March 28, 2017

The Media’s Trump Derangement Syndrome

James Boswell wrote that Samuel Johnson said, “[p]atriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.” When mainstream media (MSM) denizens wrap themselves in the First Amendment, one wonders if Johnson’s assertion needs to be broadened. ...

March 21, 2017

America’s New Political World

America is in a new political world. Combine Donald Trump’s victory in 2016 with the über-left’s attempts to delegitimize his presidency, and a significant underpinning of popular government is seriously imperiled. New times call ...

March 10, 2017

A Pervasive Failure of Nerve in Higher Education

The condition of American universities is well known to any astute observer:  they are centers of left-wing, anti-American, indoctrination.  Once-upon-a-time, universities enabled many students to broaden their perspectives on themselves an...

March 3, 2017

When Did Barack Obama Become an Overt Black Racist?

Now that he’s gone from the White House (forever, one hopes), it is time to ascertain when Barack Obama became an overt black racist.  Some will opine that he always has been, which may be true, but is less important than the racial divisi...

February 23, 2017

The Presidential Rating Game

Guess what? Barack Obama has been rated the 12th best president of all times by 91 professional historians who were queried by CSPAN. The historians rated presidents from George Washington to Obama on several criteria: economic management, pursuing j...

February 11, 2017

It’s Time to Define Fascism

  Among the many epithets the Über-Left hurls against its opponents – racist, sexist, homophobe, Islamophobe, etc. – a persistent tendency has been to scream. “Fascist, Nazi, etc.”   For whatever the reaso...

January 20, 2017

What Has Obama Done to Us, and How Was He Able to Do It?

Now that his time as president has come to an end, it’s time to ask what Barack Obama has done to the country, and how he has been able to do it. Obama is the most left-wing president in American history. Never mind his speech at the 2004 De...

January 9, 2017

The Democrats are the Party of Big Money

Once-upon-a-time, the Democrat Party was the party of the “little man,” i.e., those who made up America’s lower social orders. No more. The GOP has also been a party of big money, of course, but the partisan-based class and monet...

December 10, 2016

Fear of the Majority

In the 1950s and early 1960s, a number of social scientists had a dim view of direct popular influence on public policies. These individuals had been alarmed by fascist and/or communist movements in Europe in the early decades of the 20th century ...

November 30, 2016

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Emerging Democrat Majority

John Judis and Ruy Teixeira published a bestselling book, The Emerging Democratic Majority, in 2002.  Judis hailed the continuing validity of their thesis in an Atlantic article published in November 2012.  Other authors, such as Democrat p...

November 27, 2016

Progressivism’s Bigoted Past (and Present)

Progressivism embraced racism early in its history, a line of thought that continues to this day, only with different targets of scorn.  Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, two of the early advocates of progressivism in America, often manifes...

November 17, 2016

The Indoctrination Gap

Students of American national elections have grappled with several voter gaps, i.e., substantial differences in the way categories of people vote for candidates of different parties. There has been a gulf between the ways whites and blacks voted for ...

October 28, 2016

The Cost of Historical Amnesia in America

When sizable portions of a people forget their history, they risk losing contact with their nation’s essence, what its best qualities are, and where it ought to be headed.  They may soon cease to inhabit an independent political entity. ...

October 22, 2016

Disunited We Stand

Think about two dramatic events in American history:  (1) the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor on December 7 1941; and (2) the terrorists’ attacks on September 11 2001.  Now consider how different were the nation’s leaders’...

August 31, 2016

White Males and the Democratic Party

Now that the Democrat Party has, on at least the second occasion, decided to forgo the votes of white males while seeking the presidency, hasn’t the time also come to cleanse the party’s leadership of white males? Look at the groups wh...

August 24, 2016

Why Low-Information Voters Are Worrisome

Sadly, we live in the era of the low-information voter. The second edition of Ilya Somin’s Democracy and Political Ignorance (2016) documents widespread political ignorance among today’s public, including voters. Although nonvoters are ab...

June 2, 2016

Is Reaganism Dead?

The cry, “Reaganism is dead!” has been uttered several times during the presidential campaign in 2016. Two such examples will suffice. Eliana Johnson posted such an assessment on nationalreview.com on February 29th. Peter Wehner wrote the...

May 19, 2016

What Does Fair Share (in Taxes) Mean?

