American Right
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David French’s America
In the end, the souls animating both the red hats and the honking cars want a restoration—they want things to go back to normal. In the end, they will all be disappointed. There’s no saving America’s soul. There's no restoring the soul. There's no fighting for the soul of America. There’s no uniting the souls
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Trump Doesn’t Worry Me; Republican Leadership Does
If Republican leadership won't stand up to this buffoon playing at il duce, why should we expect them to stand up to a truly dangerous, ruthless one? This is another problem of commonplaces and how they work with ideas that everybody grew up thinking. The commonplace about the Republican Party is that it's pro-business, pro-military,
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Trump: Jedi Mind Trick Master
Like any competent quack, Trump focuses on a winning vibe, not a factual case. He positions himself as an alternative to “the scientists” and “the doctors” such that followers have to choose between trusting them or him. This process, in extreme forms, leads to what some psychologists refer to as identity fusion. William Swann, a
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Two Cliches
The first cliche being repeated ad nauseam by the incoming Biden people is "We've got a lot of work to do." The second is "What unites is far stronger than what divides us," or words to that effect. So regarding the first, assuming that the Dems don't get at least 50 in the senate, what
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Like Deer in the Headlights
Trump might eke out a victory, but it looks like Biden wins the White House and the GOP holds the senate. The country, in other words, chooses stasis and the continued gridlock that makes us ungovernable–a failed state in the making. Fear makes us stupid, and people are really scared. As a country, we're like
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Two Different Worlds
“With the ascension of Charles I to the throne we come at last to the Central Period of English History …, consisting in the utterly memorable Struggle between the Cavaliers (Wrong but Wromantic) and the Roundheads (Right but Repulsive).” ― W.C. Sellar, 1066 and All That: A Memorable History of England Listening to this morning's
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Quote of the Day: David Frum
The central gambit of Trump-style authoritarianism is to claim legitimacy as a representative of “the people” while selectively disenfranchising and disempowering more and more of those people. The U.S. Constitution in many ways protects minorities against majorities. In the Trump era, we see instead politicians like Lee trying to pretend that minorities are majorities—and to
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Adam Serwer on Robert’s Civil Rights Jurisprudence
Roberts’s decision in Shelby County surprised few legal observers. As a judge, he has frequently ruled that state measures addressing racism are worse than racism. This is a deeply held philosophical perspective, one he has advanced since he was a young attorney in the Reagan Justice Department. In that role, he argued against adding a