Category Archives: Politics

What The Democrats Must Do

10 Feb 2026 By in Politics Tags: , , , , , , , 2 Comments
A group of four individuals dressed in early 20th-century formal attire, including hats and coats. The group consists of two men on either side, a woman in the center, and another man on the right. They are posing outdoors, with trees visible in the background.

Listen to the podcast version here.

The Democratic Party is, at present, the only political organization in the nation capable of defeating Trump.  In the last election, voters looked to the Democrats to rise to the occasion, and Democrats let us down.  I’m looking for signs that the party as a whole has absorbed the lessons of 2024, but so far its leaders don’t seem to see the need to unite and act in concert; they don’t seem to realize how ideologically broken and blown they are.

The Trump era will end when his many opponents unite in a disciplined way around an adequate, innovative ideology. An “adequate ideology” would map out an alternative path to achieving prosperity and security for American citizens, while reviving a sound and balanced federalism. Given Americans’ grave dissatisfaction with both political parties, success depends on peeling away support from the Republicans, while embracing ideas that will induce independents to join a majoritarian coalition.

    As we all know, Trump’s outrageous style of governing tends to dominate the national discourse, leaving little room for the growth of this oppositional vision. Living in the Trump era is like having a neighbor blasting your least favorite music 24-7 while you are trying to write beautiful poetry. Instead of writing your master-work, you are screaming at the neighbor to stop with the noise. Trump distracts you from your own virtues, your own manners, and, especially, your own ambitions. Instead of figuring out how to restore civic trust and reform Congress, you are talking about Greenland, Venezuela, and—the newest distraction—the Epstein files. We’re all spending a lot of time thinking and talking about matters that are tangential to the survival of American self-government, even as Trump is diminishing our capacity to govern ourselves and knocking down the pillars of civil society.

    It’s very difficult to ignore and look past Trump, but the only way to vanquish him and his Republicans is to treat their actions as irrelevant to the nation’s future. It’s necessary to dream a constructive and counterfactual dream. If Trump were not in power, what could the future of the United States be? Democrats must retreat to a tranquility chamber together and dream that dream. They mustn’t be haters, critics, or skeptics: they must recall the good deeds that American government has done. They must extol everything that’s still good and sound in American society, and they must map out how its people can propel this country to a new modern high.

    For, where do ordinary voters fit in to the American equation any more? Individuals are increasingly extraneous in a technological mass society that, in the form of “the AI revolution,” is bifurcating the nation’s economy into a hyper-capitalized empire run by an investor class, who are engrossing all the goodies, at the majority’s expense. This out-of-control juggernaut is flattening the lives and hopes of a vast range of workers and property-owners. Media companies are turning our lives into data mills at the expense of our privacy and freedom to associate—to act, to argue, and to organize.

    Meanwhile, since Kamala Harris’s undemocratic nomination, voters recognize that their traditional power to choose their own party’s leaders, and to bring those leaders to heel, has somehow disappeared. The process the Democrats relied on to anoint Biden’s successor was an untoward event that the party’s leaders have yet to reckon with or formally acknowledge. They owe the voters and state-level pols an apology. The elite of the Democratic Party should reform its convention rules and restore delegates’ freedom to choose a representative presidential nominee. Every effort should be made to be a party that runs on commitment not cash. Reliance on the collective will and power of the people must be restored.

    Ideologically, Democrats cling to a globalist perspective out of step with the most pressing problems facing the US now. Trump’s vision for this country, no matter how antagonistic to its founding principles, prioritizes nation-state survival and acknowledges that changing demographics and other geopolitical conditions (such resource scarcity) threaten the integrity of the US, both as a republic and the world’s biggest economy. Democrats have yet to accept and get in front of trends that are transforming attitudes toward national security and identity all across Europe and the western world. Western liberalism must survive, but to do so it must take on a nationalist form, mindful of the special circumstances (including property ownership, cultural homogeneity, and limited government) that have historically been productive of personal liberty. Democrats have yet to accept that we are no longer in a period of boundlessness: we are in a period of consolidation.

    Whether we like it or not, borders will be closed; trade alliances will be confined to countries that are ideologically similar to ours; immigration policies will be more discriminating; and the quest for natural materials and energy will grow ever keener and more problematic, given the overcrowding and degradation the planet is suffering. Democrats are not practicing realpolitik, though. They’re stuck in a reactive, defensive mode, clinging to the ideals of FDR and LBJ, still fighting for the Great Society. Democrats are fighting battles that they’ve lost already, when they should be totting up their losses and stomaching the ideological tradeoffs they must make to attain solid majorities in the states and take control of Congress again. To do so, they must look past the superficial traits of identity and concentrate on what will enhance the dignity and security of all Americans, without respect to living condition or creed.

