"Left-wing populism: OK. The right-wing flavor: not so much," is what I read out of pieces like this. That reading tends to be confirmed when you look at any given author's other recent takes, esp. on social media, to try to get a sense for their total perspective, including where their blindspots are. Outside of the obvious concerns, the thing that bugs me most is that because this and similar pieces are (correctly) thought of as a "left" call-to-action, and the left in the US has been associated with the tag "liberal", then people have become used to using the terms interchangeably, and they continue to do so, even when the new mainstream left's philosophy is rooted in fundamentally illiberal desire to quash. I recently listened to a Glenn Greenwald interview where, even in the midst of a long, impassioned argument regarding his departure at The Intercept, he slipped into going along with the misapplied "Liberal" label when what he was referring to was the left. This ultimately leads to more newly minted opponents for liberals.
It's easy to see what's going on. The author of this piece and many others once upon a time purported to espouse a certain set of principles, because it was fashionable and a socially expedient thing to do for the time, especially in the context of what it was a reaction to. The author eventually puts some thought into it and subsequently adopts a public stance matching what was privately true all along—revealing how little they value the things they said they did. The author then uses public messages like this one to signal that the earlier reactionary phase is over. This indicates to other fairweather philosophers that they, too, should now move into the new phase and adopt the new reactionary stance.
The level of sophism involved is important to keep in mind when trying to have a discussion. Principles here don't really matter, not even the ones which are said to underpin the new stance. Trying to have a principled discussion, therefore, or to attempt to work your way through a reasoned argument, is just going to be a waste of time and energy. It's still important to do it, but it's also important to understand what it's (not) going to achieve and be conscious of how you can better spend your resources.