Tim Miller – who is always worth reading, writes of 2020 as The Worst. But Not Just That. These paragraphs resonate: Most importantly, 2020 will always be the year that we joined together and toppled the greatest threat that our fragile union has faced in many decades. Turning out more people to vote against the president-strongman…
Resistance
America, Resistance, Trump
Times of Resolution & Defiance
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Churchill proposed a ‘moral of the work’ for his series The Second World War: In War: Resolution, In Defeat: Defiance, In Victory: Magnanimity, In Peace: Goodwill. Our times are not Churchill’s times, yet the moral of his work is suitable for us. It’s suitable for us, however, in a partial and unfinished way – we…
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 • • 3 Comments
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…
Crime, Depravity, Nihilism, Resistance, Violence
Why We (Now) Fight
by JOHN ADAMS • • 2 Comments
American director Frank Capra, among others, was responsible for the Why We Fight series of films during the Second World war. The films helped American soldiers understand what was at stake in a war with the Axis powers. At bottom, it wasn’t Capra’s talent (although he was talented) that supplied the answer to the question why…
Immigration, Migrants, Religion, Resistance
‘This is what the love of God looks like’
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Emily McFarlan Miller reports An entire Lutheran denomination has declared itself a ‘sanctuary church body,’ signaling support for immigrants: The action was part of a prayer vigil for migrant children and their families during the ELCA Churchwide Assembly this week at Milwaukee’s Wisconsin Center. It took place on the same day the Evangelical Lutheran Church…
Alt-Right, America, Bigotry, Culture, Ethnicity, Herrenvolk, Immigration, Misconduct, Never Trump, Politics, Race, Resistance, Trump
Trump’s Base Delights in Tales of Others’ Deprivation
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
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…
Culture, Freedom of Speech, Never Trump, Resistance
The Middle Lane is a Dirt Road to Decay
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Media critic Margaret Sullivan writes that The media feel safest in the middle lane. Just ask Jeff Flake, John Kasich and Howard Schultz: One of the supposed golden rules of journalism goes like this: “If everybody’s mad at your coverage, you must be doing a good job.” That’s ridiculous, of course, though it seems comforting. If…
Kakistocracy, Never Trump, Presidential race 2016, Resistance, Trump, Unfit
Yet Go He Will…
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Ted Koppel cautions Don’t expect Trump to go quietly: There is a disarming innocence to the assumption that whether by impeachment, indictment or a cleansing electoral redo in 2020, President Trump will be exorcised from the White House and that thereby he and his base will largely revert to irrelevance. Truthfully, there are few among the…
America, Liberty, Resistance, Trump
‘The Coalition of All Democratic Forces’
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
On Twitter, Garry Kasparov reflected on the diverse coalition of those opposed to Trumpism, and the need for accountability for Trump & his operatives. In reply, Benjamin Wittes wrote a series addressing Kasparov’s topic. Below, I have reproduced the original Kasparov tweet, and Wittes’s series in reply. Their conversation is (having started after an earlier…
America, City, Freedom of Speech, Law, Liberty, Local Government, New Media, Newspapers, Politics, Press, Resistance, That Which Paved the Way, Trump
‘A Free Press Needs You’
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Following Trump’s repeated attacks on the press as the enemy of the people, hundreds of publications across America are today uniting in a defense of their right to free expression. The editorial board of the New York Times, in A Free Press Needs You, describes our heritage and the threat to it: In 1787, the…
Politics, Resistance
The Heart of the Coalition
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
In this time of national conflict, those of us who have remained genuinely libertarian find ourselves part of a large, national coalition of liberals, moderates, true conservatives (where the state is not used for authoritarian and bigoted ends), libertarians, and those eschewing any ideology. (When this conflict ends, and when America enters a Third Reconstruction, there will…
Alt-Right, America, Authoritarianism, Bigotry, Immigration, Resistance, That Which Paved the Way, Trump
Sounds of Trumpism’s Malevolence
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Robert Kagan, writing of Trump’s foreign policy, describes the uncaring malevolence of Trump’s perspective: Trump’s America does not care. It is unencumbered by historical memory. It recognizes no moral, political or strategic commitments. It feels free to pursue objectives without regard to the effect on allies or, for that matter, the world. It has no…
America, Law, Liberty, Putin, Resistance, Russia, Trump, Trump-Russia
The Erosion of Political Norms (Concluding Part 4 in a Series)
by JOHN ADAMS • • 2 Comments
More than one small town has struggled for years under the debilitating influence of political & economic conflicts of interest, misguided priorities, and dodgy or grandiose claims. These conditions where those that That Which Paved the Way for Trumpism. Those locally who carried on this way made Trumpism more likely, the way a moderate illness might weaken…