Thread by @Yascha_Mounk

🚨Big News🚨

Alongside some of the world's most important writers and activists, I’m starting a new publication and community: Persuasion.

The values of a free society are under threat. The time to defend them is now.

Please join us.

persuasion.community

The most pressing threat to liberal democracy comes from the populist right.

From Brasilia to Washington, authoritarian populists are muzzling dissent, stoking racism, and concentrating power in their own hands.

We’re facing the fight of a lifetime.

But at the very moment when it would be most important for those who oppose an emboldened far-right to speak with confidence and conviction, these same values are losing their luster among significant parts of society—and even among many establishment institutions.

Companies and nonprofits fire innocent people for imaginary offenses.

Prominent voices alternate between defending cancel culture and denying its existence.

An astonishing number of journalists proudly proclaim that it is time to abandon values like due process and free speech.

But blaming others is easy.

The truth is that we ourselves have often lacked convincing answers to problems like racial and economic disparities; been too enmeshed in an establishment that gives people good reason to rebel against it; and defended our ideals without conviction.

So I’ve grown convinced that we need to build a new community of thinkers, activists and citizens who are committed to debating and reinvigorating the values of a free and fair society.

That is the goal of Persuasion. And we have some incredible founding members.

(Join us!)

“Persuasion” stands for:

1) A commitment to a free society in which *everyone* gets to pursue a dignified life.

2) A belief in the social practice of persuasion, which necessitates free speech.

3) A determination to persuade, not to mock or troll, those who disagree with us.

What will Persuasion do?

To begin with, you’ll get:

* A biweekly newsletter from me
* Articles from authors you already admire and those you will soon come to love
* Amazing live events
* Incredible book clubs

persuasion.community/p/persuasion-e…

I mean, just look at some of these book clubs:

* @anneapplebaum, @davidfrum and @davidfrench on their new books
* @Kasparov63 on Gaiman and Pritchett
* George Packer on George Orwell
* @thomaschatwill on Albert Murray
* @JonHaidt and @RichardvReeves on Mill

And there's more!

Persuasion aims to be the nucleus for a community that seeks to shake the defenders of the free society out of their complacency.

But we can only build a real esprit de corps with your help.

So *please* sign up today.

[End]

persuasion.community/subscribe

We've just had a hundred people sign up in the course of three minutes.

100 people in 3 minutes!! (Overall, we're now in the thousands.)

I don't even know what to say. Thank you, thank you, thank you. This is gonna be awesome!

Keep spreading the word...
persuasion.community/subscribe

My inbox right now.

(In two pictures as I don't want to reveal any email addresses. Note that most of these conversations aren't single sign-ups; each of them is a hundred people!)

🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏

By the way, we are open to help in all and any forms!

Do you want to pitch us? Help out with standing up this organization? Send us some feedback? Give us a donation?

Write to us at [e-mail].

And no, this does not qualify my love for @TheAtlantic – a magazine for which I’m proud to keep writing.

I’ll explain the difference between our missions, how it matters, and why we need both in my first article for Persuasion!

Until then, why not get a subscription to both?

Realized both people who were signing up for free and those generously buying subscriptions were getting rather cold automated response emails.

Have fixed those! So now's a great time to join or, I guess, sign up again?

(Thanks for the eagle-eyed members who pointed this out!)