Well, I hope so, and I hope Joe Biden or his “people” will take the hint, if not from Charlie himself then the myriad of excellent sources Charlie collects in his recent piece for “The Bulwark”, Joe Biden Needs Four Sister Souljah Moments, explaining why Joe needs to “get tough” with the Democratic Party’s newly…
Search Results for: Charles Sykes
The Republicans: WTF Happened to this Party? Part II Part 2: Matthew Continetti and The Right
A few years ago, I wrote an extended piece bearing the title The Republicans: WTF Happened to this Party?. Recently, in response to a couple of engaging (relatively) meas culpas—Matthew Continetti’s The Right The Hundred Year War for American Conservatism and Tim Miller’s Why We Did It—I began preparing an update. I originally planned to…
Yo, “Conservatives”! You had a 30-year preview of Donald Trump! It was called “The Rush Limbaugh Show”!
I have been following, with a curious compulsion, the comings and goings of anti-Trump conservatives, who frequently hold forth at newly formed sites like The Bulwark and The Dispatch. The recent announcement of Rush Limbaugh that he was suffering from lung cancer brought forth an affectionate reminiscence from James Swift, one of the leaders of…
Sweeping up a few Republican crumbs
Okay, that’s a bit harsh, even though, let’s face it, a lot of Republicans are crumbs. A week or two ago, I ran a piece, “John McCain, Paul Ryan, and the Myth of the Virtuous Republican”, in the course of which I quoted fairly extensively from two often interesting “I’m outta here” books by (more…
John McCain, Paul Ryan, and the Myth of the Virtuous Republican
John McCain is one of those guys who, when he dies, people say “he was the last of a dying breed.” No one will ever say that about Paul Ryan. John McCain was a genuine war hero, a man who preferred to face hardship, torture, and even death rather than abandon his comrades. Paul Ryan…
CRT v. Anti-CRT: Wait, Wait! You’re BOTH Right! Occasionally.
OCTOBER 6, 2022 UPDATE: In the course of this report—somewhere in the middle—I discuss crime data from the FBI. I should have pointed out that these data are estimates rather than complete tallies. We don’t know, for example, that there were 10,440 homicides in the U.S. in 2020, although the FBI says we do. I…
Hell freezes over; Satan furious.
Well, who can blame him? The dude gets up in the morning and falls hard on his big red ass—on a floor which is freezing, by the way—all because National Review dude Charles Cooke told his National Review brethren that they should believe the New York Times! Yeah, I know you don’t believe me, so…
Some conservatives starting to show some signs of some capacity for self-awareness and self-criticism. This is encouraging! Somewhat!
The recent, totally unsurprising news that President Donald Trump is wont to discuss official business in a totally unprofessional way over totally unsecured private cellphones that could be easily monitored by the intelligence services of unfriendly nations, done on purpose, moreover, so that his staff won’t know what he’s been up to, has been met…
The “Struggle” for the “Soul” of the Republican Party: When Vapid Met Vaporous
Unless you actually have a life, you may be aware of a “struggle” going on now for the “soul”, loosely speaking, of the Republican Party. In one corner you have Brink “Mr. Nice Guy” Lindsey, arguing in National Affairs for “Republicanism for Republicans” and in the other Tucker “Bow Tie/Blue Collar” Carlson, who moans that…
Max Boot’s The Corrosion of Conservatism: A major mea culpa just a few culpas shy of a load
Max Boot has written another “what happened to conservatism?” book, similar but superior to Charles How the Right Lost its Mind Sykes and Rick Everything Trump Touches Dies Wilson, because Boot, unlike both Sykes and Wilson, is willing to re-examine the historical record and discover, among other things, that, yes, the young William F. Buckley…