22 Posts Found

Max Weber wondered how the leaders of states derive legitimacy, the claim to rule rightfully. He thought it boiled down to two choices. One is rational legal bureaucracy (or “bureaucratic proceduralism”), a system in which legitimacy is bestowed by institutions following certain rules and norms…

The other source of legitimacy is more ancient, more common, and more intuitive—“the default form of rule in the premodern world,” … [ Read more ]

Author: Jonathan Rauch | Source: The Atlantic (February 24, 2025) | Subjects: America, Excerpts, International, Politics & Public Policy, Trump

Populism is never separate from this “voice of passion.” That is its defining characteristic. It begins in deep grievance. Some of those grievances can be quite real and consequential — such as when modern populist anger is rooted in fury over the Great Recession, long wars in the Middle East or shuttered factories in the Midwest.

Some of the problems, however, that motivate populists aren’t problems … [ Read more ]

Author: David French | Source: The New York Times (February 9, 2025) | Subjects: Excerpts, Life & Society, Politics & Public Policy, Trump

With the possible exception of Yuval Levin’s The Fractured Republic, for Americans who care about politics and the future of our country, Hillbilly Elegy is the most important book of 2016. You cannot understand what’s happening now without first reading J.D. Vance. His book does for poor white people what Ta-Nehisi Coates’s book did for poor black people: give them voice and presence … [ Read more ]

Author: Rod Dreher | Source: The American Conservative (July 22, 2016) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Excerpts, Politics & Public Policy, Trump

I started tracking Trump-related articles after his shock victory in 2016, with the idea that his presidency will be a period of history studied in depth for generations to come. I continued to do so in 2018 and here is that collection. Note that I will not be doing it going forward as I will be spending multiple months away from my computer and … [ Read more ]

Subjects: Politics & Public Policy, Trump

The Pakistani novelist Kamila Shamsie once observed that there are “two Americas” — one at home and one abroad. The first is the America of Hollywood, work-in-progress democracy, civil rights movements and Ellis Island. The second is the America of coups and occupations, military dictators and CIA plots, economic meddling and contempt for foreign cultures. The rest of the world knows both Americas. But as … [ Read more ]

Author: Suzy Hansen | Source: The Washington Post (September 8, 2017) | Subjects: America, Articles & Links, Excerpts, Foreign Policy, International, Politics & Public Policy, Trump

The Republican party has reached bottom and in their few moments of sobriety, conservatives know it.

Republicans began as the anti-slavery party in direct and vocal opposition to Southern Racism and the Know Nothings. They fought a civil war in order to change the world for the better.

Today it is the Klan and the John Birch Society cheering the Republican candidate on.

The first Republican president was … [ Read more ]

Author: Jim Wright | Source: Stonekettle Station (September 19, 2016) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Excerpts, Politics & Public Policy, Trump

“Many people say” is what’s known as an argumentum ad populum. If we were a nation of logicians, we would dismiss the argument as dumb.

I think it’s important not to dismiss the president’s reply simply as dumb. We ought to assume that it’s darkly brilliant — if not in intention then certainly in effect. The president is responding to a claim of fact not by … [ Read more ]

Author: Bret Stephens | Source: Time (February 21, 2017) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Excerpts, Journalism, News | Media | Publishing, Politics & Public Policy, Trump

The Republican Party has changed since 2005. It has become the vehicle for white identity politics. In 2005 only six percent of Republicans felt that whites faced “a great deal” of discrimination, the same number of Democrats who felt this. By 2016, the percentage of Republicans who felt this had tripled.

Recent surveys suggest that roughly 47 percent of Republicans are what you might call conservative … [ Read more ]

Author: David Brooks | Source: The New York Times (August 29, 2017) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Excerpts, Politics & Public Policy, Race Relations, Trump

To understand why Trump’s Carrier stunt succeeded, it’s worth turning to a 1964 political science classic, Murray Edelman’s The Symbolic Uses of Politics. The takeaway lesson is that in politics, clear symbolic actions are often more important than results (which are often ambiguous or unclear).

