TLP Weekend Edition (February 14-15, 2026)

What we're reading and checking out.

Team USA's Maxim Naumov holds a picture of his parents, who died in the plane collision with an Army helicopter in D.C. last year, after competing in figure skating during the 2026 Winter Olympic Games. Best of luck to all the Americans and other competitors in the final week. (Getty Images)

🇺🇸 “The pessimist who became a prophet: Michael Sandel was ignored by a generation of political optimists. Now he is searching for a way out of the mess he saw coming,” by Martin Sandbu. This article takes us back to our grad school lectures on liberalism and its critics and especially Sandel’s excellent book, Democracy’s Discontent. Sandel, more than most in the field of political philosophy, foresaw the coming populist era in 1996:

To the extent that contemporary politics puts sovereign states and sovereign selves in question, it is likely to provoke reactions from those who would banish ambiguity, shore up borders, harden the distinction between insiders and outsiders and promise a politics to ‘take back our culture and take back our country’, to ‘restore our sovereignty’ with a vengeance.’

Sandbu’s FT overview of multiple discussions with his old mentor is packed with intriguing ideas about our current populist moment and future prospects for citizens who may be disenchanted and dispirited by much of contemporary politics.

↔️ “Two Ways for Democrats to Win,” by Damon Linker. On his Substack, Notes from the Middleground, Linker examines two paths facing Democrats as they try to rebuild a majoritarian coalition (with some kind words for Ruy’s recent work in TLP). The first, Choice A, is the easy way, and the second, Choice B, is the way that will build a better future—for the party and for the country. Unfortunately, while Choice B is clearly preferable, we very well could wind up with Choice A given internal party dynamics. Gulp.

It will be great if Dems win the House (and maybe the Senate) later this year and then the presidency two years after that—just as it was when they did well in 2018 and took back the White House two years later. But that’s just not good enough. Because once Democrats are back in power, they will once again be the object of right-populist wrath and subject to the effects of thermostatic backlash. The same thing that elevated Democrats the first time Trump was president and then elevated Trump when Biden was president and is elevating Democrats now that Trump is president again will likely elevate JD Vance, Marco Rubio, or some other post-MAGA figure shortly after a Democrat sits once again at the Resolute Desk.

That’s the logic of populist politics, in which “Throw the Bums Out!” sentiment targets those in power regardless of who the bums are at any given moment.

Democrats need to be bolder. Rather than passively allowing themselves to benefit from thermostatic gusts (and then getting penalized by them when the wind reverses direction), they should be trying to stop or at least minimize the oscillation. That means doing more, not just to win by the skin of their teeth, but to win by wide enough margins that they can hold onto power through more than one electoral cycle, pursue an agenda, and generate a legacy.

Doing that would require refusing to follow the Republican example of playing mainly to the party’s base of highly engaged voters and instead campaigning and governing in a way that responds to the concerns of the swing voters who keep determining the outcome of elections in our closely and narrowly divided polity. (In a couple of recent posts at The Liberal Patriot, Ruy Teixeira has offered some helpful suggestions about what Dems should do, and not do, to accomplish that goal.)

I get why this is a tough message and strategy for Democrats to swallow. The fact that the thermostatic dynamic promises to give power back to the party immediately following a loss makes it comparatively easy to just sit back and wait for things to get better without risking anything. The risk comes from the fact that pivoting to the center on social and cultural issues to chase swing votes would also be very unpopular with many progressive donors and activists, as Matthew Yglesias and other prominent centrist liberals in the party never tire of pointing out. But it would also be unpopular with lots of Democratic voters, who support those more progressive social and cultural stances, too. With Trump’s unpopularity making it easy for the party to mount a short-term comeback, why risk screwing things up by rocking the coalitional boat? Democrats can worry about holding on to power after they’ve won it back. First things first.

But again, my point is that this is short-sighted and foolish, and may well condemn the country to continued thermostatic swings between the Democrats and an increasingly dangerous and radicalized right-wing alternative.