What do left-wing Democrats such as Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Bernie Sanders have in mind when they demand that wealthy Americans pay their “fair share” in taxes? Demanding that the rich pay their fair share in taxes is part ...

April 15, 2016

What to make of Obama’s recent rise in approval in the polls?

An interesting facet of American politics is that Barack Obama’s approval ratings have gone up recently.  As Gina Jannone, a senior writer/editor at Rasmussenreports.com, noted on March 24th, Obama’s approval numbers have risen since...

April 5, 2016

The Threat to Free Speech in America

How free is speech in America today? If the case of Wendy Bell, an anchor at WTAE-TV in Pittsburgh, who was fired on March 30th for writing what some claimed were racist sentiments on her Facebook page is any indication, “not very free” s...

March 28, 2016

The Impending GOP Calamity: Why Has It Come to This?

The GOP, which should have been poised to run the table in the 2016 elections, could lose the presidency to Hillary Clinton, watch the Senate revert to Democrat control, and possibly experience serious loses at the state and local levels. Why has it ...

March 16, 2016

Liberal Fascism in Chicago Last Friday

On Friday, March 11, an event occurred in Chicago that reminded me of violent clashes between Nazis and Communists during the waning years of the Weimar Republic in Germany.  GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump canceled a scheduled speech at...

March 13, 2016

Can Only Republicans Can Be Authoritarians?

In an essay, “The Rise of American Authoritarianism,” posted on Vox.com (March 1), Amanda Taub makes three claims: (1) Donald Trump is backed by authoritarians who feel threatened by social, political, and economic changes in the U.S...

March 3, 2016

The GOP Forgot Working Class Whites’ Votes (But Trump Didn’t)

An interesting feature of this year’s presidential election is Hillary Clinton’s heavy dependence on blacks and, to a slightly lesser degree, Hispanics voters.  Bernie Sanders has also been trolling for their votes. If the 2016 De...

February 4, 2016

Is Socialism in America’s Future?

There are several indications that socialism is a growing force in America. Alas, some of these indicators suggest that Americans’ views of socialism could become even more positive in the future. That isn’t good. On many occasions ...

January 8, 2016

Don't Expect a Clinton to Get What He/She Deserves

Almost every week we learn of some new horror committed by a Clinton. Scandals attached to a Clinton are old news. Some can be traced back before the Clintons’ emergence on the national scene in 1992, many to their days in Arkansas, from ...

December 27, 2015

Who is Killing off Political Science?

Given recent events on university campuses, it is not surprising that several writers have dealt with the subject.  Most have focused on political correctness’ pernicious effects on campus. The latest number of The Weekly Standard (12/2...

November 20, 2015

The Obama Polling Disconnect

The American public is not known for having logically consistent political opinions, but the polls reported on November 10th by Rasmussen Reports may leave observers of the political scene wondering what’s going on. According to Rasmussen...

October 27, 2015

Could the Perfect Conservative Candidate Cost the 2016 Election?

A popular saying is, “[d]on’t let the quest for the perfect become the enemy of the good.” In other words, we shouldn’t be so determined to find perfection in politics that we lose sight of what can be attained, even if it...

October 21, 2015

Why Aren't More Americans Angry about U.S. Defeat in the Middle East?

The obliviousness of so many to America’s humiliation in the Middle East fills me with despair.  Maybe U.S. defeat will stimulate action to hold those responsible -- mostly leftists -- but I doubt it.  Too many people are still asleep...

October 3, 2015

Unassimilated Immigration: Dystopia Now!

Watching the latest wave of refugees fleeing to Europe (and soon the U.S.) from the Middle East and parts of Africa, I am reminded of Jean Raspail’s 1973 apocalyptic novel, The Camp of the Saints.  (Others have had the same recollection.)...

September 6, 2015

McCarthyism Redux

Could America be witnessing the growth of a left-wing version of McCarthyism? At a fund-raiser in Nevada on August 25th, Barack Obama called opponents of the Iran nuclear deal “the crazies.”  (One wonders if that slur applies to D...

August 29, 2015

Why I'm Glad I'm Gone from Academe

I have two confessions to make.  First, I was a university professor from the late 1960s to the late 1990s.  Over four-plus decades at the same institution, I went from Assistant Professor to Associate Professor to Full Professor.  ...

