The Different Sorts of “Other”
It’s more than likely that the next twenty-four hours of news coverage will be about how Michelle Obama didn’t just “humanize” her husband during her DNC speech, she went on the offensive. It was...
Author: Conor P. Williams
Why It’s Impossible To Parent Ironically
There’s been a fair bit of parenthood buzz around the League of late (Cf. Mike and Will and, in a different way, Burt). I’ve enjoyed all of it, and I want to add a...
Growing Market Demand For the Left’s IDEAS
I spend more time complaining about left-wing rhetorical ineptitude than anything else. It’s as close a raison d’être as I’ve got, other than my wife and son (who are infinitely more valuable companions). My hobby...
Whose Religious Liberty? What Value Pluralism? What Attention Span?
Caveat: I know that this is off-message and we’re all supposed to be fighting over whether or not Paul Ryan is a lunatic or a fiscal hawk and so on and so forth. I know...
What Paul Ryan Is For
(Note: This post is NOT part of our current Democracy Symposium. If you want to follow the Symposium – and you should! – you can find the posts here.) If you read one piece of...
Democracy Symposium: Cantamos los Estados Unidos
Note: This post is part of our League Symposium on Democracy. You can read the introductory post for the Symposium here. To see a list of all posts in the Symposium so far, click here. — We...
Which “Market-Based” Education Reform?
After I finished college, I went to teach first grade at a charter school in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, so I have complicated, conflicted views on education reform that are at once personal and political. Nothing bothers...
Better Progressive Rhetoric? Obama Is Building That
While it’s still unclear whether the going flap over Obama’s “you didn’t build that” line is a net gain or a net loss for the president, I’m increasingly encouraged by the Left’s response. Sure,...
Politicizing the Tragedy in Aurora
However we usually define tragedy, there’s something uniquely debilitating about those catastrophes that break into our lives for utterly arbitrary and senseless reasons. Indeed, traditional literary tragedy is often bearable because the pivotal moment...
Polarization and Persuasion
Yesterday the Washington Post noted that A pair of tepid jobs reports, landmark Supreme Court decisions on health-care and immigration laws, and an unprecedented barrage of negative ads have shaped the opening months of...
The Non-Wonky Institutional Left?
Regular League readers know about my professional hobby horse: leftists usually make thin, wonky arguments instead of explaining the moral principles involved. Goes like this: But if the eclipse of the new progressive era...
Reflections on the Revolution in the United States of America
Independence Day serves as good a reminder as any that the United States is much more sharply divided on core questions now than usual. If July 4th is one of those annual moments when...
The Solitary, Poor, Nasty, Brutish, and Short Libertarian Life
You know, I myself dabbled in libertarianism once—not in college, of course. There’s a lot to appreciate about its emphasis upon liberty. Ultimately, I couldn’t quite pass the purity test, though. This weekend, while...
Friday Night Jukebox: Chuck Brown Edition
Haven’t done one of these yet in my (almost) two months onboard—so here goes. Chuck Brown, as everyone should know, was The Godfather of Go-Go. He more or less singlehandedly birthed Go-Go out of an...
Coolness Isn’t Everything
Upon further reflection, I’d like to emphasize one more thing about conservatism’s uncoolness. Here goes: It should go without saying that “cool” politics and “desirable” politics don’t always overlap. Indeed, any overlap may be purely...
Hipster Conservatism
Prelude: I’ve been mulling over something like this post for years, mostly because of arguments with the original Post-Modern Conservative himself, James Poulos. I wrestled some of it into place a few months back,...
Book Review: The Dangerous Wane of American Communitarianism
(This is not intended as part of the League’s ongoing Inequality Symposium, but it’s not wholly unrelated either. For the Symposium posts so far, click here.) No member of the Washington, DC journalism crowd...
I Feel Like Donald Trump Might
Why? Because after I (Trump?) endorsed David Sessions’ (i.e. Mitt Romney) work in my last post, Sessions has responded by calling me out as a wrongheaded so-and-so, etc, etc. (as Romney might consider doing...
Religion in Politics: A Theory
I. Religious Ideology vs. a Religious Disposition I’ve spent a few weeks trying to figure out what bothered me about Amy Sullivan’s May 11 Washington Post article on the rise in leftist religious rhetoric,...
On Beltway Insiders and Public Attention Spans
As a DC resident, I know that most of the sins that supposedly stem from nefarious Beltway Insiders have other, more specific causes. There’s a kernel of truth within Beltway bashing, though: people here...
