Enjoying the view from Limbo
2016 US Election / What is The Establishment?
by Daren Jonescu · Published September 27, 2016 · Last modified February 17, 2018
(Originally published in February 2012) Republican establishment media alert: On the eve of the Michigan and Arizona primaries, the establishment’s new favorite enforcer, Matt Drudge, was at it again. As I have chronicled so many of The Drudge Report‘s clever, and cleverly timed, manipulations over the course of this primary season, I trust no one will have the gall to suggest that this...
(Originally Published in February 2016) One of the most dangerous effects of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign is the venomous anger his demagoguery has cultivated among his more engaged supporters, to be spewed at anyone who dares to express concern about any of their idol’s (yes, idol’s) soft spots. Just click on any article, on any website, critical of anything about Trump, and navigate...
2016 US Election / America Descending / Liberty's Labors Lost
by Daren Jonescu · Published September 27, 2016
(Originally published in October 2015) America’s progressive chatter on guns has been shifting noticeably from the abstract language of “control” to the concrete language of “confiscation.” Hillary Clinton is just the latest leading voice to serve notice that the forced disarmament of law-abiding Americans is not the dystopian fantasy of paranoids, but a matter of current policy discussion—and action. During an October 16...
2016 US Election / America Descending
by Daren Jonescu · Published September 27, 2016 · Last modified September 29, 2016
(Originally published in January 2013) Hillary Clinton’s angry flip-out at Senator Ron Johnson during her Benghazi testimony was a charmed moment. All at once, before the whole world, one of the highest ranking progressive authoritarians on the planet spilled the beans – all of them – about the left’s modus operandi. The revelation might be overlooked, however, if we focus too closely on...
(Originally published in January 2016) Aristotle teaches that while we must love our friends, we must love truth more. Today, I am probably going to lose some good friends, which is painful. Nevertheless, my admiration for everything America was, everything modern civilization was, compels me to bite the bullet. Donald Trump may win the Republican presidential nomination. He may even be elected President...
2016 US Election / America Descending / What is The Establishment?
by Daren Jonescu · Published September 27, 2016
(Originally published in May 2016) If a presidential candidate were hoping, absent any reasoned case for his candidacy, to lure the weary and despondent into a personality cult that would follow him to the ends of the Earth without reason, he could do no better than invoke “the wall” as his campaign’s defining idea, and to repeat that idea, endlessly, as his cult’s...
(Originally published in March 2016) Four years ago, Donald Trump’s first year-long anti-establishment charade ended when, naturally, he settled his presidential endorsement on the GOP establishment’s candidate. I say “naturally,” because flattering or carrying water for the status quo has been the most natural thing in the world for this megalomaniac, driven as he apparently is by the insecure schoolboy’s ultimate fear, namely...
(Originally published in February 2016) One of the great dangers of Donald Trump’s candidacy is his casual willingness to exploit legitimate American frustration and anger and stir them into something ugly for his own benefit. But careless anger-baiting has consequences, one of which is that you risk turning your followers into an enemy-eating monster, greedy for your next attack on yet another victim,...
(Originally published in February 2016) One summer’s evening, a skinny, not-particularly athletic boy, perhaps eleven years old, scored the most glorious touchdown of his life. This was not a real game. My friend and I, along with his older brother Phil, were just tossing a ball around in the park. But it was a memorable triumph because I scored my touchdown by outmaneuvering...
(Originally published in March 2016) As I have previously noted, one of the most common and most absurd defenses of Donald Trump is the claim that he is a so-called “alpha male.” Critics (this one included) have noted that he resembles a junior high school bully more than he does any dominant pack animal. Today, however, we can officially dismiss the alpha male...
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