Trumpism

  • Genealogy Part 2: Restoring the Vertical Dimension to the Metaphysical Imaginary of the West

    Are we using the word "mythology" illegitimately in applying it to objectivity as a state of consciousness?  I think not.  For the myth at its deepest level is that collectively created thing which crystallizes the great, central values of a culture. It is, so to speak, the intercommunications system of culture. If the culture of

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  • America in 2025

    The historical irony is rich. Democracy has a better than even chance of being permanently subverted by those who in their delusions believe it already has been. They aim to turn the country in fact into a far worse version of what in their fevered imaginations they already believe it has become.

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  • Hopes for a Progressive Social Movement

    Social movements deliver votes to friendly politicians and stiffen their backs. More important, they take political arguments out of legislative halls and press them in private spaces of power. They suspend our delicate treaties of social peace, creating turbulence in hierarchical institutions like the workplace and the family. Institutions like these need the submission of

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  • The Crisis of the Liberal Order, Part III

    In Part I, I argue on a more practical political level that the future of democracy in the U.S. depends on Liberal Democrats succeeding and Republicans in their current form failing and then being pushed to the margins. I argued that's not likely to happen if Main Street Americans continue to associate the Democratic Party

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  • An Interesting Theory from Breitbart

    Do you want to know why I think Howard Stern is going full-monster with his mockery of three fellow human beings who died of the coronavirus? Because leftists like Stern and CNNLOL and Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi and Anthony Fauci are deliberately looking to manipulate Trump supporters into not getting vaccinated. Nothing else makes

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  • Left Authoritarians?

    This Atlantic article entitled "The Experts Somehow Overlooked the Authoritarians on the Left" bolsters the argument I made in Naive Idealists posted on 9/6. All authoritarians, whether on the Left or Right, work with the energies of one-sided Doves, aka Naive Idealists. You don't have to be a Dove like Robespierre or John Brown to be

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  • Some Random Thoughts on Afghanistan

    Despite whatever level of culpability Biden has for not planning the logistics of the evacuation effectively, it's also become abundantly clear that those Afghanis who supported the twenty-year American boondoggle in Afghanistan as translators, etc. should be very happy that Biden was in office rather than Trump. This withdrawal was going to be a mess

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  • Boredom, Dionysos, and the Ethic of Authenticity

    For people like Trump there is no good or bad; there is only boring and entertaining, and so anything is permitted so long as it is entertaining. The only sin is to be a bore, and it is better to be a boor than a bore.  This is a truth someone like Matt Gaetz well

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  • Anne Applebaum on the Psychology of Collaboration

    Why do people collaborate with people they have before seen as their enemy? What explains a Lindsay Graham or a Ted Cruz or a Nikky Haley? Or perhaps the more interesting question is what explains the motives of those who resist–the Liz Cheneys or Adam Kinzigers? Well, there are so many good reasons to do

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  • Quick Thoughts on the Impeachment

    As I said in my post last week, this was political theater at a time when we're sick of it, but it was more compelling than I expected. Nevertheless, it's good that they got it over with in a week.   Fifty-six percent of the country wanted him convicted, and 57% of the senators voted

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