liberalism

The ferocious incivility Americans have witnessed for decades has arisen largely from the left—and for good reason

Few American liberals strike the same balance.

Robert Zubrin reviews Timothy Snyder's 'The Road to Unfreedom'

Hosted by Charlie Sykes.

Colleges foster smugness on the left and resentment on the right.

The Scrapbook is old enough to remember when socialism was popular the first time. It went out of fashion when even liberal intellectuals noticed that it produced only misery wherever it was tried, but now it’s popular again. An avowed socialist captured the hearts of young voters in 2016 (and…

Since the birth of the modern age, conservatives of various stripes have lamented—often with good reason—the cultural decline of post-Enlightenment society. Such critiques have emphasized different defects: the shrinking of human beings to mere seekers of comfort; the loss of reverence for…

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In The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism (1976) Daniel Bell argued that modern capitalism abetted two conflicting tendencies: It encouraged hedonistic self-gratification in the cultural sphere while needing sober hard-working adults in the economic sphere. A defect in the thesis is that there…

The Capital Bikeshare killer is here. Bike sharing programs are increasingly popular in big cities, and Washington was an early adopter with its Capital Bikeshare program. (The keys even look like little communist flags!) The program got started with millions in subsidies from the government, and…

The Scrapbook visited Los Angeles for the first time around 20 years ago, and it was a delightful experience in most every way. One oddity stood out, though: the sheer number of homeless people. We don’t mention this to denigrate the needy, but the experience of being approached on nearly every…

Middlebury College wants to prevent future violence of the sort visited on professor Allison Stanger by thugs trying to keep author Charles Murray from delivering a lecture. The ever-so-brave administrators’ solution? Don’t let anyone talk who might be the target of violence.

On August 30, New America president Anne-Marie Slaughter terminated the left-leaning think tank’s relationship with scholar Barry C. Lynn and his Open Markets program. Slaughter says that Lynn was not abiding by New America’s “standards of openness and institutional collegiality.” He says he was…

On August 30, New America president Anne-Marie Slaughter terminated the left-leaning think tank’s relationship with scholar Barry C. Lynn and his Open Markets program. Slaughter says that Lynn was not abiding by New America’s “standards of openness and institutional collegiality.” He says he was…

For many years General Franco’s regime used the slogan “Spain is different” to attract tourism. Spain had sun and great beaches, unlike, say, Germany and Belgium, but the country was also a dictatorship and lagged economically and socially. We were indeed different from the rest of Europe. Today,…

For many years General Franco’s regime used the slogan “Spain is different” to attract tourism. Spain had sun and great beaches, unlike, say, Germany and Belgium, but the country was also a dictatorship and lagged economically and socially. We were indeed different from the rest of Europe. Today,…

Strange news from Wisconsin. A student at James Madison Memorial High School in Madison has petitioned to have the name of her school changed, arguing, “The significance of this name in association with my school has a negative effect on memorials [sic] black students. The lack of representation I…

At Evergreen State College, the revolution will be televised. And it already has been, thanks to the smartphone.

In recent decades, Portland, Oregon, has acquired a reputation as one of America's most tolerant and liberal cities. In practice, this means there are taxpayer-funded sex changes for municipal employees and lots of bike lanes, but comparatively little tolerant liberalism. The city government has…

Give National Public Radio some credit: In an All Things Considered feature, reporter Martin Kaste actually interviewed some anti-leftist protesters and did not present them as crazy people. Also to NPR's credit, the story, "Trump Supporters Accuse Liberal Communities of Hostility Toward Free…

Strange news from Wisconsin. A student at James Madison Memorial High School in Madison has petitioned to have the name of her school changed, arguing, “The significance of this name in association with my school has a negative effect on memorials [sic] black students. The lack of representation I…

At Evergreen State College, the revolution will be televised. And it already has been, thanks to the smartphone.

In recent decades, Portland, Oregon, has acquired a reputation as one of America's most tolerant and liberal cities. In practice, this means there are taxpayer-funded sex changes for municipal employees and lots of bike lanes, but comparatively little tolerant liberalism. The city government has…

Last week the government of Lebanon announced that it was banning Wonder Woman, the latest cinematic treatment of a comic-book superhero, a film that's likely to be one of the summer's big blockbusters. Is it because the Amazonian princess's costume is a little too revealing for a Muslim-majority…

It's the quintessential Churchillian remark—particularly in the sense that there's no evidence that Winston Churchill ever actually said it: "You can always count on Americans to do the right thing, after they've exhausted all other options." But perhaps the adage should be updated to this: You…

Arlington, Va.

