The unfolding Madisonian disaster.

Pundits should take responsibility when they get something wrong. I will do so eventually for this prediction. But not yet. I concede that there’s no evidence so far that Americans on the losing side of the last election “feel like the social contract itself is breaking.” Political analyst Mark Halperin expected, and I agreed, that … Read more

From Presidential Power Grabs to Martial Law

“Rule by indefinite emergency edict risks leaving all of us with a shell of a democracy and civil liberties just as hollow.”—Justice Neil Gorsuch That didn’t take long. Within days of Donald Trump’s second term, the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights disappeared from the White House’s website. While the Trump Administration insists the removal … Read more

Presidents and Precedents

“It concerns me in terms of what kind of precedent it sets and how the rest of the world looks [at] us as a nation of laws.” So said President-elect Joe Biden in 2020, responding to rumors that Donald Trump planned to issue preemptive pardons of himself, members of his family, Bombay Sapphire Nosferatu Rudy … Read more

The Economy Doesn’t Care Who Is President

One of Donald Trump’s closing campaign arguments was that he would deliver a new “golden age” for America. This week, he announced that this Trump-powered golden age has already begun. . . . The U.S. economy is nevertheless the envy of the world. Don’t take my word for it: The cover of a special issue … Read more

Presidents Don’t Create Jobs, No Matter What Bill Clinton Said

Dynamic economies operate independently of the political party of whoever was elected most recently. During his Wednesday night speech at the Democratic National Convention (DNC), former President Bill Clinton trotted out some impressive statistics to make the case that Democrats in the White House are good for the economy. “You’re going to have a hard … Read more

For Christian Nationalists, Politics Is God

What happens when the Christianity is subordinated to the nationalism. Earlier in the month, I attended NatCon4, the fourth annual meeting of the so-called national conservatives, a right-wing faction aligned with Donald Trump at home and with figures such as Viktor Orbán and Giorgia Meloni abroad. (Meloni would not enjoy being lumped in with Orbán, … Read more

Hell Hath No Fury Like A Single Liberal Woman

I know because I was one. Last month, conservative news host Jesse Kelly told Megyn Kelly on her podcast that “the mentally ill single woman is the beating heart of the Democrat Party.” He proclaimed over 70 percent of single women vote Democrat. Furthermore, he declared that “studies” show approximately 60 percent of those women … Read more

What’s New is Old

Is it possible, I wonder, that in labeling everything that doesn’t serve the elites as “Fascist,” and erecting our understanding of most of modern history on the defeat of Hitler and his Reich, that we have fallen pretty deeply into the error of “becoming a lot like what we hate?” This is my contention, as … Read more

Joe Biden as Priest-King

Were our Founding Fathers liberators or traitors? The Declaration of Independence set out the case for the revolution prospectively, for the benefit of that “decent respect to the opinions of mankind.” Yet the American Revolution was always going to be judged retrospectively: In order to justify the rebellion against kingdom and king, the new republic … Read more

There Are Too Many Saviors on My Cross

This article’s title derives from a poem published 50 years ago by actor and film star Richard Harris. Written in free verse, and recorded and released as a record in the days when vinyl was king, Harris’s poem was a cry for peace in Northern Ireland, a land plagued by political and religious violence between … Read more

Abortion Facts Precede Abortion Law

Fetal-personhood laws are part of a “strategy” to end abortion in much the same way that the 13th Amendment was part of a “strategy” to end slavery: In both cases, the “strategy” was to bring the law into harmony with the facts of the case as understood by the activists making the effort to do … Read more

“The light within” – G.K. Chesterton

Of all conceivable forms of enlightenment the worst is what these people call the Inner Light. Of all horrible religions the most horrible is the worship of the god within. Anyone who knows anybody knows how it would work; anyone who knows anyone from the Higher Thought Centre knows how it does work. That Jones … Read more

How I became #neverTrump

I was Trump-tolerant right up until the November 2020 election. But his refusal to concede was unacceptable, in my view. I make a strong distinction between disliking the electoral process and refusing to accept the electoral outcome. I should point out that I had the exact same reaction in 2000. I actually voted for Al … Read more

Dear GOP: Move On From Trump Without Repudiating His Voters

Those who genuinely want a post-Trump GOP should focus on developing better options politically as well as in personality and policy. Has-beens, might-have-beens, and never-weres will not move the Republican Party past Trump. Their latest stunt is another group project — the “Call for American Renewal” — that threatens to form a third party. Once … Read more

What the Republican Party Needs vs. What It Wants

A failed congressional candidate in Texas told Republicans truths they needed to hear, but didn’t want to. . . . Mike Wood has done harder things than running for the House of Representatives, and some of those hard things he did in Afghanistan, where he won two Purple Hearts and a Navy Commendation Medal — … Read more

Our Hero?

The contrast between the before-and-after pictures every new president paints soon after taking office is always so stark. Recall that just a few short months ago, President Biden used the occasion of his inauguration to warn us that we were in the midst of a “winter of peril and possibility.” There was “much to repair,” … Read more

Liberals facing left-wing extremism

I encourage fellow conservatives to be critical of Mr. Trump’s management capabilities and to reject his “stolen election” stance. On the latter point, I am all for a bipartisan commission to suggest best practices for the conduct of elections, but the 2020 election was over when the states declared it was over. Still, I did … Read more

Against Presidential Idolatry

There will never be order in our political culture until the presidency is put in its proper place — which is not God’s place. . . . Trump presents himself as an outsider, but, in truth, he always fit in pretty well in Washington, D.C., a city that is packed to the rafters with elderly … Read more

Chesterton and the Meaning of Education

“It is typical of our time,” Chesterton wrote, “that the more doubtful we are about the value of philosophy, the more certain we are about the value of education. That is to say, the more doubtful we are about whether we have any truth, the more certain we are (apparently) that we can teach it … Read more

The President as Priest-King

The conception of the king as a god on Earth, or as god’s representative on Earth, is so widespread as to be nearly universal: Egyptian pharaohs and Japanese emperors are gods or god-men descended from gods; Roman emperors were deified not only after death but during their lifetimes, receiving worship in the temples; the British … Read more

Idolatry

My belief is that phrases such as “run the country” have a subtle and powerful influence on how we think about the presidency, and that this interacts (as in the case of Geraldine Ferraro and whichever woman Joe Biden picks as his running mate) with a wider human tendency to seek a commanding father figure … Read more