Tag Archives

Archive of posts published in the tag: 2016 election

The New Republicans

From Henry Olsen at National Review, Can the Republican Party Keep Trump Democrats?  They are best viewed through the lens of active citizenship. They take national identity seriously and imbue Americanism with an implicit bargain that flies in the face of

Read More

The Rejection Election

from Kimberly Strassel in The WSJ, Trump’s Secret Weapon:Obama  All along this election has been portrayed as a referendum on Mr. Trump. Tuesday’s results are far better viewed as a thundering repudiation, at every level, of Mr. Obama’s governing and

Read More

Shifting Coalitions

The two-party system oversimplifies the political landscape.  What we really have are two coalitions of interests and governing philosophies. The Democrats include Progressives, socialists, Capitalists (Wall Street), social justice warriors, unionists, and populists. It is the home of the environmentalists,

Read More

The Contempt Factor

Perhaps you have experienced the conversation when you are constantly interrupted and talked over.  When this happens our first response is to raise our voice over the interrupter, but try the opposite.  Stop mid-sentence, even mid word and see if

Read More

Thoughts on the Electoral College

The Electoral College was carefully designed to fulfill a similar purpose of the constitution, to apply a break on majoritarian tyranny.  The framers understood that democracy and demagogue had the same root. To the greatly disappointed Democrats who lament the

Read More

President Trump

A few thoughts on the great upset. Un-freaking -believable I was wrong. Consistently wrong throughout his whole campaign. I will not go back and delete all of my posts that assumed he would lose.  I am OK with being wrong

Read More

The Dire Need for Party Reform

1776: Would You like to Reconsider by Andrew Roberts in The WSJ First, the Republicans need party leaders and candidates who confront people like Mr. Trump seriously from the start and do not coddle him in the vain hope that if

Read More

Smug Populism

from Kevin Williamson at National Review, The Celebrity Campaign: But Democrats are hardly immune to this sort of thing, and probably should not get too smug about Republicans’ currently excruciating circumstances. If you are looking for a guy with loopy

Read More

The Threat of Administrative Agencies

Yuval Levin recently wrote TheFractured Republic, an intelligent look at the state of political discontent, and a recommended read.  He recently wrote Hillary Is an Embodiment of the Left’s Disdain for Democracy with coauthor Ramesh Ponnuru in National Review. He

Read More

The Legislative Court of HRC

Probably the most objectionable statement from HRC (and this is quite a list) was in the second debate in how she would select justices for the Supreme Court. The transcript: QUESTION: Good evening. Perhaps the most important aspect of this

Read More

After Trump

It appears Trump is going to lose, and the best we can hope for is for the GOP to hold on to both houses of Congress. The Trumpers have nobody to blame but Trump.  He not only failed to assemble

Read More

Some Benefits of a Trump Victory

I dislike Trump’s campaign for most of the reasons flooding the blogosphere, although I do not believe he is racist, anti-immigration, anti Muslim, or misogynist in spite his clumsy statements that indicate otherwise.  I have a problem with his egocentrism,

Read More

The Trump Bubble

From Jonah Goldberg in National Review, Bursting ‘Beltway Bubbles’: If all you heard in his answer was the box-checking boilerplate and not the needy cries of his id, then you’re in a bubble. If all you saw at the Al

Read More

Ideas Still Matter

At Stumbling on the Truth Cliff Asness points to the opportunities Trump missed at the first debate inBusinessman, Defend Thyself: Much has been made of “fact checking” this election cycle. Not enough focus has been put on “idea checking.” Unfortunately

Read More

Idea Checking

At Stumbling on the Truth Cliff Asness points to the opportunities Trump missed at the first debate in Businessman, Defend Thyself: The next Clinton statement was truly bizarre. “Trickle down did not work,” she said. “It got us into the mess

Read More

A Shortage of Rich Folks

At Stumbling on the Truth Cliff Asness points to the opportunities Trump missed at the first debate in Businessman, Defend Thyself: Let’s start with Clinton’s claim that she’s going to pay for her laundry list of Bernie-Sanders-inspired new benefits by

Read More

Who Needs the Intellectuals?

The Democrats have long enjoyed greater unity than the Republicans. Even the surprising challenge raised from Bernie Sanders is now only a recent memory. This may have come from the insider manipulations and the control wielded by the super delegates,

Read More

Reduced to Spectators

From The Atlantic, How American Politics Went Insane by Jonathan Rauch Starting in the 1970s, large-dollar donations to candidates and parties were subject to a tightening web of regulations. The idea was to reduce corruption (or its appearance) and curtail the power

Read More

Why Hillary is Not 50 Points Ahead

From Bret Stephens at The Wall Street Journal, The Apology of Donald Drump:  (Stephen’s fictitious DT speech) So spare me the sensitivity lectures. Spare me the business lectures, too. Those tax returns someone stole and the New York Times published?

Read More

The Upside of Pork

From The Atlantic, How American Politics Went Insane by Jonathan Rauch Congress has not passed all its annual appropriations bills in 20 years, and more than $300 billion a year in federal spending goes out the door without proper authorization. Routine business

Read More