Hanson’s Jacobin moniker is more accurate than ‘progressive’. It is a far more radical, illiberal, and often violent way to move the political needle. It is different than populism; it shares impatience and passion but lacks a root to the old order. Among populists you sense a love for the country, even if it is an older version of it; with the Jacobins you sense a disgust for the country. One could argue that the Jacobin wing on of the Democratic Party is just a violent radical populist movement, but its lack of civil restraints make it far more dangerous.
Read MoreBut beneath these divisions and changes noted by Zito and Todd was a greater difference about their relation to the state. Few voters get into the weeds of political philosophy when they vote, and Trump certainly wasted no time on it, but the voters sensed that constitutional rights were being whittled away by a state that pretended to know what was better for them. The basic civic culture that had survived cycles of progressivism was eroding. Differences of opinion became hate speech; due process was sacrificed to social justice.
Read More“Then, not thugs in sunglasses and epaulettes, not oligarchs in private jets, not shaggy would-be Marxists, but sanctimonious arrogant bureaucrats in suits and ties used their government agencies to seek to overturn the 2016 election, abort a presidency, and subvert the U.S. Constitution. And they did all that and more on the premise that they were our moral superiors and had uniquely divine rights to destroy a presidency that they loathed.”
Read More“Most voters, admirably or not, do not always believe that their president must be morally perfect to do good, but only that, in practical terms, he must at least appear better than the alternative. “
Read More“Young people have the patina of affluence, with an array of electronic appurtenances and lifestyle choices, but not so much else when it comes to finding good jobs, affordable homes, and freedom from debt — especially tragic when so many got so little from the university in exchange for their borrowed money.”
Read More“In such a bizarro world, there is nothing wrong with tech employees forced to sleep in their cars near Silicon Valley monopolies -— as long as the owners wear T-shirts and flip-flops and rail at Trump in internal memos.”
Read More“They too often define accuracy as the higher Truth that transcends the fossilized idea of truth predicated on obsolete ideas such as evidence, facts, and empiricism.”
Read MoreHaving lost most state governments, both houses of Congress and the White House, The Supreme Court was their last line of defense. They defended it with desperation and conviction, but without any sense of honor.
Read More“It’s not a coincidence that many of the loudest critics decrying white privilege are . . . privileged whites.”
Read MoreIf the Democrats fail to take the house this November it will be a greater loss than losing to Trump in 2016. There is no one left to blame but themselves. The Republicans are likely to increase their hold on the Senate by at least 3 seats.
Read MoreElections hinge on magnified passions, and fleeting if serious events. Crisis fade in the passage of time. Depending on crisis to justify political action requires the manufacture and exaggeration of more crisis.
Read More“Once #MeToo became an arm of the progressive political movement, as witnessed by the Kavanaugh debacle, it lost credence as a movement of righteous indignation whose targets were mostly contrite predators. “
Read More“And as far as his demonstrable crudity and uncouthness, the hearings showed that the Democrats were far crueler and crass in deed than Trump was in word. So perhaps half of the small minority of Republican Never Trumpers, in horror at the Antifa tactics of the Democrats, retreated to the old adage of “hang together or hang separately.”
Read More“..a Stanford graduate now usually knows less history than his Hillsdale counterpart. A successful self-made businessman can know a lot more about the economy than does a Harvard M.B.A., and a state-college graduate is likely to have better ethical bearings that the Clintons with their Yale Law degrees.”
Read MoreWe are supposed to consider every transaction anybody on Trump’s team had with the Russians to be an existential threat, yet we are supposed to ignore the $500,000 speaking fee Bill Clinton got and the millions they gave to the Clinton Foundation.
Read More“Nadine Strossen, a liberal and the former president of the American Civil Liberty Union, conceded — but only in hindsight when both Obama and she were out of their respective offices — that Obama was one of the most hostile presidents to civil liberties in history. “
Read More“Those in the state who exude empathy often cannot deliver it; those in the private sector who rarely mention compassion, often deliver it.”
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