American Right
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Pack the Court 3
Much of the discussion about Barrett’s nomination has focused on social issues, like abortion, guns and same-sex marriage. They’re all important, obviously. But they are not the issues that animate many activists and wealthy campaign donors who have spent decades pushing for a conservative overhaul of the courts. Koch gave that speech in 1974, and
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On Courage and Prudence
One of Trump’s spokespeople derided the Biden event as “an episode of Mister Rodgers Neighborhood.” (In authentic Trump style, she misspelled the name.) If this was meant to suggest that the evening was all smiles and saccharine—well, it only showed that the spokesperson had never watched the classic children’s program hosted by Fred Rogers. Rogers
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Has “Trump’s America” Jumped the Shark?
When I spoke to former NBC colleagues of Mr. Zucker about his tenure there, the show they brought up most often wasn’t “The Apprentice”; it was “Fear Factor,” in which contestants were tossed in their underwear into a pit full of rats, among other grotesque stunts. USA Today described it as perhaps “the most vile
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Milton Friedman: Proto-Sociopath
But while economists still argue over Friedman’s theories, his hot take 50 years ago for nonspecialists — the Friedman doctrine — turned a capitalist truism (profits are essential) into a simple-minded, unhinged, socially destructive monomania (only profits matter). In “A Christmas Carol,” Scrooge is redeemed when he abandons his nasty profit-mad view of life —
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This Moment is Different
I know plenty of Trump supporters, and I know many of them to be people of integrity in important areas of their lives. Indeed, some are friends I cherish. But if there is a line Donald Trump could cross that would forfeit the loyalty of his core supporters—including, and in some respects especially, white evangelical
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Belief and Cash Value
I've been thinking about William James and Charles S. Peirce lately. I like Jamesian Pragmatism, because of its open-endedness, its aptness for the way we actually live and think about the world. It's somewhat simplistic to say that for James 'truth' is what works, but it points us in the right direction. Truth is what has
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Quote of the Day: Thomas Edsall
"In God We Divide", by Thomas Edsall in today's NYT …the “most powerful simple way to understand the electorate” is as composed of “white Christians (half), white seculars (a quarter) and voters of color (a quarter).” Citing data from Pew, he noted that white Christians favored Trump 67 to 27, while white seculars favored Clinton
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Quote of the Day: Ross Douthat
Trump’s authoritarian tendencies are naked on his Twitter feed, but Bloomberg’s imperial instincts, his indifference to limits on his power, are a conspicuous feature of his career. Trump jokes about running for a third term; Bloomberg actually managed it, bulldozing through the necessary legal changes. Trump tries to bully the F.B.I. and undermine civil liberties;
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State of the Race 1
Bernie Sanders' position in this cycle is a lot like Trump's in the last one. He has a solid, impassioned base of support that is dwarfed by the majority which is split among the rest of the field. Trump won because the opposition to him could not unify around another candidate to oppose him. This