaps not assume the collapse of the institutional GOP just yet"
  https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/01/27/some-republicans-are-switching-parties-but-not-many/
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- Nate Silver, "Is Epstein the new Russiagate? Political types are obsessed with the story. But that doesn't mean it's penetrated into the broader public."
  https://www.natesilver.net/p/is-epstein-the-new-russiagate
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III. WHICH POLITICIANS HAVE LEFT THE REPUBLICANS OVER THE LAST DECADE - AND WHY & TO WHAT END?
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4a) CNN w/ Joan Avlon, "This is why many Republicans are leaving the House [in 2019]" (video - 3:14 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmlsPw_ExJY

4b) Let's Talk Elections w/ Ethan Kelly, "Even MORE Republicans Endorse Kamala Harris for President" (video - 16:35 min, listen to 7:00)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HjQ-ZbSVQ4
- Peter Weber, "4 in 10 House Republicans in office when Trump was inaugurated have now quit or lost their seats [by Sept. 2019]"
  https://theweek.com/speedreads/866990/4-10-house-republicans-office-when-trump-inaugurated-have-now-quit-lost-seats
- Meredith McGraw & Daniel Lippman, "They resigned in protest over Jan. 6 — then never went after Trump again: The administration officials who defected from the administration over the riots have almost all receded from public view even as Trump’s stayed put." (Politico)
  https://archive.ph/mOaVn
- David Siders, "Anti-Trumpers are done with the GOP. Where do they go now? Scores of Republicans are bolting the party in the wake of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. But they’re discovering there’s really no place to go." (Politico)
  https://archive.ph/FUvxz
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- Nathaniel Rakich & Katie Marriner, "The GOP is Trump's party now [by Feb. 2025]: Most Republicans in Congress were elected in the Trump era."
  https://abcnews.go.com/538/gop-trumps-party-now/story?id=118574467
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1 attendee
Thu, Nov 13 · 3:30 PM EST
•
Online
HxA Event: "The Erosion of Academic Freedom in the US"
Online
Event Title:
“The Erosion of Academic Freedom in the US - And What To Do About It?"

How to Watch:
This online event is FREE but you'll need to register to get the Zoom link in your email (check your Junk folder if you don't see it):
https://heterodoxacademy.org/events/the-erosion-of-academic-freedom-in-the-us-and-what-to-do-about-it/

Event Topic:
Join the Heterodox Academy (HxA) Campus Community at the University of California Riverside (CIVIC) for a discussion between Steve Brint (University of California Riverside Dept. of Sociology) and Tom Ginsburg (University of Chicago School of Law) on "The Erosion of Academic Freedom in the United States - And What To Do About It" on Thursday, Nov. 13 at 12:30 p.m. Pacific/3:30 p.m. Eastern. Steve and Tom will discuss for 30 minutes and then the floor will be open for Q&A.

The discussion will take off from Steven Brint's paper, "The Erosion of Academic Freedom in the United States in the Early 21st Century: A State and Movements-Based Analysis". As the abstract explains: "Academic freedom protections for U.S. professors have never been secure, but they experienced an unprecedented erosion in the early 21st century. The objective of this paper is to analyze why this sea change occurred -- and with what consequences. The paper discusses the policy interventions in the 50 states and the federal government that brought the issue of higher education’s autonomy to a head in 2025. The analysis focuses on the growing distance between the ideological orientations of university faculties and Republican legislators; the development of organizational strength and coordination on both the right and the left; and precipitating events that provided a springboard for extensive policy interventions."

The paper is linked above, but is not necessary to read the paper to participate. Steve will give a brief summary of some main points of the paper at the beginning of the meeting.

About the Speakers:
* Steven Brint is a Professor of Sociology and Public Policy at the University of California, Riverside and Director of the Colleges & Universities 2000 Project. He's the author of several books on higher education, most recently Two Cheers for Higher Education: Why American Universities Are Stronger than Ever – and How to Meet the Challenges They Face (2018).
* Tom Ginsburg is a Professor of International Law and Political Science at the University of Chicago, as well as Faculty Director of the Malyi Center for the Study of Institutional and Legal Integrity, and Faculty Director of theForum for Free Inquiry and Expression. He's has written a large number of journal and law review articles, as well as seven books, most recently How to Save a Constitutional Democracy (2018, with Aziz Z. Huq).

