Conservatism

Notable and quotable

Featured image In the latest episode of the Hoover Institution’s GoodFellows podcast (with Dan Senor sitting in for H.R. McMaster), Niall Ferguson joined from Jerusalem. He had some advice for Tucker Carlson regarding his misadventures in Putin’s Russia buried at about 43:00 of the video (below). Asked to assess Carlson’s interview with Putin, Ferguson responded: I am beyond disappointed in what Tucker Carlson has become because four years ago he was an »

Red States Getting Redder

Featured image The Great Sort is under way, as normal people move to red states and liberals move to blue states. (That last is hypothetical and hasn’t actually been observed.) When massive numbers began leaving blue states like California and New York for red states like Texas and Florida, many conservatives worried that those blue staters might bring their bad voting habits with them. Happily, that doesn’t seem to have happened. This »

From glib to stupid

Featured image As part of his celebration of life in Putin’s Russia, Tucker Carlson took a side trip to the grocery store during his visit to Moscow. Like the political pilgrims of old, he was impressed. It somehow “radicalized” him — “against American leaders.” Drawing on NRO, Ed Driscoll has more here. What’s wrong with this picture? Tucker Carlson bragging that Russia is better than America because groceries are cheaper in the »

Political pilgrimage revisited

Featured image On his current visit to Moscow Tucker Carlson is repeating the old phenomenon of political pilgrimage. Paul Hollander devoted an entire book to it 40 years ago — Political Pilgrims: Western Intellectuals in Search of the Good Society (1981). (The original subtitle of the book was Travels of Western Intellectuals to the Soviet Union, China, and Cuba.) Hollander’s book was a powerful antidote to the phenomenon, but it did not »

Cotton’s Commentary

Featured image Senator Tom Cotton was the guest of honor at Commentary’s annual roast this past November 12. That means he was the roastee. In the January issue editor John Podhoretz turns over the space reserved for his monthly editorial on the issue’s first page (and in this case a few more) to Senator Cotton’s Guest Commentary (“Now More Than Ever”) — his remarkable speech paying tribute to Commentary at the roast. »

The year in columns

Featured image I read a lot of columns and columnists to populate the Picks that rotate through the top of our home page. I thought I might take a look back over some of my favorites of the past year. Having thought about it over the past few days, I am afraid the list necessarily reflects a recency bias. Please take these Picks as representative of the columnists’ work and conservative publications »

Woman of the Year

Featured image I am not sure how many Taylor Swift concerts my three daughters, combined, have gone to. At least six or seven, I think, and my wife has chaperoned them at most if not all, since these were when the girls were quite a bit younger. So I have been aware of Taylor Swift for a long time. Swift is now the number one figure in global popular culture. Long an »

Americans Vote Red With Their Feet

Featured image It has been obvious for quite a while that Americans are deserting blue states in favor of red states. Thus, after the last census states like California and New York lost seats in the House, while states like Florida and Texas gained seats. Just-released census data show that migration from blue to red continues. The New York Post focuses, naturally, on New York: New York’s population plunged more than any »

A Collier remembrance

Featured image When Peter Collier died in 2019, Lloyd Billingsley paid tribute to him with this remembrance. I added these personal recollections of his impact on me. I first met Peter in 1989 or 1990 when he came to the Twin Cities with David Horowitz to promote Destructive Generation: Second Thoughts About the ’60s. Having just finished reading the book the day before, I went to see Peter and David at Macalester »

Americans At Least Pretend to Want Less Government

Featured image As government at all levels continues to grow, as our federal debt spirals out of control, and as the constitutional ideal of limited government fades into history, it is good to know that most Americans at least claim to believe in smaller government. Rasmussen reports: By a 14-point margin, most voters still prefer a limited-government agenda. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 52% of Likely »

Want Healthy Kids? Go Right

Featured image Reality is what you already know. Data is when someone puts numbers to reality. Like, for example, this Institute for Family Studies/Gallup survey, via Breitbart: Children of conservative parents are more likely to have good mental health compared to children of liberal parents, according to a new Institute for Family Studies (IFS) and Gallup research brief published Thursday. “As it happens, being raised by liberal parents is a much larger »

Please Help Conservatism Win

Featured image As you probably know, I run Minnesota’s largest and most effective conservative organization, Center of the American Experiment. We are now well into the fourth quarter, and fundraising is my main activity. Every year, Minnesota’s charities collaborate on Give to the Max Day, when citizens are encouraged to support their favorite non-profits. It has turned into a pretty big deal and a good fundraising opportunity, and it is coming up »

If Only the Conservative Party Were Conservative

Featured image You may have heard that Home Secretary Suella Braverman has been forced out of the British Cabinet, apparently because she correctly complained about the fact that London’s Metropolitan Police show favoritism toward Muslim demonstrators (often, rioters) compared with other groups, like the “far right.” Braverman’s critique was not gratuitous; as Home Secretary, she had ultimate responsibility for the Metropolitan Police. Nevertheless, it was enough to get her fired. Braverman did »

Americans Are On Israel’s Side

Featured image Our “elite” universities–a designation that doesn’t mean their students know anything about history, can do math, know anything about science or are acquainted with Western (or any) literature–have come down heavily on the side of Hamas in the current Middle Eastern conflict. This may be due to the fact that Islamic countries have poured billions of dollars into their coffers, or maybe it is just the usual perversity of American »

“Why should I ever vote for a Democrat again?”

Featured image Matt Taibbi is one of a group of honest liberals who are not blind to the contemporary Left’s faults. At Racket News, he writes about his testimony before Jim Jordan’s House Weaponization of Government Committee, which apparently prompted a visit to his home by the IRS. Jordan’s House committee investigated, with the result that the IRS has announced a new policy on home visits. The substance of the investigation is »

Mugged By Reality

Featured image Bari Weiss is one of America’s top independent journalists, with a popular podcast. We have followed her work here for a while. The Gazan invasion of Israel, with its attendant horrors, seems to have pushed her over the edge. Read the whole thing; it is eloquent: Journalist Bari Weiss, a Jewish liberal who quit the New York Times over its anti-Semitism, writes: ”As a Democrat who has been left homeless, »

One Day In the Media

Featured image In addition to my day job and writing for Power Line, I do quite a bit of radio as well as some television and podcasting. Yesterday I did two radio shows and a podcast, talking about Gaza’s attack on Israel, “Allahu Akbar” on the steps of the Minnesota State Capitol, the ongoing fiasco in the House of Representatives, and more. Just for fun, here are those three appearances. First, morning »