August 20, 2015

The 'Differences' between Democrats and Socialists

What does it mean that when twice asked to distinguish between socialists and Democrats, Florida representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the chairwoman of the Democrat National Committee, could not or would not answer? Although Wasserman Schult...

August 6, 2015

What Mike Royko Knew that Jon Stewart and the Mainstream Media Don't

The late Mike Royko -- a columnist in Chicago for many decades -- warned young reporters against hobnobbing with politicians because it might compromise their objectivity.   As he noted, “[i]f you get too close, then you’re goin...

July 22, 2015

What Hath Obama Wrought?

Just before the 2008 presidential election,  Barack Hussein Obama, who by then knew the election’s eventual outcome, told a campaign rally “[w]e’re five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America!...

July 18, 2015

Why So Many People Regard Obama Positively

After studying public opinion for many years, I think I have a fairly good understanding of what shapes the typical American’s political views.  There is, however, one topic that has me flummoxed:  why so many Americans still hold ros...

July 9, 2015

Will GOP Elites Ever Learn?

They’re about to do it again.  News reports indicate that several candidates for the GOP’s presidential nomination, Jeb Bush and Rand Paul among others, are planning to attack other potential Republican presidential nominees as pa...

July 6, 2015

The Rocky Road to Ending Judicial Tyranny

Despite the Constitution’s Framers’ intent, the United States does not have a government consisting of three coequal branches.  Rather, Americans suffer under a judicial tyranny. In the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s recen...

June 26, 2015

Race and the Destruction of the American Republic

Race will cause the American republic’s complete destruction.  Either the Left will succeed in its decades-old campaign of preying on “white guilt” to impose a socialist dictatorship on the U.S., or there will be a backlash tha...

June 23, 2015

Liberal Democrats Don't Like the Military or Support American National Security

An incident early in Bill Clinton’s presidency was an indicator of liberal Democrats’ hostility toward the military. In early April 1993, General Barry McCaffrey – then an aide to General Colin Powell – visited the White Ho...

June 17, 2015

Americans 'Moving Left' on Social Issues. Really?

The mainstream media (MSM) are hailing the release of recent polls purporting to show “progressive” perspectives on several social issues -- i.e., same-sex marriage, homosexuality, legalization of marijuana, even abortion -- either equali...

June 8, 2015

Curtailing Voting Rights vs. Curtailing Vote Fraud

Perhaps to distract attention from her own scandals, Hillary Rodham Clinton charges that Republicans want to curtail young people’s and minorities’ voting rights.  The charge that Republicans engage in vote suppression has been in De...

May 6, 2014

Can We Please Hold Blacks to the Same Standard as Donald Sterling?

The NBA has banned Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling for life, and fined him $2.5 million for allegedly making racist statements.  (Sterling’s antipathy for “people of color” has long been known, but his latest diatrib...

April 29, 2014

A President of 'All the People'?

Throughout American history, presidents have been expected to represent all the people. If you doubt this, read accounts of newly elected presidents’ almost-inevitable promise to be the chief magistrate of all Americans. The thrust of Barack...

April 24, 2014

The Radical Left Rewrites the History of Civil Rights

The general thrust of left-wing pundit Richard Cohen’s syndicated column of April 17, 2014 is an attack on Rand Paul’s (and other prospective GOP presidential candidates’) lack of experience.  Given Barack Obama’s thin r...

April 16, 2014

Vote Fraud is a Venerable Tradition

Barack Obama accuses Republicans of threatening the right to vote.  Standing alongside Al Sharpton -- the FBI snitch who aided Tawana Brawley’s hoax and probably sparked an anti-Semitic riot, Obama spoke before Sharpton’s National Ac...

April 13, 2014

Is It Time to Get Money Out of Politics?

Twice in recent years, the Supreme Court of the United States issued rulings that some assert reinforce the First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech, while others allege they have increased the importance of money in American politics.  ...

April 10, 2014

Obama and American Weakness Abroad

Why are less than half of Americans upset by increasing evidence that the United States is becoming a paper tiger?  Recently, the U.S. government has not prevented bad things from happening in its international relations.  Obama’s bud...

March 26, 2014

A Rudderless Superpower

The Obama Administration’s seeming indifference to the threats confronting the U.S. is very worrisome.  Russian irredentism, Red China’s growing military assertiveness, Iran’s unstoppable quest for nuclear weapons, North Korea...

