In December of this year, Ilya Somin reviewed Christopher Zurn’s book Splitsville, USA: A Democratic Argument for Breaking up the United States, which was published in May. Somin offers several good-faith critiques of Zurn’s position on national divorce, and even praises Splitsville as “. . . the most significant, fully developed, and intellectually respectable, defense of the claim that breaking up the union is actually a good idea.” Somin’s main concerns are the feasibility and effectiveness of a national divorce. As a staunch proponent of national divorce myself, I would like to reply to Somin’s counter-arguments. (more…)
Tag: polarization
-
Kevin M. Kruse & Julian E. Zelizer
Fault Lines: A History of the United States Since 1974
New York: Norton & Company, Inc., 2019Professors Kevin Kruse and Julian Zelizer have written a book in which they argue that the fault lines of America’s polarized political culture started to emerge around 1974. (more…)
-
Jason Blum and Craig Zobel’s The Hunt received mixed reviews regarding its sensational plot, where a group of rich corporate types kidnaps Americans — “deplorable” rednecks — to hunt them down.
The Most Dangerous Game, the 1931 adaptation of Richard Connell’s 1924 short story of the same name, is the original source of the “people hunting other people” concept. (more…)
-
1,431 words
Any belief, no matter how desperately well-intentioned, in the efficacy and wisdom of democracy depends on the fundamentally flawed notion that the average voter is anything loftier than an easily frightened and brainwashed lab rat. (more…)
-
Franciso Goya, The Disasters of War, Plate 39: Grande hazaña! Con muertos! (A heroic feat! With dead men!).
3,057 words
On October 1st, with little fanfare, Politico published an extraordinary opinion piece that may be the most important thing I’ve read all year. Titled “Americans Increasingly Believe Violence is Justified if the Other Side Wins,” the essay was penned by three “senior fellows” at the Hoover Institution, New America, and the Hudson Institute, (more…)
-
1,447 words
1,447 words
Richard Nixon made a fateful decision on the afternoon of November 9, 1960. He telegrammed John F. Kennedy to formally concede the presidential race. This concession ensured that there was no nasty legal battle or potential constitutional crisis over the election. (more…)
-
1,841 words
1,841 words
There was a time that the American mainstream was really interested in the US Civil War of 1860-1865. That time was before Obama’s gloomy second term empowered the insane asylum of weeping non-whites, deviants, mattoids, and Marxists that rejected all American history (more…)
-
1,213 words
1,213 words
Weimar comparisons are in the air again. Violent street clashes between Antifa and Trump supporters in Portland inspired a new round of historical allusions to interwar Germany. Long a theme within the Dissident Right, “Weimar America” is now making its way into mainstream discourse. (more…)
-
2,474 words
2,474 words
Earlier this month, the New York Times revealed that top-level Democrats have been wargaming possible outcomes of the November 2020 election and are considering secession if things don’t go their way. This should come as a surprise to no one. Since the epoch-changing George Floyd riots — which began in May and are still ongoing (more…)
-
1,046 words
1,046 words
The Wrath of the Awakened Saxon
Rudyard KiplingIt was not part of their blood,
It came to them very late,
With long arrears to make good,
When the Saxon began to hate. (more…) -
991 words
991 words
I am a creature of habit. One of my daily morning rituals, after snoozing my alarm at least twice, is to check my phone for the morning headlines and to have a look at trending topics on Twitter. The viral meme du jour this Monday morning was that of “Ken and Karen McBoomer,” (more…)
-
1,215 words
1,215 words
Six black people have been found dead, hanging from trees, during the month of June so far. They were all ruled as suicides by local police. Black people refuse to believe that’s true, of course. The circumstances of these deaths too closely resemble the lynchings of yesteryear, right down to the surrounding social turmoil and the highly public spectacle of the corpses. (more…)
-
2,543 words
2,543 words
If veganism is dietary Marxism, is the Carnivore movement dietary anti-Marxism? I think that the answer is yes. Indeed, the whole Carnivore subculture smells deliciously Right-wing — like a perfectly grilled ribeye steak. (more…)