For what turns out to be the 300th Power Line podcast as well as the last episode of 2021, we decided to revert to full three-whisky mode with a live audience on Zoom, and an extended conversation with historian Richard Samuelson about the left’s distorted and impoverished understanding of democracy. I quaffed my usual Islay peat bombs (while offering some new reviews of “luxury” whiskys) and Lucretia polished off a bottle of Glenfiddich, while Richard, who is under quarantine with an actual case of the Omigod variant, had a soothing toddy.
In between recalling what the Founders thought about democracy (and especially John Adams’s contributions, since Richard is an Adams expert), I offered up my lexicon of what certain terms mean for liberals:
Populism: When the wrong person or cause wins a free election. (Think Brexit and Trump.)
Racism: Any opposition to the agenda of the left.
Democracy: Any institutional design or voting system that enables the left to get what it wants.
This explains the left’s tantrums when they don’t get what they want, and their demands to change the rules until they do.
Richard also reviews for listeners the defects of the stage play Hamilton, even as it is coming under fresh attack from the left.
Listen here, or put on your new year’s party hat and boogie on over to our hosts at Ricochet.
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