Tag Archives | conservatism

The Futile Rage of the Illiberal Conservatives

Feature Article by , June 2, 2019

The right-of-center Internet has been lit up for the last few days by an assault by Sohrab Ahmari on David French and something Ahmari improbably calls “David French-ism.” Supposedly, this is about French, a lawyer and contributor to National Review, being too weak-kneed and polite because he is interested in using persuasion to try to […]

Comments are closed

The War on the Brains of the Right

Commentary by , December 15, 2018

Five Things You Need to Read Today 1. The War on the Brains of the Right At the very beginning of the Trump phenomenon, I warned about a war on the brains of the right. Along with many friends and colleagues, I have found it grimly amusing to find myself dismissed as an “establishment” “elitist” […]

Comments are closed

The Psycho-Epistemology of Pathological Altruism

Commentary by , December 11, 2018

Five Things You Need to Read Today 1. The Psycho-Epistemology of Pathological Altruism By now, we all know what to expect on college campuses, right? Here’s the latest: an Indian-American comedian and former Saturday Night Live writer was shooed off the stage at Columbia University—they literally cut off his microphone—for telling jokes that were offensive […]

Comments are closed

Salon of the Refused, Episode 2

Announcement by , November 23, 2018

The second episode of my video and podcast series, Salon of the Refused, is now available. Rob Tracinski talks with Charles C.W. Cooke, editor of NationalReview.com, on what it’s like to be an atheist on the right. The conversation includes: the secular basis for morality and liberty, how atheism is good for the right, Ayn […]

Comments are closed

Making the “Miracle”

Feature Article by , September 8, 2018

Several recent books on the Enlightenment have sought to celebrate its legacy but have been strangely cursory in their examination of actual Enlightenment thinkers, their ideas, and their influence, sometimes treating the embrace of reason, individual rights, and political freedom as a “miracle” that seemingly came out of nowhere. If you’re interested in the question […]

Comments are closed

Unfrozen Caveman Intellectual

Feature Article by , August 23, 2018

“There is no God in this book.” So begins Suicide of the West, Jonah Goldberg’s contribution to the recent flurry of discussion about the legacy of the Enlightenment. Unfortunately, there’s not much of the Enlightenment in the book, either. If Steven Pinker’s Enlightenment Now treated the philosophical movement of the 18th century as if it […]

Comments are closed

What Is the Social Contract?

Feature Article by , July 25, 2018

Michael Anton has responded to those who criticized him for his disastrous plan to have the president try to end birthright citizenship by executive order. His response is fundamentally non-responsive. He defends the fact that he used a doctored quote to back his view that the 14th Amendment, which established birthright citizenship, doesn’t actually do […]

Comments are closed

I Want to Be a Non-Conformist Just Like Everyone Else

Commentary by , April 24, 2018

Five Things You Need to Read Today Here is your latest update, for subscribers only, recommending five stories that are worth catching. 1. Marco Rubio Swims with the Current Marco Rubio really, really wants to be president. How much does he want it? Enough to swim with the current. In the 2016 primaries, Rubio represented […]

Comments are closed

Stampeding Onto the Trump Train

Feature Article by , April 4, 2018

One of the chief arguments against Donald Trump is the very fact that so many of us on the right spend so much time arguing with each other about him. “The right” has always been a broad ideological coalition, and any president is going to lean toward one part of that coalition at the expense […]

Comments are closed

The MH370 Election

Commentary by , September 7, 2016

I observed recently that there is not much in the way of a broader trend of Trumpism within the Republican Party, at least not one that has been reflected so far in down-ballot elections. Part of the reason is because there is no real philosophy of Trumpism, and there are few intellectual defenses of Trump. […]

Comments are closed