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Social Liberty 2027: The Opening

Positioning the liberty caucus for a change of political atmosphere: a draft program frame for a two-day online conference in 2027.

Social Liberty Foundation ·
#strategy#election 2026#bill of separations#realignment#conference#sl2027#liberty caucus#call for proposals

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The moment

On November 3, 2026, the governing party lost both chambers of Congress, by margins beyond 2006. After the Shellacking gives two readings of the loss. In the first, it was the six-year itch, and the cycle will turn by itself. In the second, it was structural. A hollow party can raise money and enforce loyalty but cannot choose or check its own leader, and this is what such a party looks like when the bill arrives. Under either reading, coalitions have come loose. Latino voters, young men, independents in one-party states and voters who think their vote no longer matters are all in motion. The parties are scrambling over issues neither of them owns, such as data centers, AI, the cost of living and an unpopular war.

The regional dispatches from election week (Cross-Filing, Silver Walkout, The Anti-Rent Ticket, Readjusters, What the Valley Lent, Once-Safe Ground, What November Reassembles) make one point in many places. American realignments have happened before. When they did, small organized blocs holding the balance (fusion tickets, debt revolts, tenant movements) shaped what was reassembled, out of all proportion to their numbers.

This conference is about being that bloc. It is not about mourning the old map or cheering the new one. It asks what a liberty caucus needs ready (ideas, people, mechanisms, a short list of achievable separations) for the moment when the ground moves. The hope is concrete. Big changes reopen questions that were closed for a generation, and a caucus that arrives prepared can get answers into the reopening.

How the program is built

The committee is not asking for finished panels. This document fixes the frame: three streams, sized slots and six topic tracks. The call for proposals then invites specific talks, research, posters and session proposals inside that frame. The committee selects, orders and combines what arrives.

Format at a glance

Stream What it is Slots Length Output
1. Talks Prepared presentations, live with Q&A 2 keynotes, 9 standard talks, 6 lightning talks (17 total) Keynote 45 min · Standard 25 min incl. Q&A · Lightning 7 min Recorded, published
2. Meetings & strategy sessions Facilitated working sessions with a prep reading and a required written output 9 sessions (4 + 4 parallel, plus 1 headline session) + closing plenary 60–90 min (closing 45 min) Memo, map, ranked list or resolution
3. Posters Research, data, simulations, regional case studies 20–30 posters Async: one-page PDF + ≤3-min video · 2 live gallery hours Permanent gallery page

Each day runs about 6½–6¾ hours online, including breaks, scheduled to suit both US coasts (see the skeleton below).

Topic tracks

Every proposal is tagged with one primary track. Each track lists anchor posts from social-liberty.org that set out the house position. Proposals may build on that position, extend it or argue against it.

A. The Realignment Moment

Where the coalitions are coming loose, and how a small, organized bloc has decided realignments before.

B. Sovereignty, Federalism & the Bill of Separations

The load-bearing ideas. Sovereignty can be split. Liberty can come before democracy, or by another road. A separation is stronger than a right.

C. Land, the Single Tax & the Housing and Fiscal Crunch

Land is not like other property, and taxing it rightly may be the program’s best answer to the cost of living.

D. Municipalism & Self-Government in Practice

Liberty happens at a scale where people can see each other. That means commissions, parks, councils and the institutions between the citizen and the state.

E. Technology, Money & Privacy

The issues that belong to nobody yet. Three in four voters oppose data centers in their communities, and AI policy is unsettled everywhere.

F. Answering “People Are Hurting”

The hope-and-change track: a liberty answer to cost of living, schooling, health and loneliness that a voter who just switched parties can hear.

Cross-cutting strand: liberty abroad

The Iran war was a top issue at the midterm (63% called it the wrong decision). Foreign policy is not its own track in this draft. The committee may give it one keynote or talk and accept posters under any track. Anchors: Steering Clear of Foreign Entanglements · Transitions on the Arab Peninsula.

Strategy-session slate

These are proposed sessions. The call invites alternative and additional proposals, and the committee picks the final nine. Every session has a facilitator, a short prep reading and a required written output, so that the closing plenary has material to adopt.

