Hopeful Skeptic: Reflections on politics and more
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Thinking aloud
I’m wondering, does it make sense to anyone else to think of the American “body politic” as if it/we had somehow developed something like a severe immunodeficiency disease? Many people go on about how many of today’s voters are stupid or evil, but it seems unlikely to me that people are that much more stupid…
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Arguments for opposing Trump (for your friends who are conservative or “not political”)
I live in something of a “bubble” and am rarely if ever in a position to converse about politics with someone who supports Trump or even someone who is neutral about him. Nonetheless I have thought a fair amount about what arguments for opposing him might be persuasive to those who do not share my…
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What might Smart Resistance look like?
The historian Yuval Harari writes that most of our social institutions and the rules that we follow are “intersubjective” — they exist and have power because people agree that they exist. Certainly the power of the Presidency fits this. Donald Trump has power because people do what he tells them to because he is “The…
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JD Vance says that the President can ignore court orders
********************************************** From POLITICAL WIRE, SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 2025 Vice President J.D. Vance suggested Sunday courts “aren’t allowed” to overrule President Donald Trump and his executive orders, Forbes reports. Said Vance, on X: “Judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power.” Vance also shared a post from legal scholar Adrian Vermeule, who claimed: “Judicial interference with legitimate acts of state,…
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A fraught moment in history
Reading the news this morning, in particular the reports of Elon Musk and Donald Trump blandly announcing an intention to “shut down” a government agency without input from Congress, it seems clearer than ever that we are at a moment of crisis with no real parallel in American history. While there are far too many…
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Sharing a post by a friend
I’m not ready to offer another post of my own today, but I do want to share a blog post by a friend in Texas who has some thoughts about how we should be thinking about and responding to the current crisis, as well as some excellent suggestions for information sources. I myself am inclined…
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How Can We Go Forward? (Part 1 of 3)
The outcome of America’s most recent election and Donald Trump’s return to the Presidency leaves me thinking that the political system that we have been working under is actually pretty terrible as a system for choosing qualified national leaders. Trump’s initial nomination and election in 2016 was shocking, but could perhaps be seen as a…
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Some Conceivable (But Perhaps Not Feasible) Alternatives to Our Current Arrangements (Part 2 of 3)
**************************** The most straightforward of the changes that I have been musing about would be to change the candidate nominating process of the major political parties. I think that we would probably benefit by moving away from a system where these nominations are determined exclusively by party primaries and returning to the pre-1970’s model where…
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A “Break-Glass” Alternative (Part 3 of 3)
The final possibility that I want to put forward is perhaps the least satisfactory, and in some way the most extreme; however, it is also perhaps the most likely, and certainly the most talked about among the ideas that I’ve suggested. That would be a partition of the United States into a “Red America” and…
Got any book recommendations?