Tag: Jacobin

Chelsea and Me: On the politics—or non-politics or pseudo-politics—of engaging a power player on Twitter

Let me preface this post with a disclaimer: I’m probably as embarrassed as you are—in fact, more embarrassed, I’m sure—that I’ve devoted as much thought to this tempest in a teacup as I have. But having poured this much thought into this little tea, I feel that I should share, lest my cup spilleth over. So here goes. I’m finding the pushback—at this blog, on Twitter, and across Facebook—about my exchange with Chelsea Clinton super interesting. One of the leitmotifs of the pushback is that it’s somehow unfair of me to engage Clinton about Arendt. Now that it was an act of almost spectral comedy, if not lunacy, to so engage, I’ll freely admit. Which is mostly why I posted the whole […]

Political Criticism in the Age of Trump: A How-To, or A How-Not-To

At some point in the coming weeks, I’d like to write an essay, a brief essay, on political criticism in the Age of Trump—a how-to, or a rules-of-the-road, for the way we ought to be doing analysis right now. One of the counters I often get to the various claims I make about the weaknesses or vulnerabilities or incoherences of the Trump regime—or when I point out policy moments when I think those weaknesses, vulnerabilities, or incoherences are being expressed—is this: Well, even if Trump pulls back from position x or even if he does action y (where y is not as a bad as z), he’s still awful, he’s only doing it to save his ass, he’s not giving […]

I’m a Jacobin

I’m very happy to say that I’ll be joining the Editorial Board of Jacobin; actually, it seems I already did in December!  Since it appeared about a year or so ago, Jacobin has been publishing some of the most interesting stuff on the web. Anytime Peter Frase or Mike Beggs or Seth Ackerman has something posted over there, I drop everything and read it right away. Also, they’ve got Remeike Forbes, the smartest and coolest designer I’ve had the pleasure of talking (and listening!) to since I worked with Ginny Blaisdell at HERE. Lastly, they’ve got Bhaskar Sunkara, the young visionary behind it all, an intellectual and political impresario I insist on describing as the “Philip Rahv of our age.” […]

My Response to Bruce Bartlett

Bruce Bartlett was a senior policy adviser in the Reagan White House and Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Treasury under George H.W. Bush. He’s worked with and around conservatives—from Jack Kemp and Gary Bauer to Ron Paul and the Cato Institute—for decades. In recent years, he’s become a major critic of the Republican Party and the right, joining the ranks of Andrew Sullivan, David Frum, and other conservative apostates. He is, to cite a t-shirt my three-year-old daughter likes to wear, “kind of a big deal.” So I was more than pleased when he decided to respond, in the comments section, to my most recent post on the utopianism of Sullivan’s brand of conservatism. Given Bartlett’s stature, and my hope […]