Columnist.
A week ago Friday, I turned on my television to discover what was in the Devin Nunes memo, released earlier that day. On CNN and on CNBC, I couldn't find out. Instead, I was treated to a steady stream of invectives, with incessant name-calling, coming from highly emotional commentators.
The quick answer is that liberalism is no longer an ideology, focused on ideas. It is a sociology, bent on acquiring political power and social dominance.
The video that appeared more often than any other on my TV screen this past week showed protestors toppling a statue of a confederate soldier in Durham, North Carolina.
You would think the Democrats would be on cloud nine.
What do these events have in common? A deranged Bernie Sanders supporter opens fire on a group of Republican congressmen at baseball practice and would have killed them all but for the unusual presence of two Capitol Hill police officers.
Have you ever wondered why the First Amendment is the first amendment? The Founding Fathers believed that the right to speak your mind, the right to publish your thoughts and the right to peacefully assemble and exchange your ideas with others were the most important of all human rights.
Although it is often viewed as a radically new idea, the vast majority of parents in this country have been participating in a system of school choice for years.
America is a divided nation, we are told. But what divides us?
Last week, Andy Puzder, President Trump's pick to become Secretary of Labor, withdrew from consideration for the post. That is a huge loss for American workers.
First there was the woman at Hillary Clinton's election night "victory party" who curled up in the fetal position and began crying after learning there was to be no victory. But that's just one person, I thought. Then, on the eve of his inauguration, New York Times columnist Charles Blow not only declared Donald Trump's presidency illegitimate, he addressed the president elect in this way: "You will wear that scarlet 'I' on your tan chest for as long as you sit in the White House."
The idea that management and labor are invariably at odds is a Marxist idea.
Have you ever wondered why there is a Department of Labor? Why isn't the Department of Commerce enough to represent the interests of everyone in the business world? If something is good for commerce, that usually means businesses are growing and hiring and paying higher wages. Isn't that also good for workers?
One family canceled Thanksgiving dinner so they wouldn't have to be with pro-Trump relatives. Another family canceled a Christmas reunion for the same reason. One couple changed the date of their wedding so that a pro-Trump relative wouldn't be able to attend. Another couple chose to get married in Italy — a place too distant for their relatives to travel to. These are just a few of the ruptures that have followed the election of Donald Trump, as reported by The New York Times.
Even before Tuesday's voters brought a dramatic end to the political career of Hillary Clinton and served up a stunning rebuke to the presidency of Barack Obama, the chattering class had a weird spin on what was happening.
There will be some people going to the polls next month who were not even born when these events happened. Yet the print and broadcast media are a swirl with tales of powerful men, the women they interacted with and, of course, sex. The trouble is that most of what is being said is wrong. Take Anita Hill. Twenty-five years ago she appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee and in dramatic testimony, televised to a national viewing audience, accused Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas of sexually harassing her while she was his employee. Some writers are now comparing Donald Trump to Clarence Thomas.
What does Hillary Clinton really believe? Does she have strong beliefs about anything? A new raft of emails from the Clinton camp give us reason to doubt. The documents show the Clinton advisors carefully and meticulously messaging the Clinton position on a wide range of issues — on everything from the Keystone pipeline to the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA). As they emailed back and forth, the advisors carefully weighed the costs and benefits (in terms of votes, campaign contributions and favorable or unfavorable publicity) of nuanced positions.
Have you noticed how often the word "lie" is coming up in this presidential campaign? Both leading candidates have called each other liars. That's to be expected. But among the commentators, almost all of whom seem to be anti-Trump, I've noticed three things. First, they keep expanding what counts as a lie. Promising to "build a wall," for example, has now become a "lie." Second, although they accuse Donald Trump of lying, they never use that word when referring to Hillary Clinton, even though they admit that a good deal of what she has said isn't true. Instead, Hillary is "cagey" (Paul Krugman) "deceptive" (Rem Rieder), "shades the truth" (Nicholas Kristof) — but apparently she doesn't actually "lie."
Have you noticed that we are becoming increasingly balkanized — by race, religion and in other ways? When an angry black gunman ambushed and killed five police officers and wounded nine others in Dallas, he said he was upset over police shootings of black men and that he wanted to kill white people, especially white police officers. When San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick refused to stand for the national anthem, he said "I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color." When Black Lives Matters stages protests around the country, they often chant "Pigs in a blanket, fry like bacon" — a phrase expanded from one used by a killer who executed two police officers.
Stagnant wages are the dominant theme of this year's presidential election. Appropriately so. According to the (pro-labor) Economic Policy Institute, the median wage has risen only 6 percent in real terms over the past three decades. Low-wage workers have actually seen a 5 percent decline. So what are the candidates promising to do about that? Although they often talk about wages, political candidates almost never advocate policies that would credibly make them higher. This year, Donald Trump is an exception. He is advocating a policy change that will increase the income of the average family by an estimated $4,000 a year within the next four years. And here is a surprise: That policy change has nothing to do with immigration. Or foreign trade. In fact, it is something Trump almost never talks about. For that matter, Hillary Clinton doesn't talk about it either.
