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…
America
America, History, Immigration
The 1940 Map That Depicts America as a Nation of Immigrants
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Lauren Young describes The Powerful 1940 Map That Depicts America as a Nation of Immigrants: In the years leading up to the Second World War, isolationist sentiment coursed pretty strongly throughout the United States. Some Americans feared that immigrants were a threat to the country. Sound familiar? Then you’ll have no trouble understanding the reasons why the map below, titled America–A…
America, Authoritarianism, Law, Liberty, Trump
Principled Conservatives Organize Against Trump
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
One needn’t be a conservative to admire the efforts of thoughtful conservatives to organize against Trump. Evan McMullin and Mindy Flynn have now launched Stand Up Republic to resist the Trump agenda from a conservative vantage. Jennifer Rubin reports on this in Evan McMullin makes a splash by going after Trump and Putin. Above, I’ve…
America, Local Government, Newspapers, Press, Trump
Trump Will Force Choices the Local Press is Too Weak to Make
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
A sound critique of the national print press says that it has a limited time left. See, concerning the work of Clay Shirky, A Prediction of Print’s ‘Fast, Slow, Fast’ Decline. Market forces will also take their toll on the local print press, and even now local papers are useful only for The Last Inside Accounts (rather than…
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…
America, Authoritarianism, Ethnicity, Law, Liberty, Religion
Against a Registry
by JOHN ADAMS • • 2 Comments
America, Trump
On Obama & Trump
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
From columnist Dusty Nix of the Ledger-Enquirer, a comparison of Obama and Trump: Barack Obama is everything so-called conservatives have, at least since the dismal dawn of the Moral Majority, told us a political figure should be: a dedicated and loving faith-and-family man, personally beyond reproach, publicly untainted by scandal or corruption. The man who…
America, Authoritarianism, Liberty, Politics, Trump
Paul Krugman Asks ‘How This Ends’
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
On Twitter, Paul Krugman (@PaulKrugman) has a nine-tweet chain on possibilities after Trump becomes president. The chain begins at 1:05 PM – 6 Jan 2017 and ends at 1:16 PM – 6 Jan 2017. Here are those tweets, in order: Some musings on the next few years: We are, I’d argue, in much deeper and more treacherous…
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…
America, Authoritarianism, Libertarians, Liberty, Politics, Trump
Wes Benedict Has a Book to Sell
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Last month, the Libertarian Party’s executive director (Wes Benedict) sent me a tone-deaf, form email. I posted Libertarianism is Enough: Goodbye to the LP in reply, in which I argued that the Libertarian Party was an unworthy vessel for a liberty-oriented politics: Imagine, then, after an election in which the LP did poorly, and in which…
America, Authoritarianism, Foreign Affairs, Language, Liberty, Putin, Russia
‘His thoughts are so correct’
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Consider a letter from Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, autocrat, murderer, and imperialist. Putin recently sent Trump a letter, only a few brief paragraphs, and Trump gave a statement in reply: “A very nice letter from Vladimir Putin; his thoughts are so correct,” Trump said in a statement. “I hope both sides are able to live up to…
America, Authoritarianism, Elections, Foreign Affairs, Liberty, Putin, Russia
Garry Kasparov on Vladimir Putin’s Election Interference and America’s Response
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Garry Kasparov‘s a great hero of mine (and of many millions across the world), not simply for his unquestioned understanding of chess, but even more for his commitment to human freedom and democratic institutions. In the audio interview below, Kasparov speaks about Putin’s manipulation of our recent election. (By the way, Kasparov’s excellent book, Winter…
America, Elections, Putin, Russia, Trump
Putin Revels in Victory Over America
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
America
Wait, Really? Bill O’Reilly?
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Embed from Getty Images Erik Wemple reports today that Bill O’Reilly becomes spokesman for white America. Honestly, I had no idea. I’ve been white all my life, and no one even bothered to ask me. No SurveyMonkey, no paper questionnaire, not even an unscientific online poll…nothing. I had to read about it in Wemple’s blog.…