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Politics
Federal Government, Local Government, Politics
The National-Local Mix (Part 2)
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
On November 18th, I posted on a National-Local Mix, that combination of topics that a blogger might consider under Trump. The need to think about a national-local mix was obvious enough: “Trump is a fundamentally different candidate from those who have come before him. Not grasping this would be obtuse. Writing only about sewing circles or local…
Federal Government, Local Government, Politics
Early Days
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
We’re in the early days of Trump, and we’ve likely a long and difficult way to go. (My daily count runs from 11.9, so it’s not as early from my vantage.) Even now, however, a solid resistance is forming across the country, including in red states that Trump supporters might otherwise consider unshakably Trump’s. (There is…
Politics
Underestimating Opposition
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
I’m libertarian, not liberal, but a quoted remark from some conservative teenagers about liberals caught my attention. In an essay in the New York Times (Why Rural America Voted for Trump), Robert Leonard describes how two conservative eighteen-year olds think of liberals. Here’s the essay’s introductory paragraph, containing the quote: Knoxville, Iowa — One recent morning,…
Education, Elections, Politics
Wisconsin’s Best & Brightest Vie for Office
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Molly Beck reports that two of the three candidates for state superintendent discussed an arrangement – not illegal yet astonishingly cynical – about one of them dropping out in exchange for a state job: A candidate for state superintendent offered an opponent a taxpayer-funded $150,000 job if he dropped out of the race and sought the…
Authoritarianism, Politics, Trump
An Eminent Psychiatrist on Trump
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Dr. Allen Frances, professor emeritus of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Duke University Medical College, who served as chairman of the task force that wrote the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders IV (D.S.M.-IV), on 2.14.17 sent a letter to the New York Times in which he addresses questions about Donald Trump’s mental state. (See, An Eminent Psychiatrist…
Politics, Trump
The ‘Balls & Strikes’ View
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
There’s an interesting exchange between conservative Trump-critic Evan McMullin and conservative Josh Hammer worth considering. The exchange shows the divide among conservatives about Trump. (There’s also a divide among conservatives about whether anti-Trump conservatives are, in fact, conservatives. To this libertarian, they all look sufficiently conservative; that intra-tribe debate is not one in which I’m engaged.) First…
Local Government, Politics
More on Local Problems Now Gone National
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
I posted in November that Fake News Was a Local Problem Before It Was a National One. (That post described “local fake (or low-quality)” news, but strictly speaking fake news isn’t merely of low quality or error; fake news is deliberately manufactured to deceive. See, How Teens In The Balkans Are Duping Trump Supporters With…
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…
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…
Politics, Trump
Priebus and Conway as Inside & Outside Apologists
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Update, 12.22.16 – for Conway, it’s inside after all (Kellyanne Conway, ‘Trump Whisperer,’ Will Be Counselor to President). Jennifer Rubin accurately describes (in Trump’s own ‘truther’ act is frightening) the roles that Reince Priebus (house apologist) and Kellyanne Conway (field apologist) play for Trump: As they fanned out across the Sunday shows, President-elect Donald Trump’s…
America, Authoritarianism, Labor, Liberty, Politics, Right-wing Populism, Trump
In a Principled Opposition, the Basis for a Grand Coalition
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Writing at The Week, Jeff Spross nicely summarizes Why Trump’s Cabinet poses a unique threat to the working class. Spross both explains Trump perceptively & succinctly, and in the same post implicitly holds out the prospect of a grand coalition (principled liberals, conservatives, and libertarians) to oppose him. (For an explicit call for broad opposition, from…
City, Culture, Ethnicity, Liberty, Politics, Race
Philosophy or Identity?
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Imagine a choice between living in a universally free society where one was of the racial or ethnic minority, or living as a member of the racial or ethnic majority in a universally oppressive society. Which society should one choose? A man or woman, committed first to liberty, would choose to live in a free…
City, Local Government, Politics
The Simplest Explanation for Whitewater, Wisconsin’s Politics
by JOHN ADAMS • • 1 Comment
In my last post, I mentioned Noah Rothman’s perceptive post on the failings – and they are many – of a non-ideological politics, a politics without principle. Whitewater’s politics, unlike that which Rothman describes, certainly isn’t a politics of radical populism; there’s no radicalism in Whitewater whatever. (Those who see radicalism here likely see unicorns…