Populism

Carlson’s complaint revisited

Featured image Steve Hayward’s post about an upcoming event with Tucker Carlson, which Steve will moderate, refocused my attention on Carlson’s controversial monologue in early January. I wrote about it here . I concluded my post, which praised Carlson for his “insights and plausible, thought-provoking claims” about the problems in rural America, by saying that he avoided the question of “personal responsibility.” I did not elaborate. I want to do so now. »

Carlson’s complaint

Featured image Tucker Carlson rang in the new year with a 15-minute monologue in which he claimed that the leaders of both political parties don’t care about American families. Liberals, libertarians, and social conservatives aren’t misguided in their beliefs about what’s good for America and its families, they are indifferent or, in some cases, hostile. Only those who subscribe to Carlson’s populist narrative, consisting of views he didn’t used to hold, care »

Getting it wrong on democracy, Part Two

Featured image Yesterday, I argued that Dan Balz of the Washington Post missed the point in an article bemoaning the fact that “traditional politics, of the kind practiced in Western democracies for decades after World War II, is on shaky ground nearly everywhere.” The point Balz missed, as he complained about “instability and popular unrest,” is that the politics practiced by Western democracies are under attack mainly because these politics haven’t been »

Getting it wrong on democracy

Featured image Dan Balz of the Washington Post bemoans the “new world order” of “instability and populist unrest.” He writes: The particulars might be different, but the upheavals playing out in Britain and France this week have familiar and common undercurrents, born of the same forces — rebellion against globalization, fear of immigrants and distrust of traditional leaders — that have stoked discontent in Germany and other European countries and that are »

Identity populism

Featured image On Sunday, I wrote about the riots in the heart of Paris. As a source for how the riots disrupted life in some of the areas where they occurred, I used the report of a friend who lives in the center city. That friend has called my attention to comments critical of my reliance on him. The complaint is that my source, because he lives in a well-to-do neighborhood, is »

The Italian Crisis—Update

Featured image I thought I was suitably harsh about the magnitude and meaning of the Italian crisis in my post last night, but then I read the Wall Street Journal‘s editorial about it this morning: The President has now handed the populists more evidence that the elites don’t trust the Italian people. Mr. Mattarella has asked former International Monetary Fund official Carlo Cottarelli to form a government, but he’s unlikely to win »

The Italian Crisis—and Ours

Featured image The media and the left (but I repeat myself) are in a tizzy that democracy in America is in imminent risk of being snuffed out, because Trump is at least Mussolini, if not Hitler. This is plainly ridiculous. As has been pointed out, Hitler would have gotten The Wall built and repealed Obamacare. Still, the Washington Post trumpets their self-regarding slogan, “Democracy Dies in Darkness,” while there is a flood »

Does populism threaten our liberal democracy?

Featured image William Galston of the Brookings Institution argues that liberal democracy “faces clear and present dangers” from a rising populist tide. Unlike members of the anti-Trump resistance, Galston is not in full panic mode. In his view, the various populist movements sweeping the West, including Brexit to Trumpism, are not at this time an existential threat to democracy. However, they are “beginning to question key liberal-democratic principles such as the rule »

We Don’t Need No Stinking Metric System!

Featured image I’ve always been fond of the old line that “There are two kinds of countries in the world: those that use the metric system, and those that have been to the moon.” Heh. The American disdain for the metric system is one of those little tics that cosmopolite liberals like to point to as just one of many reasons for their contempt for America and its citizens. (They never seem »

Patriotism is plenty

Featured image Our colleague Steve Hayward is the author of a brand new book called Patriotism Is Not Enough. I finished a pre-publication copy this weekend and strongly recommend it. Patriotism may not be enough, but it is plenty — at least in Poland. The Washington Post has a story about the alleged evils inflicted by Poland’s populist government. The Post’s Anthony Faiola bills what’s happening in Poland as “a harbinger of »