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#NeverSMOD

Feature Article by , February 3, 2020

The Iowa caucuses, the first electoral contest of the 2020 presidential election cycle, happen today, so it’s a good time to look at how the contest is shaping up, what we can expect from it—and what, if anything, to hope for. I take as my starting point that none of the major candidates—from either party—will […]

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The Blue Dots of Outrage

Feature Article by , January 29, 2020

As I pointed out recently, we have just lived through the best decade ever. So why don’t we believe it? First, for those who don’t believe it, let me briefly recap the evidence. Matt Ridley recently proclaimed the 2010s to be the “best decade in human history.” We are living through the greatest improvement in […]

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The New York Times Can’t Decide Whether to Endorse America

Feature Article by , January 22, 2020

I don’t think a lot of us were expecting the New York Times to take its much-hyped endorsement in the Democratic primary and use it to recommend Amy Klobuchar for vice-president. Strangely, that’s exactly what they did. Yes, I know. Supposedly they offered a split endorsement for president, giving a nod both to Klobuchar and […]

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“Bellicosity and Disengagement”

Feature Article by , January 13, 2020

Following the US military’s assassination of Iranian terror master Qassem Suleimani, a lot of people have been trying to make sense of President Trump’s Iran policy and the support for it among the otherwise isolationist nationalists. The New York Times sums up the sense of confusion: “Mr. Trump has yet to resolve the two conflicting […]

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Do You Hear the People Sing?

Feature Article by , December 27, 2019

Top Stories of the Year: #1 I have to admit that this newsletter is biased. I have a philosophical bias toward a belief in the efficacy of the good, which means that what the good guys are doing to save the world is always more important than what the bad guys are doing to mess […]

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The Inherent Tension

Feature Article by , December 24, 2019

Top Stories of the Year: #2 I ended the last item in my countdown of the top stories of the year by observing the irony that a non-ideological figure like Donald Trump could trigger a broad ideological transformation of the entire American conservative movement. Perhaps this is because those who are seeking to promote that […]

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Donald Trump Shoots Someone on Fifth Avenue

Feature Article by , December 21, 2019

Top Stories of the Year: #3 During the 2016 campaign, Donald Trump famously boasted that his supporters were so loyal that “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters.” Recently, a CNN reporter talking to panel of Trump supporters had the presence of mind to […]

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The Silent Majority

Feature Article by , December 19, 2019

Top Stories of the Year: #4 Today continues my countdown of the top stories of 2019 and my coverage of them. I just realized that I mentioned in yesterday’s newsletter the trend toward political didacticism in highbrow art, but I forgot to mention the conservatives’ answer to this: keeping Sean Spicer on “Dancing with the […]

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Racial (Politics) Supremacy

Feature Article by , December 18, 2019

Top Stories of the Year: #5 It’s time to count down the top five stories of the year, looking back at the big events of 2019 and reviewing (and extending) my coverage of them. Every year sees a bit of a seesaw among ideological factions of the left, but this year I think we saw […]

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The Prophet of Causation

Feature Article by , December 14, 2019

After writing a whole book of essays on Ayn Rand’s magnum opus, Atlas Shrugged, I’ve been taking some time to reflect on the new things I learned from this project. It’s a novel I’ve read many times over three decades, and I use ideas from it every day in my life and my work, but […]

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