“Though the caliber of people who have served as chief executive has declined erratically but persistently from the day George Washington left office, the presidency has been responsible for less harm and more good, in the nation and in the world, than perhaps any other secular institution in history." —Forrest McDonald, The American Presidency: An [...]
From the day he entered the race, Joe Biden was the great hope of the Democratic establishment to spare them from the horrifying prospect of a 2020 race between The Donald and Bernie Sanders. Today, that same establishment wants Joe out of the race. Why has Biden suddenly become an albatross? His feeble debate performances [...]
Even before the 2016 election, Democrats, collaborating with a like-minded media, were using the instruments of power they possess, to first prevent and then to overturn the election results of 2016. Russiagate, the James Comey FBI investigation, the Mueller probe — aborting a Trump presidency has always been the goal. In 1868, President Andrew Johnson [...]
President Donald J. Trump today became the first President of the United States to address in person the March for Life. Please read below the official White House transcript of the remarks, which was provided to The Imaginative Conservative. Below the transcript is also a video of the president's speech. Office of the Press Secretary [...]
Every person—the born and unborn, the poor, the downcast, the disabled, the infirm, and the elderly—has inherent value. Although each journey is different, no life is without worth or is inconsequential; the rights of all people must be defended. On National Sanctity of Human Life Day, our Nation proudly and strongly reaffirms our commitment to [...]
On Thanksgiving Day, we remember with reverence and gratitude the bountiful blessings afforded to us by our Creator, and we recommit to sharing in a spirit of thanksgiving and generosity with our friends, neighbors, and families. Nearly four centuries ago, determined individuals with a hopeful vision of a more prosperous life and an abundance of opportunities made [...]
Whereas the Honourable the General Congress, impressed with a grateful sense of the goodness of Almighty God, in blessing the greater part of this extensive continent with plentiful harvests, crowning our arms with repeated successes, conducting us hitherto safely through the perils with which we have been encompassed and manifesting in multiplied instances his divine care [...]
The constitutional inheritance is not merely a gift to be expended or consumed; it is a responsibility to be stewarded. This sense of intergenerational obligation—debts to the past and future—is the most solid and powerful grounding for originalism and respect for constitutional form. Today’s offering in our Timeless Essay series affords our readers the opportunity [...]
We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard. And as we set sail we ask God's blessing on the most hazardous and dangerous and greatest adventure on which man has ever embarked. President Kennedy delivered the following speech [...]
Emptiness is defined negatively as the absence of something. It can involve structures which are not occupied or filled, as in empty bottles. Emptiness can refer to situations lacking reality, substance or meaning, as in empty pleasures. Actions can be empty when they have no consequences, as in empty gestures or threats. […]
How often have we not seen, even in our own lives, that actions we take to preserve something we cherish end up destroying that which we seek to protect? Patriotism may be the last refuge of a scoundrel, but the desire for security and the yearning for justice are forever the final refuge of tyrants. [...]
If James K. Polk can be credited with adding a huge swath of territory to the American empire, might Donald Trump one day be credited with preserving that long ago victory by reversing the gradual makeover of the southwestern United States? The game of presidential parallels can be endlessly fascinating. Sometimes it can also be [...]
Many Americans fear the dysfunction in Congress and the rise of an “activist” Supreme Court. Both worries are misplaced, at least in relationship to the larger problem at hand: the growth of presidential imperialism. Albert Jay Nock was an important literary and social critic of the first-half of the twentieth century. Part scholar, part pundit, [...]
Rather than justify Jackson’s deeds, Bradley Birzer's "In Defense of Andrew Jackson" instead depicts its subject in the context of his own world. Whether one enters into its pages admiring or loathing Jackson, Dr. Birzer’s book is a must-read. In Defense of Andrew Jackson by Bradley Birzer (226 pages, Regnery History, 2018) Andrew Jackson, whom [...]