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Property Is People

Feature Article by , September 8, 2020

When rioters began looting and burning businesses in cities across the country, their apologists assured us that this was “just property,” that it could not compare to the need to defend human lives, and anyway, it would all be covered by insurance. That argument was put forward in an instantly notorious NPR interview with Vicky Osterweil, who […]

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Our Civil War Pre-Enactment

Feature Article by , September 1, 2020

Living where I do, on the location of a minor skirmish in the Wilderness Campaign, I’ve been to my share of Civil War re-enactments. I’ve always found it a bit of an odd hobby, to want to play-act such a cataclysm of internecine hatred and killing. But perhaps the point was that we can play at it […]

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The Kenosha Convention

Feature Article by , August 27, 2020

Republican Convention Roundup, Part 1 Jonathan Last makes a good case that the national political conventions this year won’t matter, that they won’t be a turning point in the election. They usually aren’t. To the extent people look at the events and speeches from the conventions, it’s mostly just to rationalize the decision they were […]

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The Birthright Citizenship Candidate

Feature Article by , August 14, 2020

Kamala Harris is not a vice-presidential running mate who makes me any more excited about the thought of voting for Joe Biden. With Donald Trump reverting to the usual last-ditch stunt of a failing president—trying to impose his agenda by executive order—it doesn’t seem helpful for Democrats to embrace a woman whose own campaign for […]

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What if It’s All Burned Down Already?

Feature Article by , August 9, 2020

As it looks increasingly likely that President Trump is going to lose reelection in November, the attention of disgruntled Republicans has moved down the ballot. Hence the “Burn It All Down” debate: To what extent should Trump’s failures be taken out on the rest of the Republican party? Mona Charen, for example, argues that “the […]

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Intensified Peacefulness

Feature Article by , July 31, 2020

What is happening to this country? Let me give you a few scenes from the past few weeks—vignettes of a nation seemingly falling apart. Protesters go online to boast about surrounding the car of a “white woman” and to complain that police came to her rescue and wouldn’t allow them to imprison her in her […]

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There’s Nobody as Alt-Right as a “Progressive”

Feature Article by , July 21, 2020

You would think that the National Museum of African American History and Culture would be dedicated to fighting the scourge of racism, particularly vicious caricatures and stereotypes of African Americans. Yet toward the end of May the institution posted one of the most racist documents I’ve ever seen, as part of a web page about […]

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Anti-Anti-Cancel Culture

Feature Article by , July 16, 2020

Last week’s open letter in Harper’s in defense of free speech against “cancel culture” produced a response that…well, it didn’t exactly come out in defense of cancel culture. Instead, it followed the usual formula for defending the indefensible: “This thing never happened. But if it had, it would 100 percent be justified.” The anti-anti-cancelers would […]

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How Not to Defend America’s Heritage

Feature Article by , July 6, 2020

In his speech at Mount Rushmore, President Trump came out against the current mania of mindless iconoclasm. Politically, it’s an obvious play. Sinking in the polls and going into what ought to be the middle of his reelection campaign down by nearly ten points, Trump is grasping for anything he can use to prop himself […]

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The Grim Lessons of CHOP

Feature Article by , July 1, 2020

Early this morning, Seattle police began dismantling the barricades, tents, and signs that demonstrators had used to control several city blocks for most of the last month. The area was originally known as the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ), but had recently been renamed, for reasons nobody could quite explain, the Capitol Hill Organized Protest […]

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