Here is Shadi Hmid at The Washington Post: The main divide in American politics today isn’t between liberals and conservatives or left and right. It’s between those who believe in the system and those who don’t. And sometimes it really […]
MAGA
A lot of Democrats and progressives still have no clue
If you listen to some progressives–including many Christians–Donald Trump won because white people are bigoted. Trump supporters are a bunch of Christian nationalists, patriarchs, and racists, they say. As a result, we must spend the next four years doubling down […]
“Unbelievable”
Ken Dryden was a great hockey goalie. He was also a Canadian politician. But I will always think of him as the guy in the ABC booth with Al Michaels during US Hockey Team’s win over the Soviet Union in […]
David Brooks: “How the Elite rigged Society”
A lot to think about here:
What does Reinhold Niebuhr’s “spiritual discipline against resentment” look like on the fourth anniversary of January 6th?
This is a question I want to start thinking about. Today I feel full of resentment and unhealthy anger. As the Senate certified the 2024 election results, confirming Donald Trump’s electoral college victory, I could not get over the fact […]
On “pushing MAGA back to the periphery of American life”
David French writes: “There is a difference between beating a candidate and sidelining a movement…I believe that fear may be sufficient to beat Trump, but only joy can push MAGA back to the periphery of American life.” I hope he […]
The mind of J.D. Vance
Ian Ward unpacks the intellectual influences that shape the mind of J.D. Vance, Trump’s vice-president pick. They are Notre Dame professor Patrick Deneen, venture capitalist Peter Thiel, blogger Curtis Yarvin, deceased philosopher RenĂ© Girard, writer Sohrab Ahmari, the group of […]
The Trump intellectuals
Many of them gather at the Claremont Institute in Southern California. Here is a taste of Ruth Graham’s New York Times piece, “Why a New Conservative Brain Trust is Resettling Across America”: The Claremont Institute has been located in Southern […]
What is Project 2025?
In Steve Bannon’s recent interview with David Brooks, Bannon referenced something called Project 2025. What is Project 2025? James Goodwin explains at Boston Review. Here is a taste: The week after taking office in 2017, Donald Trump announced his administration’s […]
The disputed thesis that underpins MAGA evangelicalism
I have a piece today at Commonweal. Read it here. A taste: On April 5, 2020, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, Donald Trump announced via Twitter that he would be streaming the Palm Sunday service at Harvest Christian […]
David Brooks interviews Steve Bannon
MAGA activist Steve Bannon went to prison yesterday. The New York Times columnist David Brooks interviewed Bannon a few days before he reported for his sentence. Here are a few snippets of their conversation: You said something I’ve got to […]
“The divide within the Republican Party…is between people who know how to work within the existing system, and outsiders who want to overturn it.”
Alternative title: What is going on in Indiana gubernatorial politics? Here is Michelle Goldberg at The New York Times: The Indiana governor’s race should not, under normal circumstances, be remotely competitive. In 2020, Donald Trump won the state by 16 […]
Rudy Giuliani to MAGA evangelicals: Fani Willis is a “ho”
Back in 2007, when Rudy Giuliani was a front-runner for the GOP nomination for President of the United States, evangelicals tried to stop him. Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission said that he could […]
Rick Reilly wants to fly the American flag
The other day I got a letter in the mail from a Christian non-profit organization that included a tiny American flag on a stick. I took it outside and planted it in a small flower patch in front of my […]
Still thinking about voting for Trump in November? Check out his last rally
I realize that most voters already have their minds made up. But if you are still undecided, I would encourage you, especially if you are a Christian, to think about whether you want this guy as your president again. Here […]
Charlie Kirk at evangelical megachurch: Trump and MAGA are fighting against the “very same totalitarianism” Americans fought against in World War II when they “stormed the beaches of Normandy”
The other day someone asked me if I thought Trump and the MAGA crowd really believed their own rhetoric. I don’t know if Charlie Kirk really believes that Joe Biden and the Democrats are comparable to Hitler and the 1930s […]
James Carville on driving a wedge between MAGA voters and non-MAGA Trump voters
Interesting. I think Carville is on to something here. I would add that his thoughts are especially relevant for those conservative evangelicals who are really disgusted with Trump’s connection to MAGA, but would vote for Trump in November because they […]
The party of nihilism
Nihilism: “the rejection of all religious and moral principles, in the belief that life is meaningless.” Here is a taste of Peter Wehner’s recent piece at The New York Times titled “Republicans Have Chosen Nihilism”: Mr. [Allan] Bloom believed a truly […]
“I want to keep politics out of schools”
I’ve been doing some last minute homework before I enter the ballot box tomorrow. As I was researching my local school board candidates I was struck by how many of them use their platforms to say something like this: “Politics […]
When was America great?
Donald Trump wants to “make America great again.” But when was America great? Was it 1776? The Gilded Age? The 1950s? The 1980s? “Greatness” is not a historical category of analysis. We can certainly report on people in the past […]