“Political movements often begin as revolts against entrenched power, only to be absorbed by the very institutions they sought to challenge. The pattern is familiar in American political history. Grassroots insurgencies ignite public enthusiasm, mobilize voters around neglected issues, and briefly threaten the ruling consensus. Yet over time they are either neutralized or transformed into instruments of the existing political order. Two movements defined the political awakening of many Americans in the early twenty-first century: the Tea Party and the MAGA movement. Both promised a revolt against Washington. Both claimed to represent ordinary Americans against an unaccountable ruling class. Both attracted millions of supporters who believed they were witnessing the birth of something genuinely transformative. Yet both ultimately failed.” (03/11/26)
“Centrist Democrats argue that the party should not ‘go so far left in a primary that they can’t win against MAGA in the general.’ As the Center for Working Class Politics observes, these ‘Third Way’ Democrats stress ‘affordability’ and ‘abundance’ without taking on the billionaire class. Progressive Democrats, including groups like the Democratic Socialists of America and Working Families Party, are seen as just too radical to attract working-class voters. I disagree. I think the problem is that Democrats, even progressive Democrats, are not radical enough. We have only to look at former President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s 1941 ‘Four Freedoms’ State of the Union address to be reminded of what our politics could be and should be. The ‘Four Freedoms’ (of speech and religion, from want and fear) are properly the best remembered parts of the address.” (03/11/26)
“Everyone hates Congress. That poll showing that cockroaches are more popular than Congress is now thirteen years old, and things haven’t improved in those thirteen years. Congressional approval dipped below 20% during the Great Recession and hasn’t recovered since. A republic where a supermajority of citizens neither like nor trust their representatives is not the most stable of foundations, so it should not be shocking that the legislative branch is being subsumed by the executive. What’s the solution? Many have been proposed, some with very snazzy websites.” (03/11/26)
“It is impossible to understand the recent politics of the Western world without considering a giant sociological transformation—one that, inevitable though it may seem in retrospect, nearly nobody predicted: The bourgeoisie has switched sides. For much of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the proletariat was the political stronghold of the left. The bourgeoisie was the stronghold of the right. Indeed, the assumption that affluent professionals would tend to be conservative is reflected in the most famous political treatises and pieces of art that the period produced. Karl Marx called on the workers, not on the lawyers or freelance illustrators, of the world to unite. … But of late, these realities have started to shift, with huge impacts on contemporary politics.” (03/11/26)
“The strongest objections to fiat money are moral and institutional, not legal. Inflating a currency erodes trust over time, but it isn’t counterfeiting.” (03/11/26)
“For anyone looking into the history of U.S.-Iranian relations, what’s laid bare is not a history of friendship, diplomacy, and mutual respect, but rather a past marked with covert action, harsh rhetoric, and now, hot war.” (03/11/26)
Source: Property and Environment Research Center
by Jonathan Wood
“Federal permitting reform is usually framed as a question of efficiency: why do approvals take so long, and how can agencies move faster? But recent bipartisan permitting talks have surfaced that the problem is not just efficiency but also certainty. Even when permits are issued, the government often retains broad discretion to pull them back, grinding projects to a halt and stranding investments. Rather than providing the security of property rights or an enforceable contract, federal permits can be more of a promise from one whose fingers are crossed behind their back.” (03/10/26)
Source: Electronic Frontier Foundation
by Kit Walsh
“EFF’s client, J. Doe, is a member of the Jehovah’s Witnesses who became interested in the history of the organization’s public statements, and how they’ve changed over time. They created research tools to analyze those documents and ultimately created a website, JWS Library, allowing others to use those tools and verify their findings through an archive that included documents suppressed by the church. … There is no law against questioning the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Instead, Watch Tower argues that Doe’s activities constitute copyright infringement and seeks to use the special process provided in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to unmask them. It sent DMCA subpoenas to Google and Cloudflare, seeking information that would help them uncover Doe’s identity. The problem for Watch Tower is that Doe’s research and commentary are clear fair uses allowed under copyright law.” (03/10/26)
“The post-Olympics news cycle was a dizzying display of handwringing over the supposed victimhood of empowered, badass American female athletes. If we were to believe much of our media and feminist commentators, these women had been disrespected by President Trump, who cracked a joke, and by the men of Team USA hockey, who laughed. It led to an online geyser of anger and indignation on the women’s behalf. During their match against South Korea in Australia last week, the Iranian women’s soccer team took part in a quiet protest by not singing along to their national anthem — less than 48 hours after the US began striking Tehran. Off the phony controversy, we heard the refrain that women athletes are treated like gum on the bottom of a shoe.” (03/10/26)
