Yesterday, the United States Senate unanimously approved a resolution condemning white nationalists, neo-Nazis, KKK, and other hate groups. It was the right decision, of course, and the resolution now goes to the House, and to the president if it passes both chambers. It’s more than regrettable – it’s a disgrace, truly – that this president…
Alt-Right
Alt-Right, America, Authoritarianism, Politics, Trump, Trump-Russia
The Premature Question
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Over at the Daily Beast, Joy Reid asks What’s Going to Happen When the Trumpists Realize the America They Yearn for Is Gone? It’s an interesting question, perhaps, but more importantly it’s a premature one. We’ve a long road ahead before Trumpism is finished, and you’ll excuse me if the time for pondering life after…
Alt-Right, Bigotry, Immigration
The Catholic Church Catches a Break…from Steve Bannon
by JOHN ADAMS • • 4 Comments
I’m from a Lutheran & Catholic family, and believe that there are sound, religious reasons to support immigration, and especially to support Dreamers’ continued residency in America. (Indeed, the are sound reasons of free markets in labor to support an immigration policy as open as possible.) For today, though, let’s consider – as a purely…
Alt-Right, America, Babbittry, Bigotry, City, Culture, Liberty, Local Government, Politics
The Existential (Imagined and Real)
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
It was Michael Anton (writing as Publius Decius Mus) who exactly one year ago famously declared that 2016 was “The Flight 93 Election,” an existential fight for survival for state-loving conservatives: 2016 is the Flight 93 election: charge the cockpit or you die. You may die anyway. You—or the leader of your party—may make it…
Alt-Right, America, Film, History, Liberty, Trump
Don’t Be a Sucker
by JOHN ADAMS • • 1 Comment
In 1943, in the middle of the Second World War, the United States Government, fighting on both sides of the world, commissioned a short film about fascism entitled Don’t Be a Sucker. The film describes the fight in which America was embroiled in the style and vernacular of that time; it’s even more compelling to me…
Alt-Right, America, City, Liberty, Putin, Russia, Trump
‘What Putin’s team is probably telling him about Trump’
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Michael Morell, former deputy director of the CIA from 2010 to 2013 and twice acting director, and Samantha Vinograd of the National Security Council staff from 2009 to 2013, speculate from experience on What Putin’s team is probably telling him about Trump: This is a speculative account of a memo that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s national…
Alt-Right, America, Bigotry, Liberty, Race
So Much for the ‘Master Race’
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
I’m white. (I’ll joke and say that, in fact, I’ve been white for as long as I can remember). It’s simply a natural characteristic for me. (It’s easier, unquestionably, to describe matters this way – as though without a social context – if one has not experienced discrimination). One can’t say the same about Richard Spencer, white…
Alt-Right, America, Authoritarianism, Trump
Trump, His Inner Circle, Principal Surrogates, and Media Defenders
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
We’re early in the formation of a grand coalition in opposition to Trump, but however long the task, that effort should focus on the top: Trump, his inner circle, principal surrogates, and media defenders. All in all, that’s a small group on which one may concentrate. There will be endless tactical debates about how to reach this…
Alt-Right, America, Authoritarianism, Federal Government, Freedom of Speech, Kakistocracy, Law, Liberty, Trump
Distillation for a Resistance (First Edition)
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
We’re early in this new political era, with a long time ahead of us, and there’s a need to get a sense of one’s bearings. (The sound way to approach the new politics that has overcome America through the three-thousand-year traditional of liberty to be found in many places, the Online Library of Liberty being…
Alt-Right, America, Authoritarianism, Federal Government, Freedom of Speech, Law, Liberty, Trump
The Work of the Next Several Years
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Charles Blow writes of the work ahead for those many citizens who now find themselves compelled to defend their rights: I fully understand that elevated outrage is hard to maintain. It’s exhausting. But the alternative is surrender to national nihilism and the welcoming of woe. The next four years could be epochal years in the history…
Alt-Right, Libertarians, Liberty, Politics
Libertarianism is Enough: Goodbye to the LP
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
There’s a saying that some libertarians are born and others are made (as a result, tragically, of experiencing misconduct at the hands of the state). Libertarianism of both origins, especially those of us from movement (old) libertarian families, has been around long before the Libertarian Party – the LP – was formed in late 1971. Needless to…
Alt-Right, Bigotry, Politics
Trump’s Surrogates Know Exactly What the Alt-Right Is
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
A few days ago, during a panel discussion, New York Times columnist Charles Blow and Trump surrogate former Congressman Jack Kingston clashed over the racism of Trump’s alt-right supporters. Kingston claimed not to know what the term alt-right meant, and Blow scolded Kingston for Kingston’s professed ignorance. (Their exchange begins after 6:30 on the video.)…