The killing of 18-year-old Michael Brown by a police officer in Ferguson, Mo., has produced a rare and surprisingly unified response across the ideological spectrum, with Republicans and Democrats joining to decry the tactics of the city’s police force in the face of escalating protests. Most notably, the reactions reflect […] Read more »
How Libertarians Snookered The New York Times Magazine
The premise underpinning Robert Draper’s New York Times Magazine cover story on the “Libertarian Moment” is that libertarians offer the cure for the Republican Party’s political difficulties. The story has lots of problems — a failure to account for recent history, in which the GOP already moved toward libertarianism after […] Read more »
No, America Is Not Turning Libertarian
Barack Obama’s first term provoked the Republican Party’s most libertarian moment since the Goldwater campaign, or perhaps even the advent of the New Deal. … The force of this moment has already receded, as most Republicans have subsequently recognized that their dalliance with Randian themes saddled them with a massive […] Read more »
Has the ‘Libertarian Moment’ Finally Arrived?
… Libertarians, who long have relished their role as acerbic sideline critics of American political theater, now find themselves and their movement thrust into the middle of it. For decades their ideas have had serious backing financially (most prominently by the Koch brothers, one of whom, David H., ran as […] Read more »
The five clans of the GOP
… Republicans have now become a party of true believers, and true believers do not tolerate heresy. Representative Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), the party’s former vice presidential nominee, told Iowa Republicans last week, “This is the Lenten season. Here’s what I say: we give up infighting, tunnel vision, acrimony. We need […] Read more »
Don’t Call Rand Paul The Frontrunner
Among many in the chattering class, Sen. Rand Paul is the GOP frontrunner for president. He’s young. He’s interesting. He’s different. In other words, he’s everything that the last GOP nominee for president wasn’t. That said, the real test of a frontrunner is the ability to stand the test of […] Read more »