    Prevailing over Trump requires advocating for border control and for new immigration policies that are stricter yet fairer to all involved. It means restoring the substance of ordinary Americans’ power over their representatives. And it means doubling-down on resource conservation and asserting Americans’ common right to essentials such as land and water that data-center developers and other corporate interests are engrossing with frightening speed.

    Whether Democrats are high-minded enough to reshape American politics in the people’s interest, though, remains to be seen.

    Image: Delegates, including
    Elizabeth Dunster Gibson Foster of Washington State,
    at the 1916 Democratic National Convention in St. Louis, Missouri,
     from this source.

    Federal Hall, The Seat of Congress

    26 Jul 2025 By in History, Politics, The Social Life of Politics Tags: , , , , , , ,
    An illustration of Federal Hall, depicting its front facade with large columns, decorative elements, and a clock tower. The image includes historical text mentioning it as the seat of Congress.

    The afore-mentioned renovation of Federal Hall was complete by the time the First Congress met to certify the results of the first presidential election. This 1790 copperplate engraving depicts George Washington’s swearing in on a crowded balcony, members of Congress looking on. His term began April 30, 1789.

    Though the facade was new, the site was familiar to all participants, as the failed Confederation Congress had been meeting in this building, which was New York’s old city hall, for several years. New York City continued as the temporary capital for one more year, until the government moved to Philadelphia, where it would remain for the next decade.

    The old city hall is nearly unrecognizable, its scale and structure a canvas for Peter L’Enfant’s showy neoclassical style.

    This item is in the collection of the National Park Service,
    a reminder of that agency’s enormous role
    in preserving precious artifacts
    critical to our understanding of the early United States.

    Please Join Me on Substack

    4 Jun 2025 By in Politics, Protest and Protestors, The Trump Years Tags: , , ,
    A historical illustration titled 'Raising the Flag May 1861', depicting a diverse group of people celebrating the raising of the American flag, with the U.S. Capitol in the background and soldiers in uniform present.

    I’m excited to announce that I’ve launched a new publication on Substack called Village Intellectual. I hope you’ll check out it out and subscribe.

    “Village intellectual” is the term I’ve come up with to describe my position and calling since moving to Ozaukee County, Wisconsin, in late 2023. I moved from Chicago, where the political culture was deep-blue almost to a fault, to a region of ambivalence, where partisan polarization expresses itself in a culture of mutual suspicion, defiance, even fear. Meanwhile, federalism is under attack from within, signaling a national emergency that all good Americans are trying to redress.

    It’s History. Make History.

    Since January 6th, 2021, the United States has been heading toward a many-sided political and Constitutional crisis, which, with Trump’s return to the White House, has entered an acute and acutely dangerous phase. We can’t ignore our common obligation to defend Constitutional federalism, no matter how outlandish and unfamiliar that portfolio seems. Many I know are looking for a way forward, trying to find a new formula for effective political action on the ground. It’s bizarre that such an outsized burden has fallen on us.

    Village Intellectual is my way of encouraging and supporting those of you striving to constrain the executive’s abuse of power and bring this nightmare of a Dark Age to an end. In this, we can draw on the American political tradition, which is rooted in a revolutionary ideology that rejects monarchical corruption in favor of self-government, personal dignity, and autonomy. This common inheritance is perhaps our greatest resource, offering a language, inspiration, and models to be deployed in standing up for our common rights and asserting our power as a self-governing people.

    So, please join me over on Substack, where I hope we can build an active and voluble civic community. If you like what you find there, I hope you will subscribe and share its contents with your friends. Please note that free and paid subscriptions are available.

    American Inquiry will continue to remain freely available and online. Given its deep archive, this parent website will likely remain my preferred venue for formal history writing. I’m proud of all the work I’ve published here over the years and deeply grateful for your loyal readership and lasting support. Onward!

    Image: from this source.

    Hijacked

    27 May 2025 By in Politics, Protest and Protestors, The Trump Years Tags: , ,
    Americans face an unprecedented and unlooked-for political emergency. We must band together to save ourselves and the nation from a dark future. In such a situation, we can expect new leaders to emerge, but it falls on us collectively to unite to preserve our autonomy and right to self-determination.

