Just a quick note to say that tomorrow is the official publication date for our new book, Fascist Legacies: Far-Right Ideologies Then and Now! Preorders of the book have already been shipped and Amazon's website says that they only have 1 more copy in stock at the moment, with more arriving soon!

After successfully navigating the Scylla of sending off a paper to a journal and the Charybdis of preparing next semester’s syllabus, I managed to find three hours to see Christopher Nolan’s Odyssey.

Since I wrote a book that features a LOT of words about Homer's Odyssey, you had to know I was eventually going to write about Christopher Nolan's Odyssey.

Last week’s post about Substack’s rollout of an AI checker netted the exact same numbers as every post I write—you readers are remarkably consistent, as are you non-readers—but a whole lot of discussion, especially from people I know personally.

I'm probably the most excited person on the internet right now. Why? Because my preferred writing platform has introduced an AI checking device! So I've authored a little manifesto to explain my near-obsessive hatred of AI.

Conspiracy theories aren't new, but they’re certainly having a moment. I wrote about what's driving them and what to do about it. Check it out here: arikohen.substack.com/p/whos-respo...

Because I’m a political science professor, people often ask me if I agree that everything is much, much worse now than it’s been at any point in my (or their) lifetime. In fact, there are a few people who ask me this same question on what feels like a weekly basis.

One of the strangest things about contemporary politics is that many people who support authoritarian politicians seem at least as unhappy about the state of their country as the people who oppose those politicians, and sometimes they appear even more unhappy than their opponents. What gives?

The People Winning the Political Fight Don't Seem Very Happy

"We’re going to win so much, you’re going to be so sick and tired of winning."

arikohen.substack.com

NEW BOOK ALERT! I’m very excited to be able to finally show you my newest edited volume, Fascist Legacies: Far Right Ideologies Then and Now. More info on the book and a very special offer here: arikohen.substack.com/p/new-book-a...

I think, from now on, any time something doesn’t go well for me I’m going to blame SICK DERANGED VANDALS for whatever happened.

If things have seemed quieter around here, it’s because I’ve been on a family vacation to visit relatives in Virginia. Apart from the usual travel-related shenanigans and general excitement of children thrown off their usual schedules, we were fortunate to do some American history sightseeing.

America250: A Vacation

If things have seemed a little quieter around here this past week, it’s because I’ve been on a family vacation to visit relatives in Virginia.

arikohen.substack.com

This is awesome! You too can help Sara’s campaign in all sorts of ways. Check out saraforoppd.com to volunteer or donate!

Angela AuBuchon@memoryangela.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Got my stack of Sara Kohen postcards today! @kohenari.bsky.social

There’s an unusual phenomenon that’s taken hold of us as a species over the past two decades, namely spending an inordinate amount of time trying, across time and space, to convince total strangers that your opinion is correct.

Despite my seemingly constant harping on the problems of social media and the (mis)information environment in which we live, it’s crucial for citizens to have a handle on what’s happening outside their front door.

This week, I wrote about how we can build empathy in our daily lives by reframing the way we react to someone who offends us. Rather than focusing on my own feelings of being insulted, I've been encouraged to try to imagine what the other person must be feeling to have acted this way.

From Being Offended to Building Empathy

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking and writing about empathy because it’s a building block of heroic behavior and it’s a cornerstone of political liberalism. I’ve tried to find ways to bring empathy tr...

arikohen.substack.com

If you spend any time on social media, you’ll very quickly run into the claims that both sides are terrible and all politicians are the same. The comment is delivered with a sense of confidence and finality: cynical detachment is the only rational response to contemporary American politics.

It’s been an exciting and challenging primary season here in Nebraska and now the successful candidates are putting their efforts into a long summer and fall of campaigning ahead of November’s important general election.

It would be easy to cultivate more readers, to increase traffic, to get more comments and restacks. I know the game because I played it for years when I published my (usually angry) thoughts on a blog that averaged many thousands of daily views and when I was (overly) active on Twitter.

There’s a certain clarity that comes from having an enemy. We can pretty easily see its appeal, but we also need to be able to articulate a form of political engagement that can compete with it.

Enemy-Based Politics

There’s a certain clarity that comes from having an enemy.

arikohen.substack.com

If the following formulation sounds familiar, it’s probably because you were active on Facebook or Twitter in 2015-2017:

"Fascist Legacies," the new book from me and Gerald Steinacher will be published this summer and it's available for pre-order now from the University of Nebraska Press (tinyurl.com/2x9z32pk). We're very proud of this fourth volume in our ongoing book series, Contemporary Holocaust Studies.

Liberal political thought doesn’t demand alienation from our neighbors, but it does recognize that there will be moments when our values require us to hold positions that are deeply unpopular. In today's post, I spend some time thinking about why it matters much more to be right than to be popular:

The Liberal Virtue of Unpopularity

The fear of being alone is central to the human experience; it isn’t some sort of peculiar anxiety at the heart of contemporary democratic life or something unique to liberal democrats.

arikohen.substack.com

About a year and a half ago—maybe a bit longer than that now that I think about it—I deleted all of the social media apps from my phone. Read about why I did it and why I think it matters for liberalism as a political philosophy here: arikohen.substack.com/p/turning-of...

Turning Off The Outrage Machine

About a year and a half ago—maybe a bit longer than that now that I think about it—I deleted all of the social media apps from my phone.

arikohen.substack.com

I got an email this afternoon from a Jewish organization that referred to “intolerable antisemitic violence” and that phrase has been stuck in my head ever since. It certainly feels intolerable to American Jews. But nothing will change until it’s intolerable to a lot more people.

I’m a weirdo. I love institutions and rules. Regulations and regular order really are my cup of tea. I spent a fair amount of time learning parliamentary procedure in high school. When someone “calls the question” during a meeting, I know what we’re supposed to do and what we’re not supposed to do.

Any society that spends this much time debating the genetic makeup of Jewish people is not a healthy society.

Exciting news in our house: Sara Kohen is running for a seat on the Omaha Public Power District board of directors. It’s an important role in our community and I hope a lot of people will jump in to help her win this race! Lots of info is here: saraforoppd.com

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the pervasive sense that the slow decline of liberalism has sped up considerably but at the same time that it’s not clear what we can do about it.

If we feel that we cannot safely attend a protest or film a law enforcement officer or legally carry a gun—whether or not we will ever do these things or have any desire to ever do them—then we cannot be said to have these rights in any meaningful way.

It’s 2026! But when it comes to writing about liberalism we haven’t changed very much by breaking out that new “12 Hilarious Basset Hounds for 2026” calendar we got for Hanukkah last month.