Jonathan V. Last ( What to Expect When No One’s Expecting: America’s Coming Demographic Disaster ) has a modest proposal for fixing social security: “Since the 1980s, policy wonks have been telling us that our social welfare programs are about to implode. The system is not . . . . Continue Reading »
I’ve had my differences of emphasis with Ross Douthat on the subject of Republican donors, but he nailed it today when he wrote: a party that seems out of touch and out of date on basic pocketbook issues probably isn’t going to rebuild its support just by converging with the Democrats on . . . . Continue Reading »
I think my main problem with this Arthur Brooks article is that it gets the emphasis backwards. The main Republican problem isn’t that they seem uncaring. More skilled campaigning would be nice, but better emoting about the plight of the poor with the same message of tax cuts for . . . . Continue Reading »
Kate is right that the Arthur Brooks article is interesting, but I would come at it from a different direction. I think that the economic challenge conservatives (to the extent they were embodied in the 2008 Republican field) face is not that they seem to be uninterested in the poor. It is that . . . . Continue Reading »
“Conservatives are fighting a losing battle of moral arithmetic,” writes Arthur Brooks of the American Enterprise Institute. “They hand an argument with virtually 100% public support—care for the vulnerable—to progressives, and focus instead on materialistic concerns . . . . Continue Reading »
Arthur Brooks argues that conservatives have Faulty Moral Arithmetic . He is complaining about Republicans and conservatives, though perhaps more about the perception about Republicans and conservatives than about their essence. There have been many reports and studies over the years about the . . . . Continue Reading »
Today, on Fox News Sunday , Mitt Romney complained about the “long and blistering” primary that created an “unfavorable impression” of him. This outbreak of narcissism and self-pity has a chance to distort our perception of what actually happened during the Republican . . . . Continue Reading »
Maybe the most underreported political story is that President Obama just is not that popular. He has a 50.3% percent job approval rating in the Real Clear Politics average of polls. Obama only barely gets the approval of the median American. It isn’t like the Republicans have to work against . . . . Continue Reading »
It is too bad that this Phillip Klein article hasn’t gotten a lot more play. Klein points out that out that there isn’t even one panel on health care policy at the Conservative Political Action Conference. I remember seeing a speech by Chris DeMuth in the late-1990s where he said that . . . . Continue Reading »
I came away from a debate on gay marriage between Douglas Wilson and Andrew Sullivan deeply impressed with the difficulties that Christians have, and will continue to have, defending a biblical view of marriage to the American public. It will take nothing short of a cultural revolution for biblical . . . . Continue Reading »
Subscribe
Latest Issue
Support First Things
