The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

MBD’s Trump Problem, and Mine

Let me start by saying that I like Michael Brendan Dougherty, and I’ve always liked him. He is a serious thinker and his paleoconservative leanings are so obvious that it’s a miracle he hasn’t already been purged from National Review, like John Derbyshire, Peter Brimelow, et al. His 2007 article “The Castaway,” about the late, […]

Paul Gottfried vs. Neocon Mythology

  Last week, I received an email from Paul Gottfried, the retired professor who is president of the H.L. Mencken Club. Readers will recall that White House speechwriter Darren Beattie was recently purged for having spoken at the Club’s 2016 gathering, because of his alleged association with “white nationalists.” I later discussed Beattie’s speech to […]

In Defense of William F. Buckley Jr.

“In the hands of a skillful indoctrinator, the average student not only thinks what the indoctrinator wants him to think . . . but is altogether positive that he has arrived at his position by independent intellectual exertion. This man is outraged by the suggestion that he is the flesh-and-blood tribute to the success of […]

The Brutality of Kurt Schlichter

Of course, I mean brutality as a compliment, expressing my admiration of his skillful demolition of a liberal “argument”: Mock them. Accuse them of adhering to a transphobic cisnormative paradigm and start shrieking “Hate crime!” Don’t worry about not making sense. They’re college students. They are used to not understanding what people smarter than they […]

Egalitarianism Triumphant

“In the hands of a skillful indoctrinator, the average student not only thinks what the indoctrinator wants him to think . . . but is altogether positive that he has arrived at his position by independent intellectual exertion. This man is outraged by the suggestion that he is the flesh-and-blood tribute to the success of […]

Dougherty’s Law and the Blame Game: The Truth About Cuccinelli’s Loss

In 2006, Michael Brendan Dougherty described the habitual lament of digruntled Republicans: “If it were more like me, the Republican Party would be better off. It’s failing because it’s like you.” Whenever Republicans lose, we are forced to witness the ugly spectacle of this sectarian internecine blame game re-enacted, a tradition that dates back at […]

Primary Politics: Can the Grassroots Defeat the GOP Establishment in 2014?

Interesting developments: Matt Bevin is challenging Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in the Kentucky GOP primary. Checking his biography, I’m glad to see that Bevin is a graduate of Washington & Lee University, a U.S. Army veteran, and a small business owner — exactly the kind of outsider “not a politician” profile anyone would want […]

Whatever Your Problem Is, ‘Vote Democrat’ Is Never the Solution

That’s a 10-word sentence that would fit on a T-shirt or a bumper sticker, or which any Republican politician could add to his stump speech — an effective answer to the perennial message that the Democrat Party offers to the aggrieved and malcontented. Democrats and their media allies are very good at suggesting that people […]

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