Politics, Culture, and General Curmudgeonry
I, Citizen
This is a story of hope, but also of peril. It began when our nation’s polarized political class started conscripting everyday citizens into its culture war. From their commanding heights in political parties, media, academia, and government, these partisans have attacked one another for years, but increasingly they’ve convinced everyday Americans to join the fray.
Why should we feel such animosity toward our fellow citizens, our neighbors, even our own kin? Because we’ve fallen for the false narrative, eagerly promoted by pundits on the Left and the Right, that citizens who happen to vote Democrat or Republican are enthusiastic supporters of Team Blue or Team Red. Aside from a minority of party activists and partisans, however, most voters are simply trying to choose the lesser of two evils.
The real threat to our union isn’t Red vs. Blue America, it’s the quiet collusion within our nation’s political class to take away that most American of freedoms: our right to self-governance. Even as partisans work overtime to divide Americans against one another, they’ve erected a system under which we ordinary citizens don’t have a voice in the decisions that affect our lives. From foreign wars to how local libraries are run, authority no longer resides with We the People, but amongst unaccountable officials. The political class has stolen our birthright and set us at one another’s throats.
This is the story of how that happened and what we can do about it. America stands at a precipice, but there’s still time to reclaim authority over our lives and communities.
“Politicians’ Backstabbing Family Members are the Worst” Spectator World, October 30, 2022
“The Right’s New Divide: Frodo vs Boromir” Spectator World, October 4, 2022
“Beware, party bosses, the rise of the unaffiliateds is coming for you” Washington Post, April 14, 2022
“The Myth of Our Looming National Divorce” Spectator World, March 22, 2022
“The Rise of the Interloping Radicals” Spectator World, January 19, 2022
“Independent Voters are Alive and Well—and Angrier Than Ever” NY Post, December 12, 2021
“The Great American Con” excerpted from I, Citizen at American Greatness, December 11, 2021
“Is America in ‘a Cold Civil War?’ Not at All” Governing, October 8, 2021
“State Bans on Critical Race Theory Won’t Work” Wall Street Journal, August 20, 2021
“Our Rebel Thanksgiving” American Conservative, November 26, 2020
“Against the Libertarian-Pajama-Boy Consensus” American Mind, November 17, 2020
“When Violence is Justified to Defend Civil Society” American Conservative, September 1, 2020
“Free Speech Absolutism Killed Free Speech” Wall Street Journal, August 30, 2020
“In Praise of Commoners’ Sense” American Spectator, August 21, 2020
“Setting the Wheel of History Alight: A Review of Solzhenitsyn’s The Red Wheel” American Conservative, July-August 2020
“God Save the Supreme Court” Washington Examiner, July 30, 2020
“A Masked Consensus” American Conservative, July 27, 2020
“The Shirking Pandemic: Everyone is Passing the Buck” American Conservative, July 14, 2020
“Why Conservative Fusionism Was Destined to Disintegrate” American Conservative, June 23, 2020
“The Overlooked Potential of State AGs for Police Reform” Governing, June 15, 2020
“The Fires Foretold: Willmoore Kendall and the Burning of America” American Conservative, June 8, 2020
“Bring Me My Bow of Burning Gold: Micturition and Its Discontents” Front Porch Republic, May 7, 2020
“Charity for All? Not in Today’s Debates Over Civil War Memorials” Wall Street Journal, May 19, 2017
“I Come Not to Praise the Megachurch” Good Letters, September 3, 2015
“Back off, Man, I’m a Scientist” Good Letters, November 18, 2014
“The Casserole Dish Manifesto” Good Letters, January 31, 2014
“The Collapse of Western Civilization Begins in Your Dentist’s Chair” Good Letters, September 5, 2012
“Our Love Affair With the Fairs” Wall Street Journal, September 10, 2010
“Curse of the Greedy Copyright Holders” Wall Street Journal, July 9, 2010
“Boy, the Scout Handbook Keeps Changing” Wall Street Journal, February 26, 2010
“Twilight Chic” National Review, March 27, 2009