Garry Kasparov: Why I’m Launching The Next Move

The enemies of freedom have a plan. It’s time we made one too.

Chess masters hone our craft by reviewing thousands of hours of gameplay and identifying strategies that can take us from the opening to the endgame.

But when it comes to politics, this kind of strategic planning and adaptation is sorely missing. In open societies around the globe, small-d democrats are often able to identify what’s wrong with democracy. Maybe even too much.

At this point, the phrase “threat to democracy” probably makes your eyes glaze over. In part, that is because the three-word phrase is overused, both by politicians and pundits. It has already appeared in The New York Times nearly 100 times in 2025—and we’re only three months into the year!

On top of this, we’ve seen a lot of mission creep. Many people seem to believe that anything they don’t like is a threat to democracy. Take gun control and climate change, for instance. Big challenges—yes. Threats to democracy? That’s a stretch.

And when pro-democracy forces do get their threat assessment right, that’s usually where their useful analysis stops. They fail to envision a strategic way forward. Saying what you’re against isn’t a substitute for a positive vision of what you’re for. And since nature abhors a vacuum, in the absence of a positive vision from those who believe in a free society, demagogues fill the void and political extremes—whether from the right or the left—rise up. I saw it in Russia under Vladimir Putin. And I’m now seeing it in America too.

In free societies everywhere, democracy’s brand isn’t great. Here in the United States, the Democratic Party has ostensibly made anti-authoritarianism a central part of their identity. Yet, as one astute observer noted, the Democrats come across as “the HR department of political parties,” one focused on norms, procedures, language policing, and compliance, rather than prioritizing core democratic principles.

It’s hardly a recipe for success.

Calling this out is important, but, as I’ve noted elsewhere, it is also woefully insufficient. That is why I am launching The Next Move.

Criticize, Then Strategize

At The Next Move, our commitment to you, the reader, is that each criticism will be accompanied by a recommendation—a well thought-out line of play for anyone who believes in the core values that underpin the American republic. We’ll talk tactics, but the emphasis will be on strategy.

Here’s just one example of an important issue that has been met with a weak strategic response: we’ve seen a number of foreign students get detained, from Columbia’s Mahmoud Khalil to Rumeysa Ozturk at Tufts. The alleged reasons for their arrest range from harassment to violence to radical politics.

Meanwhile, the chattering classes have focused on the substance of those radical beliefs (for the record, I am strongly against). Others have simply offered unqualified support for those arrested, regardless of their actions.

Trump effectively ensnared his opponents because he knows liberal elites have been selective in their defense of freedom of speech over the last decade. He’s backed them into a corner defending individuals with divisive and unpopular views.

That’s the critique. What’s my recommendation?

First and foremost, focus less on Trump’s policies (with which people can agree or disagree) and more on his methods, which frequently smack of authoritarianism. Our top priority should be defending an American system which allows us to disagree without deporting, arresting, or killing one another.

Second, be consistent. People who in years past were unwilling to defend free speech, whether on college campuses or elsewhere, but have rediscovered its value now, should publicly recognize that inconsistency.

We shouldn't defend freedom of speech (or due process, for that matter) only when they're under threat. We should proactively center them as core elements of our collective identity—principles worth celebrating in their own right.

Pitching A Big Tent

The ascendance of authoritarians requires a grand coalition. The Next Move aims to be a matchmaker for people from across the political spectrum who support a common set of first principles, among them free and fair elections, the freedoms of speech, press, and assembly, accountable institutions, an independent judiciary, and a competitive marketplace free from corruption.

In the coming days, I will be joined in the pages of The Next Move by people who have defended democracy on the literal frontlines of freedom, prominent political leaders from both parties, heads of state who have negotiated with allies and adversaries, dissidents who have led opposition movements against brutal authoritarian regimes, generals who have commanded military operations in conflict zones, among others. They are people whose insights I trust and whose integrity I admire.

We don’t have to agree on everything. That is the nature of coalitions, which are ultimately a game of addition, not subtraction. An arch-capitalist and a democratic socialist will espouse economic worldviews that it would be hard to reconcile. But there’s no reason they can’t defend free and fair elections together. When we are trying to set the table we can’t deny people a seat because we don’t agree on the menu.

And remember: The MAGA coalition encompasses an incredibly broad ideological base held together by a set of cultural norms that make up a loose identity. In my home country, Vladimir Putin’s coalition brings together communists with blood-and-soil nationalists. We don’t stand a chance of winning if we keep excommunicating potential allies.

One of the most important features of competitive chess is that you often learn more from losses than you do from victories. Whenever I lost a chess match, I would make sure to study every move my opponent made as if he were my mentor. So one of the things that The Next Move will do is offer honest, succinct, and well-organized analyses of the ideologies, movements, and even conspiracy theories which serve as key players in the trends buffeting the US and the world as a whole. No caricatures. No strawmen. Minimal editorializing. We must understand the world’s most influential ideas, even if they’re terrible, outlandish, or wrong.

Ultimately, we need to ensure that the values which make freedom possible become a part of our identity. Politics are downstream of culture, which means that if we share a common identity, then our policy disagreements will be much less likely to tear us apart.

The approaching 250th anniversary of US independence has the opportunity to be a turning point—the first chapter in an American democratic renewal that shines a light of freedom into even the darkest corners of the planet. We need the clarity to see the path and the courage to lead the way.

Welcome to The Next Move.

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Thank you for your time and readership.

Subscribe today and let’s start planning the next move.

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