Archive

Dive into a collection of past posts and rediscover timeless content.

Jul 16, 2025

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2 min read

Liberty Is the Right to Be Wrong

The Index: Members Only

Joan Westenberg

Jul 15, 2025

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8 min read

Purity Tests Scale Badly

On the Fragility of Ideological Coalitions

Joan Westenberg

Jul 14, 2025

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9 min read

You Can’t Abstain from Consequences

Voting Is Optional. Accountability Isn’t.

Joan Westenberg

Jul 4, 2025

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6 min read

The Politics of Joylessness

How Moral Performance Killed the Left's Appeal to Gen Z

Joan Westenberg

Jul 1, 2025

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5 min read

No, Biden and Trump Are Not the Same

The Real Danger of Cynical Equivalence

Joan Westenberg

Nobody Has More Contempt for Liberal Democracy Than People Who've Never Lived Without It

Jun 29, 2025

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7 min read

Nobody Has More Contempt for Liberal Democracy Than People Who've Never Lived Without It

The Luxury of Disdain

Joan Westenberg

The Incompatibility of Power and Moral Heroism

Jun 24, 2025

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7 min read

The Incompatibility of Power and Moral Heroism

The Fantasy of the Good Emperor

Joan Westenberg

Iran Is Not Iraq. But America Is Still America.

Jun 22, 2025

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8 min read

Iran Is Not Iraq. But America Is Still America.

When the Threat Is Real but the Architects Are Pathological, What Does Restraint Look Like?

Joan Westenberg

What If the Market Is a Better Pollster Than Democracy?

Jun 18, 2025

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7 min read

What If the Market Is a Better Pollster Than Democracy?

The clearest signals don’t come from voters - they come from volatility.

Joan Westenberg

Jun 16, 2025

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7 min read

How Elon Musk Built a Byzantine Empire

How Musk turned chaos, cults, and contradiction into the most Byzantine machine in capitalism

Joan Westenberg