Enjoying the view from Limbo
I have seen headlines over the past few days railing against the incredible racist fascism on display at Donald Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally. Dismissing this as just the usual mainstream media hyperbole and something-out-of-nothing-ism, I refused even to allow myself to scan any of the articles to find out what the supposed controversy was all about. Today, however, I admit to having...
In less than two weeks’ time, The United States of America will vote for one of the two alternative methods of losing World War III. A vote for the Democratic Party as it now exists is a vote for engaging in the fight but then, when the priorities of economic totalitarianism at home and global progressive activism abroad rise to the forefront of...
An expert is a person who knows more than you do about one thing, and very likely less than you about almost everything else — including, potentially, about the presuppositions underlying his own area of expertise, which he sees not as presuppositions but as facts. That false perception of his presuppositions is part of what identifies him as an expert. Political life is...
Ideas and Reflections / What is The Establishment?
by Daren Jonescu · Published August 26, 2024 · Last modified August 27, 2024
Alexander Vindman, a small man who played a significant role in an isolated moment, but who has been trying to parlay that momentary significance into a more general relevance ever since, has taken to the social media monster called X — where the clowns gather — to “warn” Elon Musk, who runs X, that the recent French arrest of Musk’s counterpart at Telegram...
It is always comforting to remind yourself, as you watch them seeking to tear down your world, that your world, at least as they understand it, is also their world, whatever they may believe. Hence, everything they take from you is a theft from themselves, everything of yours that they destroy is one more thing they can never have, and every sign of...
I just tuned in for a few minutes of the presidential debate between Joe Biden’s ghost and Donald Trump’s tape loop, already in progress. By chance, a CNN hairdo/moderator was just embarking upon a line of questioning related to foreign policy issues, beginning with Ukraine. Here are my impressions: Biden is reciting talking points that are presumably being fed into his ear by...
Donald Trump is the Republican Party establishment. This is true not merely in the sense that there must always, of necessity, be an established leading force within any nation or faction. It is true in the very sense most despised by the self-described establishment-haters who comprise the Trump cult, namely that Trump, their god, is absolutely embedded within, and inseparable from, the old...
An article in The Hill outlines the negotiations taking place between Donald Trump’s campaign team and Mitch McConnell’s representatives, seeking to “lay the groundwork” for McConnell to officially endorse Trump’s presidential bid for the third time — Dr. Frankenstein debating over whether to support the bucket of innervated nuts and bolts that escaped from his own lunatic laboratory. The article quotes various unnamed...
Ideas and Reflections / What is The Establishment?
by Daren Jonescu · Published February 11, 2024 · Last modified February 29, 2024
A few days ago, Armond White at National Review published his retrospective assessment of Rob Reiner’s cult favorite comedy, The Princess Bride. His basic take on the movie, which as he notes with disapproval is often affectionately cited by conservatives (i.e., NR writers and readers), is that it lacks both artistic and moral coherence, and owes its enduring popularity to the fact that...
Recently, Senator Mike Lee endorsed Donald Trump for president yet again, proving, yet again, that his own political survival and prospects for personal gain take primacy in his heart over all concerns for constitutional government, republican principles, and whatever else he used to claim, sincerely or otherwise, to stand for. He saw what happened to Mitt Romney, Utah’s most celebrated political son, when...
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