March 2, 2014

What Gutting the U.S. Military Means

When I was growing up in a Midwestern farming village, several World War I, World War II, and Korean War vets lived there.  As a teenager, I worked for some of those men.  I was struck by their opinions about military strength.  They u...

February 28, 2014

Another Step toward Totalitarianism?

Among its other virtues, the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees freedom of the press.  A series of Supreme Court decisions, probably beginning with Near v. Minnesota 283 U.S. 697 (1931), which was the precedent for the famous ...

February 19, 2014

Eric Holder on Felons' Voting Rights

Attorney General Eric Holder wants states to grant the franchise to convicted felons once they've served their time in prison. Holder asserted on February 10th that "[i]t is time to fundamentally reconsider laws that permanently disenfranchise people...

February 17, 2014

Left-wing Totalitarianism in America

New York's Democrat governor Andrew Cuomo recently told listeners of WCNY radio that "extreme conservatives" who are "pro-life, pro-assault weapons, anti-gay" have "no place" in New York State because "that's not who New Yorkers are." Cuomo later tr...

February 7, 2014

The Term Limits Question

Representative Henry Waxman (D, CA) has announced that he will not seek re-election to the House of Representatives this fall. Waxman represents California's 33rd Congressional District, which includes the western parts of Los Angeles. He was first e...

February 1, 2014

Obama and Executive Orders

Barack Obama announced in his 2014 State of the Union Address that he intends to bypass Congress "whenever and wherever" to achieve his extreme left-wing goals. Evidently, Obama intends to govern by executive orders (EO's). EO's are usually defined a...

January 23, 2014

'BridgeGate' in Perspective

The mainstream media (MSM) have been in a feeding frenzy over Chris Christie and "Bridgegate." The three television networks, for example, devoted 17 times the number of stories about "Bridgegate" in one day that they gave to the Obama Administration...

January 17, 2014

Have Americans Become More Liberal or More Conservative?

Two recent essays arrive at seemingly opposite assessments of trends in Americans' ideology. First, Larry Bartels wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post (9/30/13) asserting that Americans are more conservative than at any time since 1952. Second, a Ga...

January 14, 2014

Handicapping the 2014 Election

The Gallup Organization's recent report (1/8/13) indicated that 42% of the American public identified themselves as Independents, 31% said they were Democrats, and 25% claimed to be Republicans. The report was based on 13 multiple-day polls conducted...

January 4, 2014

Looking Forward to November

A question we're likely to hear often in the coming weeks and months is, "[h]ow will the Republicans do in the 2014 elections?" It's always risky to prognosticate about an election still eleven months away, but this essay explores the factors shapin...

January 2, 2014

Federal Government Less Popular than Ever

There's a seeming inconsistency in contemporary American politics: at the same time the central government's size and power have reached unprecedented heights, a smaller percentage of the public view the government in Washington favorably than at any...

December 30, 2013

The Evolution of Class Warfare in America

Some people believe that when Marx and Engels began The Communist Manifesto (1848) with "[t]he history of all hitherto existing societies is the history of class struggles," they were the first to call attention to the importance of class conflict in...

December 12, 2013

The Decline and Fall of American Deterrence

A few days ago, America experienced the 72nd anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.  At the end of September, the world observed the 75th anniversary of the Munich Agreement, whereby Britain and France surrendered Czechoslovakia's S...

December 9, 2013

Obama Is Tearing America Apart

On November 25th, New York Post columinist Michael Goodwin, an Obama backer turned critic, published "Obama's Failed Promise to Heal a Polarized Nation." Goodwin wrote that, "Obama's promise to heal a polarized nation has proven to be ...

December 3, 2013

Is Opposition to Obama Racist?

The latest public opinion polls show that, not only is approval of Barack Obama's job performance declining, larger percentages of the public doubt his honesty. As Thomas Lifson notes, "it is clear that Obama is underwater, and that a public reassess...

November 25, 2013

America Is One Step Closer to a One-Party Tyranny

November 21, 2013, may be another date that will live in infamy.  Instead of conventional bombs and aerial torpedoes exploding at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, the "nuclear option" went off in the U.S. Senate at Washington, D.C. By a 52-48 vote, ...