Political scientist and law professor Carol Swain retired from academia just when some of her research had become remarkably relevant. She doesn't see it quite that way, though. Swain prophesied the rise of the alt-right 15 years ago, but she won't call Donald Trump's election victory a vindication…

Political scientist and law professor Carol Swain retired from academia just when some of her research had become remarkably relevant. She doesn't see it quite that way, though. Swain prophesied the rise of the alt-right 15 years ago, but she won't call Donald Trump's election victory a vindication…

In the heart of Wall Street, a new statue is causing quite a kerfuffle. Sponsored by State Street Global Advisors, one of the world’s largest asset-management firms, the "Fearless Girl" was installed earlier this year to stand in front of the famous "Charging Bull" in Bowling Green Park, just a…

In the heart of Wall Street, a new statue is causing quite a kerfuffle. Sponsored by State Street Global Advisors, one of the world's largest asset-management firms, the "Fearless Girl" was installed earlier this year to stand in front of the famous "Charging Bull" in Bowling Green Park, just a…

Today in the Daily Standard podcast, editor-at-large Bill Kristol says Berkeley's free-speech failures are giving liberalism a bad name, while Donald Trump's foreign policy is putting many traditional Republicans in a good mood. Kristol also recounts his Coulter-esque ​​experience of getting "pied"…

Rick Perlstein is a respected historian, and not without reason. Though he is an outspoken man of the left, his first book, Before The Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus, earned praise from the right for being a well-researched and relatively nuanced account of a…

Picture in your mind, for a moment, the Monopoly man. You know, the guy in the Parker Brothers board game who has a top hat and white handlebar mustache. He makes his money in real estate and railroads. Think how he probably invested that money.

Higher education had a very good year. That's the news from the Chronicle of Philanthropy, which reports that "during an election year soaked in populism, some of America's biggest philanthropists bestowed an unusually large chunk of their charity on colleges and universities, including several…

Higher education had a very good year. That’s the news from the Chronicle of Philanthropy, which reports that "during an election year soaked in populism, some of America's biggest philanthropists bestowed an unusually large chunk of their charity on colleges and universities, including several…

It all seems a bit like an ugly fairy tale now—an allegory, set in the heady and hectic late 1960s and early '70s, of good versus evil, order versus chaos, revolution by dynamite sticks and law enforcement by black-bag jobs. This was, in retrospect, a match made in heaven: The Weather Underground…

It all seems a bit like an ugly fairy tale now—an allegory, set in the heady and hectic late 1960s and early '70s, of good versus evil, order versus chaos, revolution by dynamite sticks and law enforcement by black-bag jobs. This was, in retrospect, a match made in heaven: The Weather Underground…

They are keening in the Bay Area. "Oh, America, what have we done?" wrote a San Bruno reader to the San Francisco Chronicle the week after November's election. "Many of us feel for President Obama, especially as we watch him gracefully support Donald Trump's transition, knowing Trump's priorities…

They are keening in the Bay Area. “Oh, America, what have we done?" wrote a San Bruno reader to the San Francisco Chronicle the week after November's election. "Many of us feel for President Obama, especially as we watch him gracefully support Donald Trump's transition, knowing Trump's priorities…

“.  .  . vast bureaucracies of civil servants, no longer servants and no longer civil." (Winston Churchill)

“.  .  . vast bureaucracies of civil servants, no longer servants and no longer civil." (Winston Churchill)

In a joint statement, Brookings Institution scholar William Galston and WEEKLY STANDARD editor Bill Kristol offer a defense of the "basic institutions and principles of liberal democracy" which they argue are under assault. Read the full statement below:

Over the weekend Ross Douthat had an interesting column about the"crisis of liberalism." "The 2016 campaign was a crisis for conservatism," he writes, "its aftermath is a crisis for liberalism."

As Election Day approached, there was renewed interest in former President George H. W. Bush's magnanimous handwritten 1993 note to his successor, incoming President Bill Clinton. In it, Bush offered Clinton encouragement and wished him great happiness in office, then closed patriotically, "You…

As Election Day approached, there was renewed interest in former President George H. W. Bush’s magnanimous handwritten 1993 note to his successor, incoming President Bill Clinton. In it, Bush offered Clinton encouragement and wished him great happiness in office, then closed patriotically, "You…

One of the weirder aspects of anti-Trump mania is its sniffy tone. And it's especially weird coming from card-carrying liberal Democrats. For two generations our culture and its institutions have been living under a liberal ascendency. The country's elites—the Bigs of the news media and Hollywood…

Matthew Continetti writes at the Washington Free Beacon on what President Obama's final address to the United Nations General Assembly tells us about the failure of Obama's worldview:

One of many unfortunate effects of watching these two appalling candidates every day is that their awfulness can obscure the fact that our current president has done so much damage in his two terms in office. Digging out of that hole would be tough enough; digging out of a 12-year Obama-Clinton or…

