Enjoying the view from Limbo
In order to become the American president, a man must not merely win an election but must ultimately swear an oath to “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.” In order to swear an oath in a morally or legally binding way, a man must have the capacity, both intellectual and linguistic, to understand the terms entailed by that oath....
Nigel Farage, the relatively well-spoken, relatively reasonable, and relatively principled British politician — I eschew the word “statesman” and its accompanying concept, as that species went extinct decades ago — who is commonly identified as the hero (or villain) of the Brexit movement, has, on the eve of a British election, reasserted his ideological alliance with the worst elements of the worldwide “far...
Election years, war years, years of challenge, decay, and doubt — in other words, all years — condition the soil for the germination and growth of the soul’s two most attractive invasive plants, despair and hope. To fall under the spell of the former is to forget to live; to fall under the spell of the latter is to forget to die. A...
History always and understandably focuses its judgment, criticism, and disdain on the famous leaders who “caused all the damage”: the demagogues, cult figures, or scheming rhetoricians who exploited human weakness and/or difficult times for their own benefit. Rarely do we consider the fuel that powered the destructive excesses of these historic leaders, namely the populations that fell for the demagoguery, joined the cult,...
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