The New Right, Vox writer Zach Beauchamp says (here), is “a loose grouping of conservative thinkers who advocate aggressively wielding state power to promote a more conservative culture.” One of their apostles is Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has presidential ambitions. He has aggressiv[...]
Archive for the ‘America’ Category
Voters’ memo to Republicans
David Frum, ex-Bush speechwriter (bio here), is asking no one in particular, “Can conservatives learn?” From the 2022 midterms, he means. It’s a serious question. He says, “Through the Trump years, the Republican Party has organized itself as an anti-learning entity. Unwelcom[...]
What U.S. Civil War 2.0 would be like
Not at all like the 1861-1865 conflict, but potentially just as destructive and bloody. We don’t have to guess how it would play out; Prof. Barbara F. Walter (profile here), who studies political violence, points out that “far-right groups such as the Proud Boys have told us how they pl[...]
How the GOP’s theocratic fringe sees America
Doug Mastriano, the GOP nominee for Pennsylvania governor, is the tip of the theocratic movement’s political spear for now. He’ll probably be soundly beaten in Tuesday’s election, if polls are believed, and if that happens his future status in the movement is unclear. Americans lov[...]
Poll shows Americans frustrated with both parties
A Pew Research poll conducted just before the 2022 midterm elections shows both political parties are unpopular. The GOP is viewed unfavorably by 61% of U.S. adults, the Democrats by 57%, with 25% rejecting both parties, up from 6% in 1994. And over half want to see a new party formed. These results[...]
U.S. life expectancy is dropping
Most Americans assume longevity is increasing, but lately it’s gone into reverse. From 2019 to 2021, average U.S. life expectancy dropped from 79 years to 76 years (see story here). Losing over a million Americans to Covid-19 obviously skewed the statistics. But U.S. life expectancy was alread[...]
Recalling the right’s Jane Fonda smears
Actress and antiwar activist Jane Fonda, 84, announced on Friday, September 2, 2022, that she’s beginning chemotherapy for non-Hodgkins lymphoma, a type of cancer (see story here). Fonda’s July 1972 trip to North Vietnam was just one of nearly 300 trips to that country between 1965 and 1[...]
Was Biden’s “Soul of the Nation” speech political and divisive?
That’s what Republicans claim (here), but I doubt they’d praise anything Biden said, no matter what it was. Biden delivered his “Soul of the Nation” speech on Thursday, September 1, 2022, using Philadelphia’s Independence Hall and two U.S. Marines as props. (All politic[...]
“A Night at the Garden” (video)
“A Night at the Garden” is an Oscar-nominated 2017 short documentary film about a 1939 Nazi rally in Madison Square Garden on February 20, 1939. (See Wikipedia description, and more details, here). It reminds us that fascist movements in America aren’t something new. Return to The-[...]
Mar-a-Lago search timeline
(Compiled from news stories and commentaries) Let’s start here: The Presidential Records Act requires presidents to turn over any and all written materials related to their official duties, so there’s a law on the books that prevents Trump from hoarding any official records from his adminis[...]