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Politics

Differing Partisan Views on Education

A few days ago, a commenter (‘J’) at this website linked to the Pew Research Center’s latest survey data on partisan views of education.  See The Growing Partisan Divide in Views of Higher Education.  Kim Taylor (of Pew) summarizes the survey: Americans see value in higher education – whether they graduated from college or not. Most say…

Trump-Busting Issues for Wisconsin

Writing at Urban Milwaukee, Bruce Thompson looks at popular national issues to use against Trump, matches them against Wisconsin-specific polling, and offers How Democrats Can Beat Trump [in Wisconsin]. Many of the most popular poll issues are not libertarian ones, it’s almost unnecessary to say.  They’re issues that have national and statewide support, and so…

The Biggest Story of Our Time

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…

Into the Void

Across Wisconsin, newspapers have not distinguished themselves since the Great Recession. Most have descended into a cautious, center-right boosterism. They acted on their publishers’ own politics, and on the politics their elderly (but dwindling) readership. Doing so has only exacerbated their problems. The time to break from this was before – or even during –…

Foxconn: Reality as a (Predictable) Disappointment

The Wisconsin Foxconn project was, is, and will continue to be a huckster’s con and a sucker’s idea. Across America – a place of over 325 million – Foxconn is an example of an obviously bad, unworkable idea. In Whitewater and other Wisconsin communities, the men who push this project were either objectionably conniving or…

Fact-Checking is an Active, Ongoing Effort

Laura Hazard Cohen explains that “First-generation fact-checking” is no longer good enough. Here’s what comes next: “Fact checkers need to move from ‘publish and pray’ to ‘publish and act.’” “The idea that fact checking can work by correcting the public’s inaccurate beliefs on a mass scale alone doesn’t stack up,” write representatives from Full Fact…

Trump’s Base Delights in Tales of Others’ Deprivation

In this conflict between defenders of America’s liberal democratic order and Trumpism, those of opposition and resistance have wisely steeled themselves for stories of cruelty as state policy. Trumpism’s aim is a herrenvolk, where his demographically homogeneous base receives permanent preference over others, and in which that same base delights in deprivations and depravities inflicted…

That’s Not Confidence…

One reads at Politico that Donald Trump is confident his core coalition of die-hard supporters can propel him to a second term in the White House, asserting in a new interview that he may not even bother reaching out to swing voters in his re-election campaign. “I think my base is so strong, I’m not…

Trump Asks, Pollster Answers

PublicPolicyPolling on Twitter We have polled on whether people think the New York Times or Washington Post have more credibility or you, and you lose out 51-38 and 49-38 to them respectively https://t.co/0tKqpOO6vs

The Fifth Columnist at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue

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…

Forget Electability

Jennifer Rubin looks at the latest Quinnipiac Poll and concludes Dumping the ‘electability’ canard is liberating: If Trump were not delusional, he would be panicked by the [poll] results. He loses to not only former vice president Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), but also South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Sens. Elizabeth Warren…