So how does Donald Trump do it? Do what, you ask? Entirely detached from identifiable conservative principles, and almost equally detached from a recognizable conservative record, he nonetheless is filling up venues with enthusiastic people who are responding to what they think is some kind of conservative vibe. What is it that enabled someone like …
A Point of View, Certainly
“All I want is for the wealthy to pay their fair share . . . said the tapeworm to the intestinal wall” (Rules for Reformers, p. 204).
How A and Not A are the Same
You may have seen the story about the Larycia Hawkins, an associate professor of political science at Wheaton, who made a splash by saying that Christians and Muslims worship the same God, and by wearing a hijab for Advent. She was placed on administrative leave, and that was followed by a recommendation that her tenure …
Dispelled Rapidly, In Fact
“Postmodernists are hostile to argumentation, so it is hard to argue with them. But as an intellectual mood, it can be dispelled. I suggest pepper spray” (Rules for Reformers, p. 203).
Who Would Palin Comparison?
Ah, what is a political commentator to do? The presidential campaign has not even gotten to the stage of the first voting in Iowa yet, and the whole thing is already a parade of fifteen or more clown cars. What am I supposed to do? I look into my tool chest, and I am already …
Compared to What?
I rise to a brief defense of — however odd that may seem — the suburbs. From early Levittown to the vast tracts of McMansions, the suburbs have routinely drawn the contempt of all the cool kids. It is an old story. In the hardscrabble escape from grinding poverty, the first generation that never knew …
Audio Reading of Post
Trump, Cruz, and New York Values
Look. It is a commonplace among us, or ought to be, that drivers ed classes in New York teach the students to drive with their knees so that they can give other drivers the bird using both hands. At least that’s what I heard. And this relates, as I am sure you recognize, to an …
How It Usually Isn’t
Political Freak Outs
As we close in on the first actual voting in Iowa, with actual voters, now just a few weeks away, I would like to register a few cautions. I have addressed the limitations of polling before, but here want to say something about the use made of them by the chattering classes. Keep in mind …
Misbehaving With Pronouns
So let us now write about pronouns. The cultural pressure is mounting, and will soon become a fiery wall of persecution. Well, it won’t be that intense, but it will be intense enough to roll right over our Christian intelligentsia, whose lifetime pocket promise verse appears to be “ye have not yet resisted unto blood.” …