Donald Trump and Ted Cruz I for one was sad when Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker dropped out of the race for the Republican Presidential nomination. Then again, I had been saddened by Mr. Walker repeatedly during his time as a candidate—by his failure to take a consistent stand against massive and even illegal [...]
John Adams Gathering my thoughts to once again tackle the question of monarchism, I glanced over the comments on my 2014 essay, “Why I’m a Monarchist.” One commenter, known only as Harris and identified only as an aging Maltese, noted that “Thomas Hobbes makes the argument more pungently, and more brutally. What is [...]
In a recent essay* for the Christian Post, “The Christian Right: A New Hope for the Republican Party,” Napp Nazworth argues that Christian political conservatism offers the best resource for expanding the party’s base among non-whites. Citing the demography deficit within the Republican Party, Nazworth argues “social conservatives are most attuned to the sympathies of [...]
“Pat, sometimes it seems like our friends want me to go over the cliff with flags flying,” President Reagan once told me. Today, it is “Bibi” Netanyahu and the neocons howling “kill the deal” and “bomb Iran” who are shoving the Republican Party toward the cliff. The question, which may decide 2016, may be framed [...]
In making preparations to run for President, the latest Bush (Jeb, in case you missed it) told the press that he looked forward to having some “adult conversations” about what needs to happen in Washington, DC to break gridlock and “solve” the various problems America faces. He cast aspersions, of course, on Tea Party activists [...]
Nov. 4 was a national vote of no confidence in Barack Obama. Had a British prime minister received a vote like this, he would have resigned by now. The one issue on which all Republicans agreed, and all ran, was the rejection of Obama. And by fleeing from him, some even refusing to admit they [...]
President Barack Obama’s reaction to the shellacking he and his policies received from the American people in the midterm elections surprised no one in its stubborn petulance. Along with some eye rolling and clearly perfunctory statements about how he would “cooperate” with the new Republican majority, President Obama made clear that he sees himself as [...]
Like all actual conservatives, I look on any increase in the powers of the Republican Party as an opportunity for disappointment. Its leaders would rather run a permanent minority than serve as part of a majority actually returning power to the states and the people. Better to be ruled by Democrats, “our” leaders believe, so [...]
The difficulty in predicting the size of Republican gains next week arises from several factors that seem, thus far, to have shielded the Democrats from the full consequences of Barack Obama’s richly deserved unpopularity. One of these factors, operating mainly though not only in the Senate races, reflects closely linked political truisms: Money talks, incumbency [...]
The immigration crisis on the U.S.-Mexico border these days is an odd one. Adherents of the party of free-enterprise, the Republicans, are opposed to the migration of free labor across the border, arguing that agents of the state should stop people and turn them away, if not submit them to government justice. Meanwhile, the party [...]
Thus spake the last of Boston’s Brahmin: “I place no stock in any faction Except those stalwarts of the Union And who prefer the Greek to Latin.” I. Mayor Nichols was well before my time. (He was, I read, a Swedenborgian; I’ve always thought that to be somewhat strange, Not that I would’ve held it [...]
The Rockefellers get such a bum wrap among conservatives these days. But if you are as excited as I am by David Brat’s historic defeat over Eric Cantor, maybe it is time to dig up the bones of those old GOP centrists. The Rockefeller Republicans were a coalition of Northeast “moderates” who contended with Barry [...]
There is an old saying, that if Democrats were to propose burning down the White House Republicans would counter with a plan that would burn it down “better” for half the price, though it would take half again as long to accomplish. I have been reminded of this saying repeatedly over the past several weeks as [...]
Across the street from my house in Hillsdale, Michigan, rests the body of Ransom Dunn, a historian at Hillsdale College and one of the founders of the Republican Party. I can see his gravestone from my driveway, and I can see my house, rather clearly, from his gravestone. In February, 1854, disgusted with the specious [...]