Enjoying the view from Limbo
The trouble with followers.– The weakminded types who are quickest to join a crowd for fear of being left alone outside also tend to be the quickest to run for the door for fear of being left alone inside. Seeing how it feels.– Marjorie Taylor Greene, who was one of the loudest MAGA cheerleaders while Donald Trump was lying and rabble-rousing to foment...
For months, Donald Trump’s presidential path has been determined, both overtly and implicity, by his glaringly obvious desperation to quell the public appetite for transparency about “the Epstein files,” a grotesque treasure trove of documents which, as we already know, includes so many references or allusions to Trump’s long-term friendly relationship with Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, and so many indications of his...
A tyrant is not a man who desires bad things. (No one desires bad things.) A tyrant is a man who is ignorant enough to have no idea what a good thing is or where to find one; who was raised poorly enough never to have learned the difference between wishing something could be so and believing one has every right to force...
Liberty's Labors Lost / World Politics
by Daren Jonescu · Published October 18, 2025 · Last modified October 28, 2025
In Trump Fantasy Land, America’s aspirational (thus far) dictator and Nobel Peace Prize earner has just brokered perpetual peace in the Middle East. In reality, of course, which never looks very much like Trump’s imagination, a hostage exchange has taken place, though at the point when there were very few Israeli hostages who had not already been killed; and a temporary ceasefire agreement...
America Descending / Liberty's Labors Lost / What is The Establishment?
by Daren Jonescu · Published September 25, 2025
Back on November 9th, 2020, in the immediate aftermath of Joe Biden’s election victory (known to this day among Trump loyalists as “The Steal”), I wrote here of the short-term future of America’s two main political factions. In that rumination, I posed a couple of questions about the prospects for the respective factions in 2024, questions which time has now firmly answered, though...
Human, all too human.– When everything you and your friends once decried as a communist plot to overthrow your country, you and your friends now espouse and embrace with brio to achieve your own ends. And when you manage to convince yourselves — or rather accept without a moment’s doubt or hesitation — that this hypocritical adoption of the very totalitarian methods you...
Every few weeks, the news media on all sides of the issue try to find evidence of a substantial change of perspective in Donald Trump’s actions regarding the war in Ukraine. Being a quintessential pitchman and obfuscator for profit, Trump is excellent at offering superficial alterations to his rhetoric in order to string his customers along with false promises of appreciating their wishes....
America Descending / Ideas and Reflections / Liberty's Labors Lost
by Daren Jonescu · Published September 13, 2025 · Last modified September 14, 2025
Luckily, I am not an American. In the past, I often felt quite the opposite sentiment, as anyone who has ever read my public writings from the pre-Trump era would know. One of the most flattering things that was ever said to me came from an American reader-correspondent many years ago, an elderly veteran with a highly independent and inquisitive mind, who defended...
A few hours ago, Charlie Kirk, a young man with a family, was shot dead at a university speaking event in Utah. An ugly occurrence no matter how you cut it. I notice that video of the shooting is all over the internet. I have not seen any of this video, and will do everything in my power never to see it. I...
With each new stage of Trump’s infinite self-diminution and national surrender before the will of Vladimir Putin, the Republican Party’s infinite elasticity and deference to the incredible shrinking president becomes more alarming and nauseating. I cannot help observing how all this Republican shrinkage before the Russian dictator is having the curious effect, whether it be absolute or merely relative, of enlarging and elevating...
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