Today, we are divided over ideology, morality, culture, race and history. We are divided over whether America is the great nation we were raised to revere and love or a nation born in great sins and crimes. On the last days of the 2020 campaign, President Donald Trump was holding four and five rallies a [...]
The modern Electoral College may not be exactly what the Founders intended, but it fits the spirit of their decentralized federal system. During the debates over the ratification of the Constitution, Alexander Hamilton remarked in Federalist 68 that the method of presidential selection was “almost the only part of the system, of any consequence, which [...]
Editorializing in news stories, once verboten, has now become de rigueur. Journalism, never perfect at any moment of its history, but full of aspiration to be objective and balanced, has now conceded entirely to Nietzsche’s critique of empiricism: “There are no facts, only interpretations.” Many years ago, in an earlier contentious era of American politics, [...]
Even if we cannot fully grasp the shape of the near-future international order, either because it has yet to crystalize fully or because we lack the historical distance to see it clearly, we can know some things about it: While Russia and China have settled into their roles, the U.S. remains an actor in search [...]
The California State University system is long overdue for a revision to its general education program. But why not leave politics out of it and work at cultivating a rigorous and coherent core and a free and open marketplace of ideas—so that graduates are prepared for career success, for informed citizenship, and to participate productively [...]
If Joe Biden loses on Nov. 3, public interest in whether his son Hunter exploited the family name to rake in millions of dollars from foreign donors will likely fade away. It will not matter, and no one will care. But if Joe Biden wins the presidency, a prediction: By the Ides of March 2021, [...]
The electoral college has at least indirectly done its work by helping to assure that a successful presidential candidate would have broad support throughout the country, as opposed to simply being the overwhelming choice of only a section/slice of the country. The 2016 election of Donald Trump put many things in motion. The 2020 election [...]
In each country represented by adherents to truth or devotees of satyagraha—Gandhi’s concept of civil disobedience—their nonviolent efforts helped achieve seismic change and movement toward justice, all without resort to war. Their influence, and that of satyagraha, continues to cascade and ripple across the world incalculably. “I’m more convinced than ever before that nonviolence is [...]
In “The Reactionary Imperative,” Mel Bradford calls for a return to the roots of American order. Sadly, a return to a revised form of the Articles of Confederation is all but impossible. Hope, however, lies in a revivification of the principles of the Old Republicans of Thomas Jefferson’s day. Mel Bradford published a collection of [...]
Today, Theodore Roosevelt prompts us to ask the same question he raised over a century ago in his speech “The Man with the Muck-Rake”: How do we devote our attention to society’s problems without allowing them to devour us? Our survival in the Information Age hinges upon on our ability to address this problem. In [...]
There is no real difference between conservative and liberal imperialism in terms of the pride which animates it and the presumption which expects primitive cultures “to submit without protest” to those who are their “enlightened” betters. It’s not about right and left but about right and wrong—and imperialism, in whatever political guise, is wrong. There [...]
This thing is not over. For, at this stage of the 2016 campaign, Hillary Clinton was showing equally impressive poll numbers, and she would go on to lose all eight of those battleground states in the greatest upset since Harry Truman defeated Tom Dewey in 1948. "Apres moi, la deluge," predicted Louis XV after his [...]
Science does not give us all the answers. When it comes to forming policy, there are no technocratic answers. The Great Barrington Declaration is a sensible statement by a group of scientists daring to stand against the “consensus” of experts. It is based not merely on science but on prudent thought based on a broader [...]
Tensions are rising between the U.S. and China, as the list of ideological, political and economic clashes continues to lengthen. And there is a transparent new reality: China seems in no mood to back down. "The Indians are seeing 60,000 Chinese soldiers on their northern border," Secretary of State Michael Pompeo ominously warned on Friday. [...]