The Next Move’s 2025 In Review: April
Our year started in April—but we quickly made up for lost time.
A note from The Next Move: Happy holidays! To celebrate the end of a successful first year on Substack, we’re giving away five chess boards signed by RDI’s Garry Kasparov. Anyone signed up as a premium subscriber by December 31, 2025 will be automatically eligible to win.1 Sign up for a premium subscription in the next two weeks, and you’ll also save 30% off of the regular rate!
2025 marks the end of The Next Move’s first calendar year. Of course, we launched in April, so we’ll save the first anniversary celebrations for four months from now. But we made up for the lost time quickly.
Rounding out the year with over 52,000 subscribers—and nearly 1,000 premium subscribers supporting the Renew Democracy Initiative’s work—is a testament to all of your belief in a better, more free future and the tough, strategic work required to get us there.
So let’s take a look at the year that was. Each day through December 31, we’ll take a look at the top stories from each month to take a broad, strategic perspective on how things have played out.
Here’s our inaugural month—April.
The post that started it all. RDI’s Garry Kasparov lays out what The Next Move is about: strategy, a big tent, and a bigger future.
We believe in articulating a positive platform of what we’re for, not only what we’re against. Admiral Bill McRaven, former head of US Special Operations Command, lays out a vision of an America we can be proud of. An evergreen perspective.
The more things change, the more they stay the same. Another government funding deadline means the specter of another government shutdown. Garry Kasparov and former Congressman Mickey Edwards debate the strategic utility of a government shutdown in holding the Trump administration to account. The authors disagree on the tactics, but they align on first principles—shared alarm at the state of American democracy. As our first debate, these pieces underscored The Next Move’s ethos that constructive disagreement around shared values can sharpen our thinking and produce better results.
1. Please see full rules and regulations for The Next Move December 2025 raffle.