    KEY MOMENTS

    Imagine you’re on a plane a madman has hijacked: this is our political situation (0:03)
    In the present situation, none of us can expect to have a separate fate; we must band together (1:15)
    We must set aside normal ways of proceeding for the sake of unity (2:30)
    In an unlooked-for emergency, plans and leaders tend to emerge spontaneously. (3:00)
    As in the years prior to the Civil War, party warfare has marginalized many capable leaders. (3:55)
    Fortunately, our nation is full of capable people who care about others and the rule of law. (6:30)
    One whole party, the Republicans, has proved itself incapable of standing up to the president and demanding that he respect Congress and the laws created by our best minds over the years. (7:00)
    As a consequence, we are headed into a very dangerous situation. (8:00)
    I implore you to band together with others to limit the harm. (8:25)
    A strike against one American is a strike against all. (8:55)
    The consequences of allowing this situation to unfold unchecked are grim. (9:30)

    Touchstones: David Brooks

    23 May 2025 By in Politics, Protest and Protestors, The Trump Years Tags: , , , , , , , 2 Comments
    A protest sign featuring images of Donald Trump and two senators, with the text 'They don't care who they hurt or what you lose.'

    Donald Trump is a bulldozer: He pushes ahead, then stops and backs up, only to push again. His many-sided assault on Americans and American greatness goes ahead in fits and starts, but on it goes. His party and a constellation of loyalist hacks constitute the machine. The destruction is general and all around. Free speech, the regulatory state, time-honored alliances and trade relations, hunger relief, egalitarianism, ideals of excellence in thought and culture: all are being struck with astonishing speed. The challenge is to sabotage the bulldozer, when one has only words and can’t get anywhere near the thing.

    This is no time for parochialism or single-issue politics. The president’s broad-scale attack on ideals and institutions requires that Americans unite in opposition, a broad-based opposition that transcends party and focuses on what we as a nation, and as citizens, stand to lose. As David Brooks wrote in a recent column,

    It’s time for a comprehensive national civic uprising. It’s time for Americans in universities, law, business, nonprofits and the scientific community, and civil servants and beyond to form one coordinated mass movement. Trump is about power. The only way he’s going to be stopped is if he’s confronted by some movement that possesses rival power.

    Sound daunting? The fact is that “white-collar resistance” is in our DNA. Standing up for freedom and against that which would enslave us, is the backbone of American history. Generations of thought-leaders and old-time influencers articulated the aspirations that formed us into a nation and empowered us to throw off monarchical rule. Federalists like Madison and Hamilton used the power of the pen to galvanize sentiment in favor of the Constitution. Nineteenth-century writers and preachers, including such figures as William Garrison, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Frederick Douglass, waged a campaign of conscience that ultimately led to slavery’s abolition. Martin Luther King, Jr., though witness to racial violence and confronted with mortal peril every step of the way, persevered in a brilliant moral quest to strike down Jim Crow and enshrine black equality in American law.

    What all these campaigns show is that when enlightened Americans band together for the sake of good, the good prevails. Moreover, civil dissent is a moral necessity when officialdom willfully violates deeply held political and spiritual values to which the population adheres. This is why the Bill of Rights was amended to the US Constitution: to protect us against, and empower us to oppose, federalism gone awry. Moralists, intellectuals, and private citizens have often been called on to “bend the arc of history,” their voluntary initiatives bringing our systems back from moral bankruptcy, closer to the foundational dream of liberty, prosperity, and domestic calm.

    It’s hard to accept that Trump and his project 2025 etc. are calling us to such an amorphous and momentous endeavor. After all, isn’t this why we have parties and leaders? Yet, when we look back, the answer is that sometimes leaders and parties fail, when the measures they embrace threaten to degrade or trammel citizens or take us down a perilous trail. So, Jefferson at home, hearing about the Missouri Compromise in 1820, likened it to a “fire-bell in the night.” Despite the apparent tranquility of his private life, the retired statesman heard a mortal alarm portending political disaster, ringing far away. Something very similar is happening now. Each of us must hear the fire bell and join the bucket-brigade, before our great federal system smolders and implodes.

    Cited: David Brooks, “What’s Happening Is Not Normal. America Needs an Uprising That Is Not Normal,”NYT (April 17, 2025). This article may not be accessible without a subscription. I encourage you to support the New York Times if you can!