Birch Smith
@birchsmith.bsky.social
Philosophy PhD student and contributing editor at The UnPopulist. I work on the role of social and political epistemology in democratic political theory.
Read my public philosophy here: https://discoursemachine.beehiiv.com/
Read my public philosophy here: https://discoursemachine.beehiiv.com/
Reposted by Birch Smith
of the new media organizations that are absolutely worthy of your support, i think the unpopulist should be on your list
Help Us Stand Up to Authoritarianism: Become a Paid Subscriber This Holiday Season
Right-wing extremism is well funded. That means liberals can't afford to hold back if they want to win.
www.theunpopulist.net
December 22, 2025 at 4:33 PM
of the new media organizations that are absolutely worthy of your support, i think the unpopulist should be on your list
I'm proud to be working alongside Shikha and the rest of @theunpopulist.net's team. If you can, please support us so that we can continue our work.
Liberal institutions don’t survive on good intentions alone. They survive only when people who believe in them decide they are worth defending. So even though @theunpopulist.net's content is free, please make a voluntary contribution and sign up for the paid tier: open.substack.com/pub/theunpop...
Help Us Stand Up to Authoritarianism: Become a Paid Subscriber This Holiday Season
Right-wing extremism is well funded. That means liberals can't afford to hold back if they want to win.
open.substack.com
December 18, 2025 at 1:39 PM
I'm proud to be working alongside Shikha and the rest of @theunpopulist.net's team. If you can, please support us so that we can continue our work.
Imagine telling some Republican voter, say during the first Obama administration, that in ~15 years a US President would cut off funding from a Catholic charity for following the Pope's teaching/Church doctrine.
Then imagine telling them it would be a Republican.
Then imagine telling them it would be a Republican.
Kristi Noem has attacked Sister Norma Pimentel, a leader of Catholic Charities serving immigrants in the Texas Rio Grande Valley, after she spoke out bravely criticizing DHS deportation projects, echoing the words of Pope Leo. www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/268391/...
DHS cuts off aid to Texas Catholic Charities
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has suspended Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley (CCRGV) from receiving federal funding, according to CCRGV.
www.catholicnewsagency.com
December 12, 2025 at 2:36 PM
Imagine telling some Republican voter, say during the first Obama administration, that in ~15 years a US President would cut off funding from a Catholic charity for following the Pope's teaching/Church doctrine.
Then imagine telling them it would be a Republican.
Then imagine telling them it would be a Republican.
Reposted by Birch Smith
Rep. Thanedar has filed two articles of impeachment against Hegseth, one for "murder and conspiracy to murder" and the other for "reckless and unlawful mishandling of classified information." 🧵
(Full disclosure: I was happy to consult a bit on drafting this.)
(Full disclosure: I was happy to consult a bit on drafting this.)
December 9, 2025 at 9:30 PM
Rep. Thanedar has filed two articles of impeachment against Hegseth, one for "murder and conspiracy to murder" and the other for "reckless and unlawful mishandling of classified information." 🧵
(Full disclosure: I was happy to consult a bit on drafting this.)
(Full disclosure: I was happy to consult a bit on drafting this.)
Listened to the Bulwark interview with her and by god I tried to be charitable but this is the only takeaway I can come up with.
December 3, 2025 at 6:42 PM
Listened to the Bulwark interview with her and by god I tried to be charitable but this is the only takeaway I can come up with.
Moments like this really make me question my sanity as a moral philosopher: there are genuinely hard problems in morality, but this is about as easy as it gets.
If we can't get people to figure out "don't have this kind of relationship with someone 34 years your junior, duh" what's the point?
If we can't get people to figure out "don't have this kind of relationship with someone 34 years your junior, duh" what's the point?
Btw about this from Lizza's reply: Olivia and I lived together for 4+ years (4 b'days, 4 Xmases, 4 anniversaries). That's like $1250 of jewelry per celebration. And her apartment was a writing studio. And I made an f-ton then. What was I supposed to do? Get her a lot of Gift Certificates from Kmart?
November 18, 2025 at 6:14 PM
Moments like this really make me question my sanity as a moral philosopher: there are genuinely hard problems in morality, but this is about as easy as it gets.
If we can't get people to figure out "don't have this kind of relationship with someone 34 years your junior, duh" what's the point?
If we can't get people to figure out "don't have this kind of relationship with someone 34 years your junior, duh" what's the point?
Gobsmacking irony for Donald Trump, a man who won the presidency with no political experience and who is frequently proven to be incompetent, to advocate voting for a Democrat on the grounds that they are competent and experienced.
November 3, 2025 at 11:41 PM
Gobsmacking irony for Donald Trump, a man who won the presidency with no political experience and who is frequently proven to be incompetent, to advocate voting for a Democrat on the grounds that they are competent and experienced.
"Trump is actually the best remaining Republican" (technically false, but true in the sense that the collection of back-benchers who are better than him are not going to be the ones leading the post-Trump party)is a dispiriting thesis, but important in two senses.
