Having changed drastically since its founding, America’s continued existence rests on the system of government created by its Constitution. If that is sacrificed on the altar of power, there will be no country left. The US is obviously a drastically different place in 2020 than it was in 1776, when thirteen colonies declared their independence…
You know about the five-second rule. According to conventional wisdom, food that has dropped on the floor can be safely eaten if retrieved within five seconds. Some scientists have even set up experiments to confirm this folk saying. Of course, all bets are off if your toast falls on the floor buttered side down and…
In November 2000, the battle between George W. Bush and Al Gore for the U.S. presidency was deadlocked over the status of a few thousand votes in Florida. Gore had won the popular vote, but the margin of victory in the Electoral College depended on Florida. In that state, Bush held a very slim lead…
Many in the establishment believe democracy has gone too far. But there is little to back up this line of thinking – it’s simply a realisation that their opinions are being drowned out by populists. ‘Democracy works better when there is less of it’ warns Financial Times commenter Janan Ganesh. As far as he is…
The Washington Post was first published in 1877 and is a fine newspaper in spite of its sometimes swivel-eyed intolerance of all things Russian. Its admirable motto is ‘Democracy Dies in Darkness’ and it often succeeds in throwing light on domestic and international affairs that might otherwise remain shrouded in veils of official secrecy. Democracy…
Secular Millenarianism – the belief that some transformative catharsis in history has the power to expunge the crimes and follies of the past – has a long and bloody history. The notion originally owes to religion. Theories of human ‘Progress’ as an upward-trending, linear continuum, inevitably leading to ‘a better human end’, though clothed today…
