Another bummer year. Another banner year at ye olde LPE Blog. As the Trump administration assaulted the basic pillars of American democracy, our authors somehow maintained that pessimism of the intellect and optimism of the will for which they are renown.
Before we wrap up this annus horribilis, we briefly look back at some of our most loved posts. Today’s list revisits our ten most read posts of 2025, and on Wednesday our editors will highlight some of their personal favorites.
10. In This Brave New World, Does Scholarship Still Matter? – Beth Popp Berman
Beth Popp Berman grapples with the current predicament of many academics: if the recent past is no longer a useful guide to seeking change in the present, what good is policy-adjacent scholarship?
9. The TikTok Ban and the Limits of the First Amendment – Genevieve Lakier
Back in January, Genevieve Lakier argued that the Supreme Court’s affirmation of the TikTok Ban reveals a dangerous weakness in the First Amendment: its failure to protect against government repression that targets the economic infrastructure of speech, rather than speech itself — precisely the kind of repression, she predicted, that was likely to be a hallmark of the second Trump presidency.
8. The Political Economy of the Current Crisis – Jedediah Britton-Purdy
Jedediah Britton-Purdy reflects on the distinctive political economy of the present crisis, where professional civil servants are treated as at-will employees, and the threat of prosecution is just another bargaining chip.
7. Six Biden Administration Officials on Reimagining a Progressive Future
Elizabeth Wilkins, Chiraag Bains, Bharat Ramamurti, Samuel Bagenstos, Shilpa Phadke, and K. Sabeel Rahman reflect on what Biden Administration policies worked, what policies fell short, and what a more ambitious, progressive, and ultimately successful approach might look like going forward.
6. Eight Legal Experts on Trump’s Assault on Higher Education
Jonathan Feingold, Veena Dubal, Samuel Bagenstos, Alexander Chen, Dallas Estes, Sarah Sherman-Stokes, Jeremiah Chin, and Sameer Ashar describe what Trump’s executive orders on higher education purport to require, analyze what they actually require, and assess how colleges and universities ought to respond.
5. Marxism and Antitrust: A Provocation – Gabriel Winant
Gabriel Winant breaks down the core theoretical divides between Marxism and antitrust—and considers how, despite these differences, the two traditions might inform one another in a constructive give and take.
4. The Institutional Neutrality Trap – Amy Kapczynski
Back in January, Amy Kapczynski described the shortcomings of institutional neutrality rules, and what we can expect of powerful institutions in the second Trump era.
3. Post-Neoliberalism is the New Centrism – Quinn Slobodian
Live from the field, Quinn Slobodian takes you inside a recent convening on the death of neoliberalism.
2. The Anti-Constitutional Attack on Birthright Citizenship – Evan Bernick
Evan Bernick explains why Trump’s executive order on birthright citizenship is not merely unconstitutional but anti-constitutional—an effort to perpetrate the very evils that abolitionists and Republicans sought to eradicate from our constitutional order.
1. Define and Divide: Toward a Strategy for Opposing Trumpism – A.J. Bauer
A.J. Bauer argues that to meaningfully oppose Trump, the Democrats and the press must stop embracing the right’s framing of the problems we face, and they must stop depicting Trumpism as a monolith.