I'm sure there's a better episode name. But @birchsmith.bsky.social floated the idea that whatever comes out of the Right after Trump will be worse than him, so I had to
An Extremely Modest Proposal
open.spotify.com
October 10, 2025 at 7:07 PM
"Trump is actually the best remaining Republican" (technically false, but true in the sense that the collection of back-benchers who are better than him are not going to be the ones leading the post-Trump party)is a dispiriting thesis, but important in two senses.
Reposted by Birch Smith
We are officially in a constitutional crisis since Texas National Guard has arrived in Illinois: www.theunpopulist.net/p/trumps-lea...
Trump’s Leaked Plan to Deploy the Texas National Guard Against Illinois Will Tear Apart the Union
If it goes forward, it will plunge the country into an unprecedented constitutional crisis
www.theunpopulist.net
October 8, 2025 at 2:27 AM
We are officially in a constitutional crisis since Texas National Guard has arrived in Illinois: www.theunpopulist.net/p/trumps-lea...
Earlier this year I was given the opportunity to join The UnPopulist as a contributing editor, and I was glad to take it because I knew I was joining a team that understands the danger this moment presents and is committed to opposing it. I couldn't be happier to be a part of this work. Subscribe!
September 23, 2025 at 2:37 PM
Earlier this year I was given the opportunity to join The UnPopulist as a contributing editor, and I was glad to take it because I knew I was joining a team that understands the danger this moment presents and is committed to opposing it. I couldn't be happier to be a part of this work. Subscribe!
Talked about this as a potential outcome for tomorrow's episode of Discourse Machine.
We didn't even get to release the episode before it happened
We didn't even get to release the episode before it happened
September 18, 2025 at 1:41 AM
Talked about this as a potential outcome for tomorrow's episode of Discourse Machine.
We didn't even get to release the episode before it happened
We didn't even get to release the episode before it happened
As ever, deciding to give everyone a Pocket Cursed Object: Brain Liquefier is having extremely predictable bad consequences.
There are very, VERY few people who are equipped to talk about this shooter correctly given the brainrot written on the shell casing. You have to understand so much of online culture to get it and also understand how that culture is both connected to and separate from real world ideological spaces
September 12, 2025 at 3:05 PM
As ever, deciding to give everyone a Pocket Cursed Object: Brain Liquefier is having extremely predictable bad consequences.
Reposted by Birch Smith
/4 SCOTUS has lost the presumption of regularity -- the mandate of the legal heavens -- through its shadow docket actions, which by invoking SCOTUS' equitable discretionary powers have obliterated the pretext that SCOTUS is merely calling balls and strikes, merely calling lines where they see them.
September 9, 2025 at 6:19 PM
/4 SCOTUS has lost the presumption of regularity -- the mandate of the legal heavens -- through its shadow docket actions, which by invoking SCOTUS' equitable discretionary powers have obliterated the pretext that SCOTUS is merely calling balls and strikes, merely calling lines where they see them.
I am not kidding when I say the simplest (and basically accurate) way to think about the contemporary epistemic environment is as a global 50% debuff to human cognitive function, video-game style.
serious question. does no one know anything anymore? you're saying the people you hate on bluesky are of the same type as the ones that produced the democratic wipeouts in the 1980s? you know, when the democratic party still had a conservative southern wing and strong support from white ethnics?
September 6, 2025 at 6:16 PM
I am not kidding when I say the simplest (and basically accurate) way to think about the contemporary epistemic environment is as a global 50% debuff to human cognitive function, video-game style.
America First foreign policy: where God forbid you give a tiny pittance of money to a friendly nation fighting a war against one of your chief strategic foes, but where you *can* light that money on fire changing letterhead.
It’s almost as if Trump and Hegseth haven’t the faintest fucking clue how to defend a nation. www.politico.com/news/2025/09...
September 6, 2025 at 1:47 AM
America First foreign policy: where God forbid you give a tiny pittance of money to a friendly nation fighting a war against one of your chief strategic foes, but where you *can* light that money on fire changing letterhead.
Here I am, back in the states and already hard at work in the podcast mines
Quick react episode on the lethal US strike on the Venezuelan craft. Also, @birchsmith.bsky.social argues that ignorance is worse than malice when you're facing an authoritarian moment.
open.spotify.com/episode/6hi4...
open.spotify.com/episode/6hi4...
US Bombs Ship, Plus How Apathy Lead to Trump
open.spotify.com
September 5, 2025 at 12:34 AM
Here I am, back in the states and already hard at work in the podcast mines
Reposted by Birch Smith
Trump’s constant canard is that his mass deportation plans are targeted at dangerous criminals, not ordinary, hardworking people. This was never true—or even *possible* given the scale of his deportation ambitions.
@birchsmith.bsky.social
@birchsmith.bsky.social
We Are Well on the Road to an Immigration Police State
A roundup of The UnPopulist’s work in the first six months of Trump’s second term
www.theunpopulist.net
September 3, 2025 at 8:00 PM
Trump’s constant canard is that his mass deportation plans are targeted at dangerous criminals, not ordinary, hardworking people. This was never true—or even *possible* given the scale of his deportation ambitions.