About the Event Host:
The Heterodox Academy (HxA) is a nonpartisan collaborative of thousands of professors, administrators, and students committed to enhancing the quality of research and education by promoting open inquiry, viewpoint diversity, and constructive disagreement in institutions of higher learning. It was founded in 2015 by Jonathan Haidt, a psychology professor at the University of Virginia, Nicholas Quinn Rosenkranz, a Georgetown University law professor, and Chris Martin, an Emory University sociologist.
To learn more about their mission, go to https://heterodoxacademy.org/our-mission/
1 attendee
Thu, Nov 13 · 7:00 PM EST
Free Library Event: Carol Leonnig & Aaron C. Davis, "Injustice"
Parkway Central Library, 1901 Vine St, Philadelphia, PA, US
Event Title: Carol Leonnig & Aaron C. Davis, Injustice

Date & Time: Thurs., Nov., 13, 2025; 7:00 p.m. - 8:30 p.m. EDT

Cost: $5.00 - you can purchase tickets here:
https://10991a.blackbaudhosting.com/10991a/tickets?tab=2&txobjid=a754fc7f-4a32-4f7b-86ea-d211a32e381c

Books will be available for purchase at the library on event night.

This program is free and open to the public and will meet in the auditorium of Parkway Central Library. Please use Wood Street entrance/exit.

About the Book:
Throughout his first administration, Trump arguably did more than any other president to politicize the nation’s top law enforcement agency, pressuring appointees to shield him, to target his enemies, and even to help him cling to power after his 2020 election defeat. The department, pressed into a defensive crouch, has never fully recovered.

Carol Leonnig and Aaron C. Davis's new book Injustice  exposes not only the Trump administration’s efforts to undermine the department at every turn but also how delays in investigating Trump’s effort to overturn the will of voters under Attorney General Merrick Garland helped prevent the country from holding Trump accountable and enabled his return to power. With never-before-told accounts, Leonnig and Davis take readers inside as prosecutors convulsed over Trump’s disdain for the rule of law, and FBI agents, the department’s storied investigators, at times retreated in fear. They take you to the rooms where Special Counsel Jack Smith’s team set off on an all-but-impossible race to investigate Trump for absconding with classified documents and waging an assault on democracy—and inside his prosecution’s heroic and fateful choices that ultimately backfired.

With a plethora of sources deeply embedded in the ranks of three presidencies, Leonnig and Davis reveal the daily war secretly waged for the soul of the department, how it has been shredded by propaganda and partisanship, and how—if the United States hopes to live on with its same form of government—Trump’s war with the Justice Department will mark a turning point from which it will be hard to recover.  Injustice  is the jaw-dropping account of partisans and enablers undoing democracy, heroes still battling to preserve a nation governed by laws, and a call to action for those who believe in liberty and justice for all.

About the Authors:
* Carol Leonnig, a five-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize, is the author of three bestselling books and an investigative reporter who has worked at The Washington Post for the last twenty-five years. She won the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for her reporting on security failures by the Secret Service. She also was part of Post teams awarded Pulitzers in 2024, 2022, 2018, and 2014. Leonnig, a contributor to MSNBC, is the author of Zero Fail and coauthor of A Very Stable Genius and I Alone Can Fix It.

* Aaron C. Davis is an investigative reporter for The Washington Post who has won the Pulitzer Prize twice and has been a finalist three times. He was a lead writer and reporter on the Post’s investigative series into the January 6 attack, which won the George Polk Award, the Toner Prize, and, with other Post coverage, the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service. In 2018, he was part of a Post team that won the Pulitzer for Investigative Reporting. Davis has reported from fourteen countries. He began at The Washington Post in 2008, after reporting for the Associated Press, The Mercury News, and Florida Today.

About the Free Library Author Events:
The Author Events program at the Free Library of Philadelphia offers the opportunity to engage in meaningful dialogue with today’s most celebrated voices in the humanities and sciences.
- For more information, call the Author Events Office at 215-567-4341 or email authorevents@freelibrary.org or go to https://libwww.freelibrary.org/programs/authorevents/?id=155263
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1 attendee