Donald Trump

Special Report
On the Elites and Counter-Elites: The Elites and California Disease
Because of the outsize influence of the Golden State on American culture and the outsize influence of the presidency—especially the presidency of conservative Californian Ronald Reagan—on national politics, many think…
by Michael Watson on June 19, 2024

Special Report
On the Elites and Counter-Elites: Whither the Counter-Elite?
Whichever elite class resists the temptation of California Disease is going to have a big advantage in claiming the future.
by Michael Watson on June 19, 2024

Book Profile
More Overstatement Of “The Powell Memo’s” Role
Mehrsa Baradaran’s new The Quiet Coup: Neoliberalism and the Looting of America joins many other histories in citing “the Powell memo” as an important part of their narratives. In the case of The Quiet Coup,…
by Michael E. Hartmann on June 4, 2024

Organization Trends
Did CAIR Violate Its Tax-Exempt Status by Endorsing an Anti-Trump Protest?
The Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) appears to have violated its tax-exempt status as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization by sponsoring a “Protest Donald Trump” rally at…
by Ryan Mauro on May 17, 2024

Philanthropy
Big Philanthropy to the Rescue? Think Again.
As the media and elites across America take up a fight to “save democracy,” Big Philanthropy is casting itself in the role of superhero. Since 2011, the University of Pennsylvania’s…
by Jeffrey Cain on April 19, 2024

Organization Trends
The Institutional Revolution at National Public Radio
Last week, longtime National Public Radio editor Uri Berliner wrote an op-ed on his recent experiences at NPR, tracing its ideological transformation from left-leaning to vanguardist woke-progressive. While Berliner pointed…
by Michael Watson on April 18, 2024

Book Profile
Philanthropy in (as Self-Defined, a “Transformative”) Solidarity
The most-insightful critiques of progressive technocratic centralism come from those to its further left. In 2003, for example, Harvard sociologist and political scientist Theda Skocpol pointedly argued in her Diminished…
by Michael E. Hartmann on April 15, 2024

Deception & Misdirection
Newsguard’s Non-Nutritious News Ratings and CAP’s Russiagate Fables
Newsguard Technologies is in the business of rating the news, particularly assigning “nutrition label” that supposedly rates the reliability of online news and information websites. But Newsguard nutrition labels are…
by Ken Braun on March 27, 2024

Special Report
On the Question of Right Fights: Factions on the Right
The conservative intellectual movement has been blown apart by a combination of factors, including the political, economic, and foreign policy failures of the second term of President George W. Bush…
by Michael Watson on February 20, 2024

Special Report
On the Question of Right Fights: Dueling Manifestos
In 2022, a working group commissioned by the Edmund Burke Foundation, the organization behind the periodic National Conservatism Conferences, published “National Conservatism: A Statement of Principles.” The statement amounts to…
by Michael Watson on February 20, 2024