# Session Track Prep reading Output
★ The Bill of Separations (headline, unopposed) B Bill of Separations; Ordering the Separations Ranked list of the twelve separations; the first 2–3 to pursue; target states for each; outline of model language
1 Narrow edge: the plank that can’t be taken from us A Narrow Edge; Why Neither Party Wants Social Liberty One-plank recommendation with rationale
2 Fusion, cross-filing or bloc: the 2028 posture A Silver Walkout; Cross-Filing; Once-Safe Ground State-by-state posture map
3 Regional councils as caucus infrastructure B Councils of the US 2026 Pilot region + first-meeting plan
4 LVT pilot states C Transitioning to LVT; Three Blind Assessors Shortlist of 2 states with coalition notes
5 The municipal kit D Public Commission; The Municipal Trilemma Draft one-page kit for local members
6 Owning the data-center issue E Memory Farms; The AI Event of 2026 Position statement + model local ordinance outline
8 Four Factions: where the caucus stands A After the Shellacking (the two-twins section); Irreconcilable Differences; Why Neither Party Wants Social Liberty Four-faction positioning memo: shared ground, red lines and one concrete ask for each faction
7 Movement design: cardinality and growth — Growing a Movement as a Design Problem; Cardinality of Social Groups Caucus structure proposal (cell size, chapters, coordination)
(alt) Message for a cost-of-living electorate F People Are Hurting 1 & 2; Universality Tested one-paragraph message
(alt) Candidate & ballot-measure pipeline A/B Fourteen Propositions 2027–28 measure and candidate target list

The Four Factions session, in more detail

After the Shellacking argues that the line voters drew in November wasn’t left against right. Each party has an authoritarian twin and a libertarian twin: one side trusts power when its own people hold it, and the other distrusts power whoever holds it. A caucus that wants to hold the balance needs a clear position relative to each of the four factions, not just the two parties.

Party Faction Rough profile Questions for the caucus
Republican Authoritarian faction Executive power without Congress (an undeclared war, tariffs by proclamation), loyalty enforced through primaries Where, if anywhere, can we work with it? Where must we be its open opposition? How do we win its voters without its program?
Republican Liberty faction Massie’s “if the legislative branch always votes with the president, we do have a king”; war powers, spending restraint, Bacon on tariffs; mostly defeated in 2026 primaries Natural ally or rival for the same voters? Do we help it rebuild inside the party, or offer it a home outside?
Democratic Original / Blue Dog faction The party’s older Jeffersonian–Jacksonian and fiscally conservative, rural and Southern wing; rebuilt somewhat in 2026 in states the party had written off (Texas, Kansas, Iowa, South Carolina) Shared ground on decentralization, fiscal restraint and localism? Where does it still lean on the administrative state?
Democratic Administrative / progressive faction Comfortable governing by agency rule and executive order when its own president holds the pen; but it has a civil-liberties side (Khanna co-sponsored Massie’s war powers resolution) Which issues does it share with us (war powers, privacy, criminal justice, housing supply)? Where is it the main obstacle to a separation?

Proposed shape (90 min): 1. Framing (10 min). The two-twins argument, placed on the Nolan chart, plus the third axis from Irreconcilable Differences (what may be owned). 2. Four rooms (40 min). One breakout room per faction. Each scores that faction against the Bill of Separations’ twelve domains and the conference’s track issues (realignment, land and LVT, municipalism, data centers and AI, cost of living), marking agree, split or opposed. 3. Report and compare (25 min). Merge the four scorecards. Where do factions across the parties agree with us, and against each other? 4. Positioning (15 min). For each faction, choose one stance (ally, issue partner, persuadable voters, opponent) and write one concrete ask.

Output: a four-faction positioning memo. It feeds the Day 2 Fusion, cross-filing or bloc session and the closing plenary. If they accept, invite one respondent sympathetic to each faction (an officeholder, staffer or writer) to react in the last 15 minutes.

The Bill of Separations session, in more detail

The Bill of Separations lists twelve domains the state should leave altogether: church, speech, art, property, economy, education, science, medicine, family, media, technology and conscience. As Ordering the Separations argues, twelve walls can’t all go up at once. Church and state took fifty years and was won state by state, and it fell last where the establishment’s own beneficiaries began to fear who would hold the machinery next. A change of party control is exactly that moment, because people who built up state power now see it passing to their opponents.