@birchsmith.bsky.social
@birchsmith.bsky.social
Reposted by Birch Smith
Birch Smith (@birchsmith.bsky.social) on Trump's fundamentally anti-American legacy.
September 1, 2025 at 11:00 PM
Birch Smith (@birchsmith.bsky.social) on Trump's fundamentally anti-American legacy.
Here's something I've wrestled with in my academic work and public philosophy efforts for a while now: at what point do you announce that you think it's too late? On one hand you do risk dispiriting people, especially if you're wrong and you *could have* stopped system failure....
And here’s @jvl.bsky.social on our liberal democratic systems failure
www.thebulwark.com/p/democracy-...
www.thebulwark.com/p/democracy-...
Democracy, Simple-Complex Systems, and ‘The Cascade’
Things fall apart.
www.thebulwark.com
August 30, 2025 at 6:30 PM
Here's something I've wrestled with in my academic work and public philosophy efforts for a while now: at what point do you announce that you think it's too late? On one hand you do risk dispiriting people, especially if you're wrong and you *could have* stopped system failure....
Reposted by Birch Smith
Our political media is simply not equipped to handle a situation where the voters were unambiguously wrong in a way which morally implicates the electorate.
A man coughing up blood. Men zip-tied face down on a wet floor. CCTV turned off. Men forced to eat off of a chair like animals while handcuffed. Solitary confinement if you complain. This is just three paragraphs from a new report.
July 23, 2025 at 2:33 AM
Our political media is simply not equipped to handle a situation where the voters were unambiguously wrong in a way which morally implicates the electorate.
Reposted by Birch Smith
@birchsmith.bsky.social and I read More Everything Forever by Adam Becker for this episode. One of the best books I've read this year, and a brilliant explainer on why some parts of Silicon Valley are obsessed with Mars and AGI.
Part 2 in a week!
open.spotify.com/episode/1z7g...
Part 2 in a week!
open.spotify.com/episode/1z7g...
More Everything Forever: Utilitarianism Gone Wrong
Discourse Machine · Episode
open.spotify.com
July 17, 2025 at 5:04 PM
@birchsmith.bsky.social and I read More Everything Forever by Adam Becker for this episode. One of the best books I've read this year, and a brilliant explainer on why some parts of Silicon Valley are obsessed with Mars and AGI.
Part 2 in a week!
open.spotify.com/episode/1z7g...
Part 2 in a week!
open.spotify.com/episode/1z7g...
Yeah there's so much stuff going on that I frequently forget this also happened.
But when I remember it, I think it's one of the more undervalued signs of just how bad things are.
But when I remember it, I think it's one of the more undervalued signs of just how bad things are.
Constitutional rot
its still kinda surreal that the tiktok ban passed into law with supermajorities and got held up as valid and then we're just doing this thing were we are like "haha no"
June 22, 2025 at 12:14 PM
Yeah there's so much stuff going on that I frequently forget this also happened.
But when I remember it, I think it's one of the more undervalued signs of just how bad things are.
But when I remember it, I think it's one of the more undervalued signs of just how bad things are.
Reposted by Birch Smith
"Mass deportation" is the excuse and trigger for authoritarianism. As it was always intended to be.
June 8, 2025 at 10:35 PM
"Mass deportation" is the excuse and trigger for authoritarianism. As it was always intended to be.
Reposted by Birch Smith
this is obviously trumped-up bullshit on the criminal charges to offer a face-saving excuse, and hopefully it will get smashed in court, but still good news overall
ABC reports Kilmar Abrego Garcia is being returned to the United States
abcnews.go.com/US/mistakenl...
abcnews.go.com/US/mistakenl...
Mistakenly deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia on way back to US to face criminal charges: Sources
Mistakenly deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia is on the way back to the United States to face charges of transporting undocumented migrants within the U.S., sources say.
abcnews.go.com
June 6, 2025 at 7:05 PM
this is obviously trumped-up bullshit on the criminal charges to offer a face-saving excuse, and hopefully it will get smashed in court, but still good news overall
Well I *had* other things to talk about, but then the worst people in the world all started fighting online, so obviously that was the only story for a political epistemology podcast to cover.
A couple highlights: Musk has more internet juice than anyone...
open.spotify.com/episode/30LV...
A couple highlights: Musk has more internet juice than anyone...
open.spotify.com/episode/30LV...
The Elon Versus Trump Slapfight
Discourse Machine · Episode
open.spotify.com
June 6, 2025 at 12:12 AM
Well I *had* other things to talk about, but then the worst people in the world all started fighting online, so obviously that was the only story for a political epistemology podcast to cover.
A couple highlights: Musk has more internet juice than anyone...
open.spotify.com/episode/30LV...
A couple highlights: Musk has more internet juice than anyone...
open.spotify.com/episode/30LV...