Photo: Gregor Mima, Pixelbay (Also available at Substack.) As I said in the previous chapter, liberals can be proud of being open to multiple opinions. But sometimes openness can look like emptiness, as if you stand for nothing at all. It’s hard to stand for something if you’re not even sure what that something is. And many liberals have become unsure what … [Read more...] about The Liberal Backbone, Chapter 2: Why Nothing Makes Sense
Politics
The Liberal Backbone
Ever since I published my book Patriots of Two Nations in 2020, I’ve been working on another one — a much bigger one, as it’s turned out. And I’m still working on that big book. But with American democracy facing its greatest crisis since the Civil War as a corrupt autocrat returns to the presidency, I want to do my part, however small, to help right now. So I’m going to … [Read more...] about The Liberal Backbone
Slowly and then all at once
Ernest Hemingway is famous for the terse economy of his writing. And in one of the most resonant examples of that quality, he captured the essence of catastrophic failure in just a few words, in his novel The Sun Also Rises. The alcoholic veteran Mike Campbell is asked how he went bankrupt. “Two ways,” he says. “Gradually and then quickly.” As it is with one … [Read more...] about Slowly and then all at once
To a Friend Planning to Vote for Trump
Listen to this episode with Apple Podcasts or any podcast app, at YouTube, or here. In a democracy, in normal times, we should try very hard to keep politics and morality separate. No matter how much we may argue with someone’s political choices, we should avoid judging those choices as morally wrong, because that way lies intolerance, the opposite of the core, small-d … [Read more...] about To a Friend Planning to Vote for Trump
Mike Madrid on The Latino Century
Listen to this episode with Apple Podcasts or any podcast app, at YouTube, or here: According to my guest this time, the United States is entering a Latino century, and that might be what saves our democracy. Mike Madrid is a top expert on Latino voting, and in recent years he’s become a national leader in the bipartisan fight to save democracy. He’s been … [Read more...] about Mike Madrid on The Latino Century