In the Tradition of Liberty.
In the Tradition of Liberty.
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FUSION’s archive of commentary.
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In his 1939 review of Carl Sandburg’s venerable biography of Abraham Lincoln, Max Lerner wrote in The New Republic that “Sandburg has the reporter’s passion for concreteness. We always learn the exact numbers of everything, the exact look of everyone who enters the story. There is something even a bit frightening about the detail.” Lerner nonetheless gave Sandburg the benefit of a doubt as a biographer. “I think I can understand Sandburg’s intent: the Lincoln literature has grown so vast that a definitive factual work was needed to gather together…
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With the tapping of J.D. Vance as Donald Trump’s running mate, it seems that the Republican Party has fully shed its old skin and revealed its new nature as the party of an altogether different, “national” conservatism. His selection follows the recent National Conservatism Conference in Washington, DC, which offered further evidence of conservatives’ sense that the movement has broken with its past and is prepared for something different. Given Vance’s own appearance at NatCon, one might reasonably conclude that the rise of national conservatism has played a major and unambiguous role in the Republican Party’s…
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Emmanuel Macron’s decision to call an early parliamentary election following the unprecedented success of France’s nationalist right in the European election in early June was always a risky proposition, bound to further weaken the plurality that his government enjoyed in the National Assembly. Most, including Macron, were pre-occupied with the slow but steady growth of the National Rally (RN). Yet the results on Sunday dealt a different shock to the system: first place for the New Popular Front (NFP), a left-wing coalition composed of the (center-left) Socialists, Greens, and France…
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President Biden’s poor debate performance coupled with his clearly declining mental faculties have begged the question of whether or not he is up to the task of running for a second term. Some have floated the possibility of his resignation before the end of his first tour of duty in January 2025. But Joe has held on tight, insisting that he is fit for the moment; that he remains the best bet Democrats have to defeat Donald Trump. Despite his reassurances, Democratic elected officials, donors, and party apparatchiks are pushing…
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A recent Washington Monthly report by Robert Kelchen and Marc Novicoff on the pro-Palestine campus protests and encampments put together the data to show a very interesting social fact which we have had to learn or relearn in recent years of “mostly peaceful protests.” The authors ask and answer: Kelchen and Novicoff not only correlate the data to show that encampments especially are a luxury, strange as it may seem, a rare flower that can only grow in the tenderly cultivated soil of the Ivy League and of similarly expensive…
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In the United States, we date our nation’s beginning to the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, which has served as a national creed enshrining distinctly liberal principles in our national consciousness. When “it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another,” they return to “the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them.” The Declaration justified our independence based upon “self-evident” truths: “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed…
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In yesterday’s decision in Trump v. United States, the Supreme Court answered several important questions related to presidential power and duty, immunity, and criminal law. Though much needs to be said about the majority opinion, the concurrences, and the dissents, we should start by taking a step backward. The facts of Trump’s case are unquestionably important, yet a larger issue sits behind them: How are we to understand the potential criminal prosecution of any major public official in a republic? The phrase “in a republic” does important work in…
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We welcome the commentaries on our essay “Libertarians Should Get Real about Politics” and thank Peter Suderman of Reason Magazine, Michael Munger of Duke University Political Science, and Geoff Kabaservice of the Niskanen Center for their replies. Suderman and Munger are libertarians; Kabaservice describes himself as “a moderate Republican.” When we find that our interpretations differ wildly from those of our intellectual adversaries, we know that delusion lurks—in them, ourselves, or both. The delusions would involve deep denialisms (“See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil”), about worldly…
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Earlier this month, Republican National Committee spokeswoman, Anna Kelly, raised eyebrows when she told Bloomberg’s Nancy Cook that “the notion that tariffs are a tax on US consumers is a lie pushed by outsourcers and the Chinese Communist Party.” While it’s true that tariffs can lower the prices received by Chinese exporters, as an empirical matter the 2018 tariffs on China applied by President Trump have mostly been passed through to US importers. And, over the long run in competitive industries, higher import prices ultimately get passed onto consumers. A…
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I am a Libertarian. Capital “L,” member of the Party, frequent candidate, activist, and contributor of campaign funds. Some of my economist friends mock voting, since “it doesn’t matter.” Another topic, for another time; let’s suppose we agree that I am going to vote. There is still a question: for whom? Many folks feel strongly that I should “vote the LOTE.” LOTE is “the lesser of two evils.” In an election between an awful candidate, and a once-in-a generation, apocalyptically terrible candidate, one should vote for the candidate who is…