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Edelman’s foundational point is that most people don’t pay close attention to the details of policy, and the news media does … [ Read more ]

Author: Lee Drutman | Source: Vox (December 19, 2016) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Excerpts, Politics & Public Policy, Trump

Perspective from the right on Trump’s political challenge for the left

Author: David Frum | Source: The Atlantic (February 6, 2017) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Excerpts, Politics & Public Policy, Trump

Setting aside the title, George Lakoff provides an interesting framework to explain fundamental differences between conservatives and liberals or progressives. Specifically, he introduces the idea of the Nurturant Parent family (progressive) and the Strict Father family (conservative). He also discusses the folly of considering demographics vs. worldview or values and how that relates to specific issues.

Author: George Lakoff | Subjects: Articles & Links, Excerpts, Politics & Public Policy, Trump

In my cover story in the December issue of the magazine, on how the United States should prepare for the possibility of a more truculent and repressive China, I mention the concept of the “Thucydides Trap.” The article describes the implications:

This concept was popularized by the Harvard political scientist [and my one-time professor as an undergraduate] Graham Allison. Its premise is that through the 2,500

… [ Read more ]

Author: James Fallows | Source: The Atlantic (December 17, 2016) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Excerpts, Politics & Public Policy, Trump

“The conservative and progressive worldviews dividing our country can most readily be understood in terms of moral worldviews that are encapsulated in two very different idealizations of family life: The Nurturant Parent family (progressive) and the Strict Father family (conservative).

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Many union members are strict fathers at home or in their private life. They believe in ‘traditional family values’ — a conservative code word — and … [ Read more ]

Author: George Lakoff | Source: The National Memo (November 27, 2016) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Excerpts, Politics & Public Policy, Trump

It took a lot to get us here. […] I’d rely on the old sociological distinction between gemeinschaft and gesellschaft. All across the world, we have masses of voters who live in a world of gemeinschaft: where relationships are personal, organic and fused by particular affections. These people define their loyalty to community, faith and nation in personal, in-the-gut sort of ways.

But we have a … [ Read more ]

Author: David Brooks | Source: The New York Times (January 20, 2017) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Excerpts, Politics & Public Policy, Trump

Twenty years ago, Richard Rorty warned that “a spectatorial, disgusted, mocking Left” would give rise to a populist demagogue. Is it ready now to take his advice?

Author: Conor Friedersdorf | Source: The Atlantic (July 6, 2017) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Excerpts, Politics & Public Policy, Trump

In short, it appears as though educational levels are the critical factor in predicting shifts in the vote between 2012 and 2016. You can come to that conclusion with a relatively simple analysis, like the one I’ve conducted above, or by using fancier methods. In a regression analysis at the county level, for instance, lower-income counties were no more likely to shift to Trump once … [ Read more ]

Author: Nate Silver | Source: FiveThirtyEight (November 22, 2016) | Subjects: Excerpts, Politics & Public Policy, Trump

I, like the rest of the world, was shocked when Trump won the election. I had been reading many articles during the long election cycle, but never made note of those. After his victory, I started to think that, while it is impossible to know what will transpire in the future, it seemed like a good bet that his presidency will be a period of … [ Read more ]

Subjects: Politics & Public Policy, Trump

It’s now a commonplace that Trump and his underlings tell whoppers. Fact-checkers have never had it so good. But all politicians lie. Bill Clinton could barely go a day without some shading or parsing of the truth. Richard Nixon was famously tricky. But all the traditional political fibbers nonetheless paid some deference to the truth — even as they were dodging it. They acknowledged a … [ Read more ]

Author: Andrew Sullivan | Source: New York Magazine (February 10, 2017) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Excerpts, Politics & Public Policy, Trump

So he won. The nation takes a deep breath. Raw ego and proud illiteracy have won out and a severely learning-disabled man with a real character problem will be president. We are so exhausted from thinking about this election, millions of people will take up leaf-raking and garage cleaning with intense pleasure.

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The Trumpers never expected their guy to actually win the thing, and that’s their … [ Read more ]

Author: Garrison Keillor | Source: The Washington Post (November 9, 2016) | Subjects: Excerpts, Politics & Public Policy, Trump

The American republic was long safeguarded by settled norms, now shattered by the rise of Donald Trump.

Author: David Frum | Source: The Atlantic (May 31, 2016) | Subjects: Excerpts, Politics & Public Policy, Trump