November 24, 2013

Why Obama Should Be Impeached, but Won't

Barack Obama should be impeached and convicted.  Alas, he probably won't be.  Other than electoral defeat, the U.S. has two peaceful procedures for removing a head of government.  Some state constitutions provide for recall election ...

November 15, 2013

America after Obama

What will the United States of America be like after Barack Obama leaves the presidency on January 20, 2017 (assuming he does leave)?  Five days before the 2008 election, Obama declared he would "fundamentally transform" America.  Obama ha...

November 8, 2013

JFK's Legacy

Yesterday, while browsing through my favorite bookstore, I came across at least ten just-published books dealing with some facet of John F. Kennedy's life, career, and death. Add last year's best-selling Killing Kennedy by Bill O'Reilly and Martin Du...

October 13, 2013

Americans' Beliefs about the United States

A recent (9/29-30/13) poll by Rasmussen Reports has some interesting (and some disturbing) data on people's beliefs about the U.S. and especially American citizenship. One datum from this poll suggests that some people appear to have soured on Barack...

October 6, 2013

Obama and the Counterrevolution

Just before the 2008 presidential election, Barack Obama said, "We're five days away from the fundamental transformation of the United States." Immediately after he became president, Obama began fulfilling that prediction. Five-and-one-half years lat...

October 5, 2013

Country Club Republicans Must Go

Country club Republicans seem to be clueless about Democrats. Although country-club Republicans are reluctant to criticize Democrats of any stripe, they don't mind attacking other Republicans, like Ted Cruz. Some Republicans provided Chris Wallace wi...

October 3, 2013

Why This Shutdown Is Different

In covering the effects of the partial government shutdown, the mainstream media are behaving as expected. Those who watched events leading up to the government closure understand that a major responsibility for the 17th government shutdown in Americ...

September 23, 2013

The Bigotry of the Chattering Classes

When Barack Obama was campaigning for the Democrat Party's presidential nomination in 2008, he spoke to a group of wealthy donors in San Francisco and uttered the "bitter clinger" comment to describe many small-town residents in Pennsylvania. Accordi...

August 30, 2013

What 'It's the Law-of-the-Land' Means

I've heard proponents of the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, a.k.a. ObamaCare, such as Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius, declare, "It's the law-of-the-land." What that's supposed to mean is that once the Supre...

August 26, 2013

Obama's Increasingly Tyrannical Proclivities

In The Federalist #47, James Madison penned the following:  "The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self[-]appointed, or elective, may jus...

August 21, 2013

Time to say good-bye to the Star-Spangled Banner?

Has the time come to replace Francis Scott Key's "Star-Spangled Banner" as America's national anthem?  Certainly the phrase "land of the free" no longer applies to this country.  I'm beginning to wonder if "home of the brave" is also anachr...

August 19, 2013

Time for a New American Revolution?

The United States of America was born in revolution. The Declaration of Independence asserted that people have a right of revolution. According to The Declaration, "whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends [such as "life," "l...

August 13, 2013

Electoral Discrepancies

There is a frustrating disconnect between different facets of American public opinion and voting behavior: the inconsistency between public opinion about a wide range of topics and Americans' identification with the two major political parties and es...

August 5, 2013

What Closing American Diplomatic Facilities Means

The U.S. closed its embassies and consulates in 21 Muslim countries on Saturday and Sunday, August 3rd and 4th.  There are four lessons in this decision. First, it says something about the countries in which these facilities are located. ...

July 25, 2013

The Campaign to 'Get' Mitch Daniels

It didn't take long. The academic Left and their mouthpieces in the mainstream media (MSM) are demanding that Mitch Daniels be ousted as the president of Purdue University. Daniels' "crime?" During his second term as the Republican governor of Indian...

July 19, 2013

Can America's 'Race Problem' Be Solved?

Wasn't Barack Obama's election as president supposed to herald the emergence of a "post-racial" America? Two recent incidents strongly suggest the answer is "no." First, Paula Deen's life and career were devastated after she admitted that, decades a...

July 15, 2013

Will Janet Napolitano Be a Good University President?

Janet Napolitano has announced she will resign as Secretary of Homeland Security to become president of the University of California system. Napolitano, who has been Secretary of Homeland Security since 2009, will leave the position in late August or...

