An Iran war push is underway, but the basis for it is pretty thin. While Iran has been a thorn in America’s side since its Islamic Revolution in 1979, America typically has prioritized other threats. These include Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, Sunni terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda and ISIS, and hostile secular nationalists like
A great deal of the Left’s grip on the culture is rooted in its collective ability to manipulate information in the form of official narratives in the news, history, or statistics. The contemporary political goal comes first, and the facts are backfilled, manipulated, and emphasized or deemphasized accordingly. In other words, much of
The conventional wisdom treats presidential elections partly as referenda on the economy. If things are going well, the incumbents usually win. It remains to be seen if this takes Trump across the finish line a second time. Bill Clinton famously won in 1992 by pointing to the effects of the recession then underway:
Although the mechanism is mysterious, it often seems as though a centralized control center is issuing out for dissemination the turns of phrase and interpretations of events to be spread by celebrities, prestige journalists, and other influencers. These narratives end up influencing and controlling the way we think about things. Political correctness has
The Mueller Report was released last week. Undoubtedly it will be discussed much more than it is read. Many of the salient facts were already well-known, including Russian efforts to sow chaos and division among Americans during the 2016 presidential election using “active measures.” These sophisticated propaganda and narrative-making tools find their origins
When Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential election, immigration was on the minds of millions of Americans. Trump single-handedly destroyed the old consensus of the Republican Party’s political experts, who believed being soft on social matters and free-market-oriented on economics was the recipe for success. Instead, he capitalized on the large cohort of
What is justice? This complicated question is the subject of much study by philosophers, lawyers, clergy, and laymen. It is often easier to determine the metes and bounds of justice from what it is not than to define what it is in the abstract. Unfair procedures, treating the rich differently from the poor,
As some of President Trump’s supporters have become critical, muted, or resigned in the face of events, it’s easy to forget the extent to which his campaign was an electrifying phenomenon. He succeeded against the odds, and his supporters were remarkably enthusiastic from beginning to end. After hearing a candidate say things that
The recent college admissions scandal is something to behold. While it’s always been known that wealthy alumni might bestow a small leg-up for their progeny through well-timed gifts, the unvarnished cheating on tests, bribes to coaches and admissions personnel, and the shameless participation of wealthy parents truly removes all pretense that the system
It is common on the mainstream Right to complain about the rise of identity politics. All the talk of intersectionality and white privilege makes conservatives wince. They are already loud and proud in their anti-racism, so they’re confused and frustrated that it has not bought them more good will. Indeed, some proclaim the
