In the Tradition of Liberty.
In the Tradition of Liberty.
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FUSION’s archive of commentary.
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On the morning of October 28, 2024, a prankster announced the death of the distinguished political scientist Francis Fukuyama—only for Fukuyama himself to explain to the world that he was still quite alive. In a recent Financial Times column reflecting on Donald Trump’s victory in the 2024 election, Fukuyama himself proclaims an ideological death. Trump’s win, he writes, is “a decisive rejection by American voters of liberalism and the particular way that the understanding of a ‘free society’ has evolved since the 1980s.” Yet this death, too, might be greatly exaggerated, at…
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Since the iPhone’s release in 2007, screens have colonized every facet of our lives. News consumption, social interaction, dating, political engagement, and communication are mediated by the powerful supercomputers in our pockets and at our desks. It’s increasingly difficult to fill up your gas tank or pay for groceries without encountering a screen. A family engaged in dinnertime conversation with smartphones set aside is now the exception, not the rule. Jonathan Haidt, a psychologist currently teaching at New York University’s Stern School of Business, compiled and analyzed the data on…
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More than anything else, anger over inflation put Donald Trump back in the White House. Many blame president Joe Biden and, by proxy, his party’s nominee, Kamala Harris, for failing to anticipate that prices would rise in the aftermath of the Coronavirus. Biden and federal reserve chairman Jerome Powell, who took the established view that expansion of the money supply causes inflation, watched as mass monetary stimulus during the lockdowns left prices largely unaffected. At the time, they concluded that inflation posed little threat, even labeling its initial appearance “transitory,” and claimed…
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After a Halloween consideration of Tim Burton’s vision of all-American freaks, I’d like to offer you a similarly strange tribute to Woody Allen’s Thanksgiving. The juxtaposition may seem strange, yet Burton and Allen are outsiders who became famous artists. They succeeded largely because they understand that it is funny, and not a little flattering, for the audience to look at ourselves from the outside. Both filmmakers are considered a bit odd, with immediately recognizable styles. But they still focus on, well, us. Allen peaked with Manhattan (1979), which was celebrated,…
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Fusion asked me to write a reply to Charles Fain Lehman’s October 1 article, “The Tangle of Pathology Revisited,” about the flaws in the Great Society programs that define the U.S. welfare state. It’s a tough assignment because I basically agree with everything Charles wrote. “The Great Society is less a testament to the power of government than to the limits of what it can do,” he wrote, which I think is an excellent one-sentence summary. Conservatives are quite good at criticizing the welfare state, and Charles is no exception. But…
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By the standards of 21st century American politics, the 2024 election produced a dramatic result for both the presidency, where 80 electoral votes swung to give Donald Trump his second victory, and the Senate, where Republicans flipped four seats and retook the majority. And yet the composition of the House of Representatives went from 220-212 before the election to 221-214 after (assuming John Duarte holds on and Michelle Steel loses in pending California races). Both parties made a few hard-fought gains, offsetting each other. Mostly, though, House incumbents showed remarkable…
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The University of Michigan, one of the most prestigious public universities in the country, is suffering a crisis of governance. In the latest chapter of the unfolding saga, which, like that of many peer schools, involves heated demonstrations, uneven enforcement of campus rules, and accusations of bigotry and unfairness flying every direction, the school’s Faculty Senate censured its regents for shutting down anti-Israel encampments and establishing an institutional-neutrality policy. Shortly after, the student government voted to impeach its avidly anti-Israel leadership for inciting violence against “Zionist members” of the student government. These…
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Donald Trump’s victory in the U.S. presidential election, particularly in light of Elon Musk’s highly visible support for his campaign, has again raised the question of the political significance of X (formerly Twitter). Since Musk acquired the platform in 2022, few institutions have displayed the same “Rorschach” quality. For example, the political activist Michael Shellenberger believes that X, along with its present owner, is now the standard-bearer of free speech in a world of tyrannical governments. By contrast, the cultural critic Thomas Chatterton Williams claims it has degenerated into a…
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Half a century after the Moynihan report, we are still cursed and blessed with copious ignorance about the effectiveness of our government policies. The dialectical dance between conservative prophets of doom and progressive peddlers of secular salvation remains as motivated and untiring as ever. But the core institutions of the modern welfare state are ingrained in American life. Unlike a hundred years ago, few people today (except some libertarians) demand a rollback to a nineteenth-century laissez-faire or a full replacement of government aid by private charities. Similar trends occurred throughout the rich…
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This summer, Maurie Backman of The Motley Fool wrote an article raising the alarm over our nation’s looming Social Security crisis. Backman noted that we’re nearing the point where Social Security payments will exceed payroll tax receipts. At this point, the Social Security system will begin to lose money. This isn’t necessarily the end of the system. Backman continues by highlighting that it “has trust funds it can tap to bridge that gap for a period of time. But that period is dwindling down.” According to Social Security’s latest Trustee Report, its…