Enjoying the view from Limbo
Candace Owens, a profiteering self-promoter and political putterer who barely saves herself from being dismissed as equivalent to the blustering conspiracy buffoon Alex Jones by being cuter and blacker than Jones — two qualities always valued at a premium in the popular “conservative media” — has been cut loose by The Daily Wire, a nonsense outfit most closely identified with a slightly cleverer...
2024 U.S. Election / Liberty's Labors Lost
by Daren Jonescu · Published January 19, 2024 · Last modified January 20, 2024
The danger of the Republican Party’s fateful decision, back in 2016, to hold onto its traditional voter base by playing along with Donald Trump, was never primarily that he would promote or embark upon explicitly anti-republican policies (although he has certainly done that), or that he would convert the GOP into a populist apologist faction for tyranny on the global stage (although he...
“And yes, I’m doing this for profit!” With those smug, pseudo-principled words, every popular “conservative media icon” and “conservative intellectual” tells us, point blank, that we have every reason not to take him seriously, and no reason whatsoever for trusting one word that comes out of his mouth. The modern world of liberty and self-governance is crumbling at speeds that even the bleakest...
There is much talk these days of “threats to democracy.” But the greatest threat to democracy today may be the incessant talk of threats to democracy. For a threat is something to fear, and when men are driven by fear, they will sacrifice nobler aspirations in a heartbeat in the name of removing the source of their fear. Beware those who beat the...
Early in the 2016 Republican primaries, when it became obvious that the GOP establishment was lining up behind Mitch McConnell’s anti-Tea-Party megadonor Donald Trump, I began shouting from the rooftops that Trump was the Republican establishment’s secret weapon to demolish the pesky but electorally-needed constitutional conservative faction of the party forever. (For my troubles, I lost my highest rooftop.) Mission accomplished. Not a...
Marvel Comics superhero Stan Lee died recently. In response to this news, Bill Maher, an iconoclastic moron comedian who pretends to be a social commentator, took his usual contrarian stance: In a blog post to his website Saturday, the late night host wrote, “America is in mourning. Deep, deep mourning for a man who inspired millions to, I don’t know, watch a movie,...
A dear friend sent me an e-mail the other day in which he lamented the incoherence of “modern conservatives” (his well-chosen term), with their endless compromises on fundamental principles, their willingness to support politicians who contradict everything these people claim to believe in, and their unwillingness to defend free markets and property rights with consistency and clarity. His thoughts, perfectly in line with...
Here’s the narrative: Cutting business taxes allows for higher profits, which fosters new investment and hiring. New hiring means more high-paying jobs. More high-paying jobs mean that even with reduced personal income tax rates, gross federal tax revenue will not be affected. Everybody wins: individuals are wealthier, and the government can still afford to pay for the entitlement behemoth. That narrative, which has...
America Descending / Ideas and Reflections
by Daren Jonescu · Published February 26, 2017 · Last modified February 27, 2017
Milo Yiannopoulos, who last week was a scheduled speaker at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), an editor at the ultimate GOP-insiders’-club-cum-faux-rebel news outlet, Breitbart (home of Donald Trump’s alt-righthand man, Steve Bannon), and an oft-cited celebrity muckraker of the GOP establishment’s — er, I mean the “alt-right’s” — youth wing, is now, suddenly, out. Out of CPAC, out at Breitbart, out of a book deal, just plain out. Why...
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