• I received an email notification today about the new editorial team for the American Political Science Review, the premier academic journal for the field:
After an intensive search for the next editorial team, APSA selected a team led by Thomas König of the University of Mannheim who will be supported by six associate editors from the University of Mannheim, the University of Bremen, and the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Notice anything odd about this? Yeah, me too: I would have thought that the American Political Science Review would have an editorial team that had some, like, Americans on it. Why not just rename it Amerikanische Politikwissenschaft Überprüfung and get it over with? I guess maybe we can look forward to the reconstituted Trump University starting the ‘Murican Political Science Review.
• One of my favorite historians is the quirky and idiosyncratic John Lukacs. Back in 1970, he wrote the following in his very interesting collection The Passing of the Modern Age:
Toward the end of an age more and more people lose their faith in their institutions: and finally they abandon their belief that these institutions might still be reformed from within.
Over to you, Donald Trump.
• Speaking of Trump, am I the only one who finds it ironic that the same kind of media people who said “character doesn’t matter” when Bill Clinton was president (cough—Joe Klein—cough) are now appalled at the prospect of President Trump? (On the other hand, to be completely fair, many of the people who said character matters back when Clinton was misbehaving have become Trump apologists. You know who you are out there!)
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