More from Goldberg

My only point is that no one benefits from a political, never mind, a policy debate, between Team Jackass and Team Thug fueled by a flood of voyeuristic videos. This spectacle feels to me like a metaphor in miniature of American politics generally. … Everyone plays to the crowds for attention and funding. Nobody wants to hammer shut the windows and do the work of the American people.

Right. Our politics are so juvenile. (Hence, the now almost mandatory dropping of f-bombs.)

Where did all the grown-ups go?

This has got to be one of the most cruelly ironic headlines I’ve ever seen:

Ein Volk, etc.

Jonah Goldberg:

Remember how after 9/11 Katha Pollitt told her 13-year-old daughter she couldn’t fly the American flag, because “the flag stands for jingoism and vengeance and war”? Pollitt was wrong. But this administration is making her seem less so.

By hijacking the language of patriotism for this nationalistic, statist, militaristic horseshit, the right is picking up the baton of the left by signaling to millions of Americans that America’s heritage—and the people who talk about it—are precisely the kinds of people who see the American flag the same way she did.

Go Right Ahead, Mr. Chairman

Tom Friedman in the NYTimes makes an excellent point: Trump’s toppling of Maduro provides Xi another precedent for invading Taiwan.

Taboos

Jonah Goldberg:

We live in a world where violating taboos is monetizable and confers enviable status. I like taboos— not all of them, of course. But I respect the role of taboos in society. Good taboos are the guardians of settled questions. They sit like gargoyles at the mouth of dangerous caves and warn against spelunking in dark and dangerous places. …

The riot of taboo-violating and dogma-disinterring is an invitation to consequences few have the courage or the basic knowledge to apprehend.

If … you conjure a world where there is no external truth, only a riot of competing, equally valid perspectives, then you create a Nietzschean world where the only arbiter of “truth” is the one with the will and the power to impose their truth on everyone else.

Strange (or Maybe Not So Much)

Whatever you may think of Kevin Williamson (and I know many some of those I follow on MB loathe sometimes have issues with him), this is sizzling:

It is strange how excessive admiration for the will to power brings out the servility in so many men.

No Kings Protest, Alamosa, Colorado (pop. 9,888), 14 June 2025

Today is the Anniversary of D-Day

I doubt that soldiers on Omaha beach could ever have imagined they were dying for this 81 years in the future.

New York Times

May 30, 2025:

#1: As Elon Musk entered President Trump’s orbit, he told people he was taking so much ketamine that it was affecting his bladder. He was also taking Ecstasy and psychedelic mushrooms, and he traveled with a daily medication box of about 20 pills.

#2: Trump is now presenting Musk with a giant golden key he says he gives only to “very special people.”

#3: White House Health Report Included Fake Citations - A report on children’s health released by the Make America Healthy Again Commission referred to scientific papers that did not exist.

I’m special. Where can I get one of those keys? Maybe Buc-ees?

American Ideals

Danielle Allen contra Curtis Yarvin:

He gets his first principles wrong, so we have to return to ours. Most important, human equality precedes human differences. We can identify differences among us only because we are all human, and in that regard equal. As humans we share a capacity for moral judgment and an innate striving to choose actions that make tomorrow better. This is how our drive and capacity for freedom show themselves.

The proposition that all humans are created equal has never meant that we are all the same. Our equality lies in these features of humanity that make us moral beings. Nor does human difference yield fixed and permanent groupings or determine where and how human talent in its immense variety will show itself. The government that will best help humans flourish will start by protecting human freedom. This requires maximal space for self-government, and also government of the whole people that is by and for the people. Not in the interest of those who govern, but in the interest of the governed.

* * *

If our constitutional democracy is weak today—failing to help us meet our governing challenges—that may be because we have lapsed in civic participation. We have ceased to claim our own equality through our institutions, which offer it. We have allowed political parties to capture our institutions, and to govern for their own sake rather than the public good. We need to renovate our democratic institutions, starting with party reform.

But our more basic work may need to be on ourselves. Here Mr. Yarvin’s words are a warning: “Americans of the present are nihilistic and narcissistic,” he writes. “They are frivolous about the present and ignorant of the past. While these qualities may not make the Americans of today suitable for an 18th-century democracy, they may be just the right qualities for a 21st-century regime change.”

We don’t need his regime change. We need democracy renovation and renewed seriousness about our lives as citizens. This means reconnecting to our civic power, experience and responsibility. This requires civic practice and education. It also means redesigning institutions so they reward participation and deliver effective governance. We need to understand why and how separation of powers, checks and balances, due process, and a national legislature that functions are necessary to protect human freedom.