🤦🏼‍♂️ “Why MAGA-shaming doesn’t work,” by Erica Etelson. Ten years into the Trump era, many Democrats still have little understanding of how to reach Trump voters (in part because they still don’t really get what motivates them). In times of frustration, they simply resort to shaming and scolding in hopes that those who support the president will, after nearly a decade, finally see the light and abandon him. However, as TLP friend Erica Etelson recently wrote on her Substack, there is no surer way to get people to dig in even more:

Toxic shame does not motivate people to engage in introspection or change their behavior. On the contrary, it sets in motion “a downward spiral of bad behavior, shame, more bad behavior, more shame, etc.”

Psychologists know this from clinical practice, and social science research bears it out. Many studies have shown that feelings of shame damage people’s self-worth, disrupt their ability to feel empathy, and prompt them to externalize the blame and lash out aggressively at convenient scapegoats...Shaming triggers defensiveness. At best, it temporarily pushes the behavior underground. At worst, it prompts people to double down on their beliefs or behavior, seek refuge with like-minded people, and retaliate against the shaming class and/or vulnerable people...

So why do liberals persist in hurling contempt at Trump supporters even though it’s counterproductive? I’m guessing most aren’t aware of the backfire effect. But I’ve noticed that, even when they are aware, some choose to keep it up anyway. Why?

In her book Envy Up, Scorn Down, psychologist Susan Fiske observed that, when someone is in a scornful frame of mind, their brain’s reward center lights up in the same way as when they are praised. In other words, contempt feels good; when we unleash it on an adversary, it can serve as a fleeting emotional pick-me-up. When I deem Trump—or one of his supporters—to be reactionary and stupid, then I’m morally superior and smart by comparison. If they’re gullible “fake news” consumers, then I’m a savvy freethinker. If they’re ruled by fear and anger, then I’m a rational actor with a complex inner life.

💩 “How to Avoid Falling for Fake Videos in the Age of AI Slop,” by Beth Malow and Matthew Facciani. Anyone who has spent time on social media lately—Facebook, X, or Instagram—has surely seen videos that made them do a double-take and ask, “Is this real?” As AI grows more sophisticated by the day, it is becoming more imperative than ever for social media users to think before they react/share with their friends. Viral content today travels faster than the truth, and as more and more misleading or outright fake videos infiltrate our feeds, many will be designed to prey on our emotions and entice us to spread them before we determine their veracity.

Over at their Substack, Together Across Differences, neuroscience researchers Malow and Facciani offer some good advice for how to resist these temptations:

1) Understand Our Own Psychological Biases (Psychological Literacy).
People are motivated to believe what fits their values, grievances, and group identities, not necessarily what’s true. When a video confirms what you already believe about politics, culture, or power, authenticity becomes secondary. What matters is that it feels right. AI makes this dynamic worse. No real people need to be involved. No real event has to occur. There may be nothing to fact-check at the source, because the source itself is fictional. That’s why emotional intensity is one of the most important early warning signs.

2) Lateral Reading Is Still the Best Tool We Have (Media Literacy)
The most effective fact-checking strategy we have isn’t vertical reading (scrutinizing the video itself). It’s lateral reading—leaving the content entirely to verify it elsewhere...If you want a simple framework, try the SIFT method:

• Stop before reacting (this includes not reposting on social media until you are certain of the credibility of what you are seeing)

• Investigate the source (have a low threshold to open new tabs)

• Find better coverage (have major news outlets verified the claim?)

• Trace claims back to their origin (this is where reverse image search can help)

3) Policy Changes and Platform Accountability
Social media platforms are not optimized for truth, they’re optimized for engagement. AI slop thrives precisely because it hijacks attention cheaply and at scale. Synthetic outrage is profitable, even when it’s socially corrosive... Transparency and accountability are essential for breaking echo chambers at scale. The same logic applies here. YouTube is making a priority to address AI slop on their website, and other social media platforms are giving users more control over what they see, but we’d like to see this happening more broadly.

🎸 Pebbles, Volume 2, collection from various artists. The first five volumes of the extensive Pebbles series collected in this box set are pure gold for fans of garage rock, American underground, sixties psych, and cool music in general. They’re all good, but Volume 2 in particular hits the right aural spots.

Here’s The Moving Sidewalks taking you to the “99th Floor.”