Marching Proud Boys wearing black Fred Perry polos and getting into fisticuffs with Antifa. Anonymous hacktivists wearing creepy, plastic Guy Fawkes masks and messing with the computers of law enforcement and other organizations they think corrupt or cruel. Oath Keepers proclaiming to be “Guardians of the Republic” and traveling to the U.S. Capitol with paramilitary […]
Benjamin Franklin’s last letter
Shortly before he died on April 17, 1790, Benjamin Franklin wrote an essay, “Rules for Ruining a Republic.” He had been a master of satirical letters — we might call them hoaxes — written for political purposes. Among the more famous was one he quill-penned in 1773 to warm the British that they were setting […]
ICYMI: Why We Love Amateurs in the White...
Jonathan Rauch’s late 2015 piece on this subject is worth a read (or re-read). Here are a few highlights: “The presidency, it’s often said, is a job for which everyone arrives unprepared. But just how unprepared is unprepared enough?” “It is well known that to be elected president, you pretty much have to have been […]
Dear America, Please Remember Skokie
In recent weeks, America’s presidential campaign politics have gotten uglier. Much uglier. The protests have gotten out of hand. Showing up at political events to call candidates’ supporters names like “racist” and interrupt their speeches has become commonplace. Individuals have climbed onstage uninvited in order to promote their own political causes or, in at least […]
Mark Leibovich, This Town (Penguin Group...
Political junkies indubitably will devour Leibovich’s chatty take on Washington, DC. I myself have a limited interest in and patience for the self-obsessed DC press-political gaggle. I tend to be more interested in political and social phenomena than chatter about them. Yet, I enjoyed Mark Leibovich’s This Town (Penguin Group, 2013). For one, Leibovich frequently […]
Tim Alberta, “The Cabal That Quietly Too
I do not much care for the use of the term “cabal”—it is sensational and critical. That noted, I did find this article interesting. It considers the role that the Republican Study Committee (RSC) has played in the House of Representatives. The RSC was founded in the 1970s as a conservative counterweight to the purported […]
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