July 10, 2013

The Criminal Profiling of Conservative White Males

What does it say that Leftists seem to react to virtually every highly visible criminal act with the hope that the "perp" is a white guy or, even better, a conservative white guy?  Take four recent examples:  First, immediately after the ...

July 8, 2013

Must the Beat Go On?

Get used to it. We're going to see more of this, unless.... Twice recently different branches of the federal government handed Americans who believe in border security and traditional values stinging defeats. First, the Senate passed legislation that...

July 6, 2013

When 'Racism' Loses Its Meaning

Mention George Orwell's name, and most people think of Animal Farm (1945) or 1984 (1949). Fewer will recall his 1946 essay, "Politics and the English Language." That's a shame, because that essay is an insightful analysis of how words' meaning can b...

July 1, 2013

Rein in the Imperial Judiciary

By a five-to-four decision, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) has invalidated the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). By the same margin -- albeit with a different lineup -- the Court remanded the decision on California's Proposition 8...

June 28, 2013

It Isn't Over Yet

A frustrating reaction to some postings on the American Thinker is the "it's all over, the Republic is gone, we've lost, etc." lament. Unless effectively countered, it could lead some to surrender prematurely to the forces of darkness currently affli...

June 21, 2013

Obama's Standing with the Public

What does the latest CNN poll, showing that Barack Obama's approval rating fell eight percentage points in a month and that less than half the public believe he is honest and trustworthy, mean?  Less, for now, than some conservatives wish....

June 13, 2013

What 'In Your Face' Appointments Mean

The White House announced a while back that Barack Obama was "going on a charm offensive." He treated a few Republican legislators to food and played golf -- what else? -- with others. The aim, ostensibly, was to improve the atmosphere in Washington...

June 10, 2013

Reining in Fascism

If fascism exists in America -- and the IRS targeting the Obama Administration's political and religious foes, Department of Justice spying on AP reporters, labeling a Fox News journalist a felon, and the NSA collecting millions of Americans' phone r...

June 4, 2013

Fascism In America

When fascism comes to America, what will it look (and feel) like? Very much like what we have now, because a version of fascism is already here. I am not the first to worry about the prospect of fascism in America. In 1935, for example, Sinclair Le...

May 5, 2013

No More 'Mr. Nice Guy'

In The Art of War, the ancient Chinese philosopher, Sun Tzu, wrote "If you know the enemy and know yourself you need not fear the results of a hundred battles." I wish Republicans would learn this valuable lesson when it comes to Barack Obama. How m...

April 27, 2013

Why Don't They Do Something?

There appears to be a disconnect between widespread public discontent -- e.g., distrust of the federal government, hostility toward Congress, belief that the country is headed in the wrong direction -- and paucity of overt attempts to rectify the sta...

April 15, 2013

Do Left-Wing Professors Really 'Proselytize' on Campus?

Thursday, April 11, we learned -- thanks to an intrepid student who recorded the rant -- that University of Southern California's "Adjunct Assistant Professor" Darry A. Sragow doesn't like Republicans.  He asserted that Republicans are old, angr...

April 5, 2013

Alinsky and McCarthy: Brothers under the Skin

Leftists' hypocrisy has no limits. To take just one example, consider leftists' hostility toward the late Wisconsin senator, Joseph McCarthy, often uttered at the same time the left employs the late Saul Alinsky's tactics. Read Alinsky's Rules for Ra...

March 22, 2013

Repeal the Current Tax Payment Act of 1943

With a national debt of $16.7 trillion and growing, America's spending problem isn't likely to go away in the near future. (The sequester only slightly reduces the annual rate of increase in the federal government's spending.) Given the Obama Adminis...

March 14, 2013

Ignorant, but not Stupid

Ordinary people may not know much about public affairs, but it is wrong to assert, as one Political Science professor from a Big Ten university allegedly said shortly after the 2010 elections, voters are "pretty damn stupid." Ignorance means a lack ...

March 10, 2013

The American Ignoramus

If democracy requires an informed citizenry to function well, the United States is in serious trouble. Many Americans are political ignoramuses. It doesn't take much effort to describe the typical citizen's political ignorance. The Pew Research Cent...

February 26, 2013

Barack Obama: The Paper Tiger

Republicans are making a big mistake. They are afraid to stand up against Barack Obama, apparently because they believe he can sway millions of Americans to do his bidding.  GOP legislators apparently think their relatively poor standing in publ...