Proposed shape (90 min): 1. Framing (10 min). The historical pattern of disestablishment. 2. Ranking (30 min). Small breakout rooms score each separation on readiness, coalition breadth, how much the newly out-of-power side now fears the machinery, and legal pathway. 3. Sequencing (30 min). The plenary merges the scores and chooses the first two or three. 4. Targets (20 min). Name candidate states and the vehicle for each (ballot measure, state constitutional amendment, legislation, litigation).

Output: a short memo that goes into the closing plenary’s caucus agenda. Talks and posters in Track B are scheduled before this session, so it can draw on them.

Draft two-day skeleton

The order and sizes are fixed; the times are not. The committee fills the blocks from accepted submissions.

Day 1: Diagnosis (≈ 6 h 30)

Block Length Content
Opening & Keynote 1 60 min Welcome (15) + keynote on the realignment moment (45)
Talks I 75 min Track A: 3 standard talks
Break 15 min
Talks II 75 min Tracks B & C: 3 standard talks
Poster Gallery I (live) 60 min Presenters in breakout rooms; doubles as a long break
Strategy Round 1 90 min 4 parallel sessions (e.g. #8 Four Factions, #1, #4, #7)
Report-back 15 min One minute per session; outputs posted

Day 2: Positioning (≈ 6 h 45)

Block Length Content
Keynote 2 45 min The hope in big changes: what reopens, and who is ready
Talks III 75 min Tracks D, E & F: 3 standard talks
Lightning 45 min 6 lightning talks, any track
Poster Gallery II (live) + break 45 min Second time zone-friendly gallery hour
★ The Bill of Separations 90 min Headline working session, unopposed
Strategy Round 2 60 min 4 parallel sessions (e.g. #2, which builds on Four Factions, plus #3, #5, #6)
Closing plenary 45 min Assemble and adopt the caucus agenda from all session outputs

Totals: 2 keynotes, 9 standard talks, 6 lightning talks, 9 strategy sessions plus the closing plenary, and 2 live poster hours with 20–30 posters.

Strategy Round 2 is shown at 60 min to fit the day. If the committee prefers 90 min, trim Lightning or Talks III.

Call for proposals: guidance for submitters

Map these to pretalx session types for sl2027:

Submission type Length Abstract Expected
Keynote (invited, open to nominations) 45 min 300 words A clear thesis on the moment
Talk 25 min incl. Q&A 150–300 words An argument with evidence; name the anchor post you build on or dispute
Lightning talk 7 min ≤100 words One idea, one proposal or one finding
Strategy session 60–90 min 300 words + prep reading + named output A question the caucus must decide, and a facilitation plan
Poster async + gallery 150 words + one-page PDF + ≤3-min video Research, data, simulation or a regional case study. Regional dispatch-style research is especially welcome

Every submission names one primary track (A–F). Talks and posters should say what is new: data, a case, a mechanism or a dissent.

Selection criteria (committee)

  1. Fit to the theme. Does it help the caucus position itself for the changed atmosphere?
  2. Evidence. Sources, data, cases; not slogans.
  3. Actionability. Does it point to something a member, chapter or state group can do?
  4. Balance. Across tracks, regions (the nine regions of Councils of the US) and viewpoints, including proposals that argue against house positions.
  5. New voices. Reserve some lightning and poster slots for first-time presenters.

Open questions for the committee

  • Track chairs: one per track, or pair tracks (A+B, C+D, E+F)?
  • Rough acceptance targets per track: about 3 talks and 4–5 posters each?
  • Should foreign policy be its own track, a keynote or remain a strand?
  • Are keynotes invited only, or open to nominations?
  • Four Factions: invite faction respondents, and should they be named officeholders or sympathetic writers? Should the session be promoted to a second headline (unopposed) slot?
  • Recording and publication policy for strategy sessions: record them, or publish only their written outputs?
  • Time zones: is a European-friendly evening block wanted for posters?
  • Next step: set up these tracks, session types and the CfP text in pretalx for sl2027.