What exactly is the ideology that dominates American campuses today, and is increasingly influential off campus? This ideology is clearly intolerant of dissent, but what it actually affirms is so unclear that administrators, faculty, students, and outside speakers are often taken by surprise when…

Press releases from the federal government aren't the most exciting documents around, as a general rule, and those from the National Archives are even less promising than most. But they're getting more interesting all the time, as the Archives continues its exciting transformation from a dusty…

With President Obama's plans for improving the lives of each one of us stalled by a recalcitrant, mean-spirited Republican congress, liberals and progressives are concentrating on using the tools available on the local level to enrich our lives. None more determined than Mayor Bill de Blasio, who…

A strange period has now passed into history. Captivated by a presidential campaign in 2008, Americans by the millions came to believe that a new leader would be able to produce more than a transformed society and an era of world peace. Politics could be extended beyond its ordinary boundaries and…

Seattle

Speaking Tuesday at the 45th Annual Washington Conference of the Council of the Americas, Secretary of State John Kerry said that "countries are far more likely to advance economically and socially when citizens have faith in their governments and are able to rely on them for justice and equal…

"I can’t have you participate in class anymore.”

If Chris Hughes knew anything about journalism, he’d throw a big party in New York and another in Washington and the media wags now heaping abuse on him would be hailing him as the last of the Medicis. But the 31-year-old owner and editor in chief of the New Republic doesn’t know a damn thing about…

Matthew Continetti writes about the hoax of liberalism at the Washington Free Beacon:

Paris

Seems like this is the season for showing the American automobile some love. Also, the town that the automobile built—Detroit, aka the Motor City, where packs of feral dogs now roam the streets and den up in vacant lots between the abandoned buildings. Detroit, these days, seems far more deserving…

The WEEKLY STANDARD podcast, with editor William Kristol with a look back at 2013 and how President Obama's liberalism fared this year.

Obamacare may or may not survive its inauspicious beginnings. It has become dangerously unpopular and accident-prone and faces a minefield of difficulties. Still, the Obama administration has a plausible strategy: to titrate the program’s numerous taxes, subsidies, mandates, and restrictions so as…

On the one hand, this is a pretty dour Thanksgiving. Iran has just won an enormous diplomatic victory, which not only sets them on the road to nuclear weapons but makes the fecklessness of the Western powers clear to the world. Harry Reid's decision to destroy the filibuster signals an escalation…

The president’s signature legislative achievement, the Affordable Care Act, is in serious trouble. As a result, so is modern liberalism. The problems with Obamacare are increasingly obvious, beginning with the administration unilaterally delaying the employer mandate. But that turned out to be…

Hardly an academic semester goes by without a high-profile opportunity arising for the right to address pervasive, perennial anti-conservative animus on the American college campus. And hardly an academic semester goes by without the right, reflexively blinded by righteous indignation, blowing an…

Study of the humanities has never been more important to the welfare of the nation. Information whizzes by at breakneck speed. The contest between conservative and progressive visions of government’s scope and aim in a free society implicates rival understandings of human nature. The ways of life…

It's a well-known fact that on most college campuses, supposedly havens of academic freedom, you really have to watch what you say.

To many in our cultural elite, Woody Guthrie is an American saint. The legendary songwriter from Okfuskee County, Oklahoma, is introduced to every American child by way of his folk anthem “This Land Is Your Land.” But for gatekeepers of the arts, Guthrie is much more: All of his work—every song,…

Neil Gross is a sociologist at the University of British Columbia who previously held posts at the University of Southern California and Harvard, has a doctorate from the University of Wisconsin, and received undergraduate training at Berkeley. He edits Sociological Theory and has written a book on…

The mini-storm over Mitt Romney, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and Big Bird pitted two visions of the show’s finances against one another. Mitt Romney claimed he’d cut funding so that Sesame Street would have to air commercials. Big Bird defenders imagined a world in which a lack of…

In a new television ad, the Obama campaign mocks Mitt Romney’s promise to end the federal subsidy to PBS:

Does liberalism embody the military virtues? Is martial virtue the highest stage of progressivism?

Life is, undoubtedly, bittersweet. But not America. According to President Obama, America is bittersoft.

I don't think I could possibly overstate how excited liberal 'netroots' are about this clip of Harvard Professor and Massachusetts Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren that's making the rounds. I know Warren has a long history of being fawned over by liberals, but read the comments section at any one…

Barack Obama’s budget address last week ranks among the most dishonest and dishonorable presidential speeches in generations. It contained an avalanche of false and misleading statements. It was shallow and bitterly partisan. Yet the speech served a useful purpose: It provided the American people…