At the New Yorker, Masha Gessen translates A Powerful Statement of Resistance from a College Student on Trial in Moscow (‘Yegor Zhukov’s message about responsibility and love at his trial, for “extremism,” shows what political dissent can be and seems to describe American reality as accurately as the Russian one’). (Zhukov was accused of “extremism”…
Authoritarianism
America, Authoritarianism, Education, Law, Trump
More Dangerous Than More Dangerous
by JOHN ADAMS •
At the Washington Post’s Plum Line, Greg Sargent writes that William Barr’s deceptions are more dangerous than you think. It’s an excellent post about Barr’s attempt to validate Trump’s lies (about Russia, Ukraine, election interference). Sargent’s assessment is even less favorable for the future – and so more ominous – than he writes. Sargent is right…
Authoritarianism, Republicans
Republicans’ Growing Dislike of a Republic
by JOHN ADAMS •
America, Authoritarianism, Babbittry, Bigotry, Boosterism, City, Law, Liberty, Local Government, Mendacity, Never Trump, Politics, Resistance, Trump
Forget the Tender Feelings of a Pernicious Faction
by JOHN ADAMS •
Over at the Journal Sentinel, Craig Gilbert writes about the political divide in For voters in this purple part of Wisconsin [Richland Center], the impeachment fight is a symbol of broken politics. The story establishes a false equivalence between those who support impeachment and those who oppose it, as though the conflict between these views…
America, Authoritarianism, Congress, Impeachment, Law, Libertarians, Liberty, Never Trump, Putin, Trump-Russia
Statement and Testimony of Dr. Fiona Hill
by JOHN ADAMS •
These many years, across generations, many (including libertarians) have wanted peaceful relations abroad, but have found instead a relentless, scheming dictatorship under the Soviets and, not longer after, under Putin. This question in foreign policy confronted us: what is to be said, what is to be done, about imperialistic dictatorships? Some (including sadly some isolationist…
Alt-Right, America, Authoritarianism, Babbittry, Bigotry, Boosterism, Economy, Herrenvolk, Impeachment, Mendacity, Television, That Which Paved the Way, Trump, Trump-Russia, Unfit
Fox News Won’t Be Enough
by JOHN ADAMS •
It’s a sound position to focus criticism of Trumpism on Trump, His Inner Circle, Principal Surrogates, and Media Defenders. This sometimes includes Trumpism Down to the Local Level. (Those local officials across America who have this past decade spread sugary lies of boosterism during the Great Recession, during its aftermath, and during the opioid crisis are contemptibly…
Authoritarianism, Politics, Trump
Trump as a ‘grotesque inflation of the presidency’
by JOHN ADAMS •
There are many ways in which Trump is grotesque – bigot, ignoramus, grifter, liar, admirer of America’s adversaries — but it’s his authoritarian desires that makes these immoralities or errors dangerous to others. As all people are flawed, so in proportion a thirst for control carries risk to others; from those who are not flawed…
Authoritarianism, Trump
Trump Claims He Has the Right to ‘Do Whatever [He Wants] as President’
by JOHN ADAMS •
A normal leader in a free society wouldn’t even joke this way; Trump’s neither smiling nor laughing in any event.
America, Authoritarianism, City, Culture, Federal Government, Libertarians, Liberty, Local Government, Politics, State Government, That Which Paved the Way, Trump-Russia
The Biggest Story of Our Time
by JOHN ADAMS •
In life – at least life in a well-ordered, free society – the highest matters are not political. They are familial, cultural, social – involving greater pursuits than contending over the role of the state. Under this view, one contends over politics (as libertarians do) not because it is too important but because it must…
Authoritarianism, Elections, Fellow Traveler, Fifth Columnist, Foreign Affairs, Herrenvolk, Never Trump, Politics, Russia, Trump, Unfit
The Fifth Columnist at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
by JOHN ADAMS •
While a fellow traveler – however detestable – is merely someone who sympathizes with an adversarial foreign power, a fifth columnist is someone who actively cooperates – colludes, one might say – with a hostile foreign state. For all the talk of no collusion (styled as NO COLLUSION in a bigoted authoritarian’s tweets), Trump at…
Accidents, Authoritarianism, Congress, Trump
Virginia Heffernan on Congressional Action (by reference to the Chernobyl Distaster)
by JOHN ADAMS •
Virginia Heffernan on Congressional action to hold Trump accountable, with reference to the earliest, but insufficient, steps to control the Chernobyl Disaster: Congress hasn’t even poured on the sand and boron yet
Authoritarianism, Bigotry, Mendacity, Misconduct, Never Trump, Trump, Trump-Russia, Unfit
‘A cancer on the presidency’
by JOHN ADAMS •
Attorney George Conway III writes Trump is a cancer on the presidency. Congress should remove him. Although I would describe Trump more broadly as a blight on the country, Conway’s assessment is spot on: So it turns out that, indeed, President Trump was not exonerated at all, and certainly not “totally” or “completely,” as he…
Authoritarianism, Bigotry, Herrenvolk, Never Trump, Trump
What Never Trump Means
by JOHN ADAMS •
Those libertarians (as I am) and conservatives who declared themselves Never Trump (written on Twitter as #NeverTrump) are those who took that position when considering Trump’s career and his presidential campaign. On the ample record of Trump’s business career and political campaign, we found him unfit: a bigot, a would-be authoritarian, and an avowed friend…
Authoritarianism, Federal Government, Law, Race, Trump
Undermining His Own Case for a National Emergency
by JOHN ADAMS •
Elizabeth Goitein observes Trump Is Destroying His Own Case for a National Emergency (“By waiting for Congress to act, the president is undermining the legal basis for any declaration”): Here’s how the legal process for emergency powers works: Under the National Emergencies Act, passed by Congress in 1976, the president has broad discretion to declare a…
