Politics

In his introduction to the “Home Building” forum on American Compass, Oren Cass opens by drawing upon Ronald Reagan’s warning that the American culture of freedom must be renewed in every generation. Shoring up the family is a crucial element in this process. It’s worth meditating on why this is the case. How, exactly, do […]

In our populist moment, the categories of left and right are losing their currency. Underlying recent events—the Capitol riot of Jan 6 (a populist political uprising) and the GameStop saga (“the first populist uprising in finance”)—is the belief that the system is rotten. It’s a belief shared by populists on both sides, even as party […]

Democrats and Republicans alike should feel free to contradict their putative leaders, for they contain multitudes.

The stampede into GameStop and other stocks was a political event. Like antifa assaults on government building and the mob assault on the White House, the investment strategy hatched on reddit subchannels expresses anger at the “system.” It’s not surprising that disaffected Americans organized around a buying strategy. We live in a consumption-based economy, not […]

“Unity is the path forward.” That was the leitmotif of Joe Biden inaugural address. It’s easy to be skeptical about such appeals, given how divided our country has become. And easier still to be cynical, given the flurry of executive orders immediately after his inauguration, many of which intensified rather than moderated battles over morality […]

We watched the Inauguration on a laptop at our kitchen table while two toddlers nibbled chicken quesadillas and the baby fussed intermittently. As I was getting misty-eyed at JLo’s rendition of “This Land Is Your Land” and “America the Beautiful” and generally feeling a hopeful swell of patriotic sentiment (perhaps soaring highest at Amanda Gorman’s […]

Being called a “socialist” by George Will in the Washington Post was already a professional highlight. So I was thrilled for the opportunity to talk with him about the future of conservatism. Clearly, we would have a lot to discuss. Last week, American Compass and the Wall Street Journal co-hosted that event, “What Now? A […]

Parler, the alternative to Twitter, is being strangled by the tech giants. Apple and Google removed the app from their app stores. Amazon removed the company from its web-hosting service. These companies claim these actions serve the public interest. Whatever one thinks of last week’s events, this action in concert marks a milestone. In recent […]

January 6 was a catastrophe for America. An angry mob, spurred on by the president, some carrying confederate flags, ransacked the Capitol during a joint session of Congress. Lives were lost. Indelible and humiliating images of a desecrated seat of government were burned into the nation’s consciousness and broadcast around the world. Any comfort taken […]

The quite clearly collusive actions of the Big Tech giants, in recent days, accelerate even further the national reckoning that has been overdue at least since Big Tech’s coordinated “Pearl Harbor attack” against the nation’s fourth-largest newspaper on the precipice of the monumental recent presidential election. The actions represent an epochal escalation in the ruling class’s war […]

In popular parlance an “apocalypse” means an epic disaster. As a simple transliteration of Greek (apocalypsis) the literal meaning is more pedestrian: “uncovering,” or to use a fancier word, “revelation.” But one understands the popular sense, for it is often unsettling (or worse) when the true nature of things is revealed. This is the case […]

There can be no doubt that Trump gave the press the back of his hand. His refusal to kowtow to upscale media brands offended the vanity of high-level reporters, editors, and talking heads on TV. That need not have disrupted the political-ideological ecosystem. But Trump has had structural implications. He exploded the established relations of […]