“If you asked me to call it as I see it, I’d say President Trump is fasc-ish, fascist lite, or ‘semi-fascist.’ And until recently, writer Jonathan Rauch (whom I’ve long admired) would have agreed with my assessment. But in his Atlantic piece, ‘Yes, it’s Fascism,’ Rauch pulls a Jason Stanley. That is, he comes up with his own laundry list of purportedly fascist indicators to prove that President Trump is, indeed, a fascist, which suggests Trump is uniquely evil in American history. … In setting out to prove that Trump is a fascist, Rauch proves that the President is just an odd species of progressive and that past progressive presidents were fascist, too. Progressivism, after all, is a form of fascism.” (02/16/26)
“Big media and big government are in bed together and they hate the fact that we can communicate with each other without their filters and influence. They long for the days when they could shovel down our throats just what they wanted us to hear and believe. While we may be winning this battle for free expression, we must not fool ourselves into thinking that we have won the war. We must remember just a few years ago during COVID that all it took to have your platform wiped off the face of the earth was to dare question the ‘wisdom’ of Anthony Fauci. Even today there are forces seeking to use the power of the state to silence opinions they disagree with.” (02/16/26)
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Kelley Beaucar Vlahos
“A look back at Diem’s assassination, setting off the Vietnam War — who says Washington isn’t led by the same self-destructive characters throughout time?” (02/16/26)
“Every February, Black History Month invites Americans to honor the giants of the civil rights movement. We commemorate them in speeches and street names, reassuring ourselves that their struggles belong safely to the past. But history tells a less comforting story. We tend to celebrate Black moral courage only after it has been stripped of urgency — after its disruptions have been neutralized and its challenges to power rendered harmless. The figures we now hold up as national icons were once dismissed as dangerous or destabilizing by moderates and institutions that claimed to support equality while resisting its consequences. This pattern is not accidental. It is structural.” (02/16/26)
“The avatars of MAGA-land often appear to operate with almost boundless impunity. President Trump was granted nearly total immunity by the U.S. Supreme Court. He pardoned more than 1,500 Jan. 6 rioters. His officials reflexively defend masked immigration enforcement officials gunning down Minnesota protesters, rather than suspending or at least investigating them. There have been few if any lasting consequences for crimes or malfeasance in Trump world. It was, therefore, truly heartening to see a group of Republicans acknowledge that law-breaking must be meaningfully penalized, even if committed under the MAGA banner. Last month, the nine justices of the Georgia Supreme Court — eight of whom were appointed by Republican governors — unanimously stated that nothing less than disbarment was called for in the case of William McCall Calhoun, Jr., an attorney who had participated in the ‘violent takeover of the Capitol’ on Jan. 6, 2021.” (02/16/26)
“Lest anyone think I am taking the words of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) out of context, here is, verbatim, her answer to a question during an appearance at the Munich Security Conference last week. … Asked, ‘Would and should the U.S. actually commit U.S. troops to defend Taiwan if China were to move?,’ Ocasio-Cortez replied: ‘You know, I think that this is such a, you know, I think that this is a, this is, of course, a very long-standing policy of the United States. And I think what we are hoping for is that we want to make sure that we never get to that point, and we want to make sure that we are moving in all of our economic research and our global positions to avoid any such confrontation and for that question to even arise.’ This was a yes-or-no question, and Ocasio-Cortez did not answer it.” (02/16/26)
Source: Independent Institute
by Alvaro Vargas Llosa
“For a subcontinent known for holding ‘honor’ and ‘dignity’ in (disproportionately) high esteem, as seen in everything from pop culture, including soap operas, to political discourse, the turn of events in Venezuela is fascinating. The speed and ease with which the regime’s top figures (interim president Delcy Rodriguez, minister of the Interior Diosdado Cabello, minister of Defense Vladimir Padrino and the president of the National Assembly, Jorge Rodriguez) have become the incarnation of everything they once despised should put the last nail in the coffin of the myth that the Latin American revolutionary left stands, well, for honor and dignity.” (02/16/26)
“If the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) wants to scrutinize a person or organization, it must meet certain legal standards demonstrating evidence to support suspicion of criminal activity before opening an investigation. Well, sort of. It turns out that if the feds can’t meet the bar to justify an investigation, they can move ahead by calling their surveillance efforts ‘assessments.’ Then, they can use the assessments to justify full investigations — assuming FBI agents care to follow the rules to begin with, which is not always the case. That’s led to the feds snooping on roughly 1,100 religious figures, journalists, activists, and public officials in recent years.” (02/16/26)
“Decades ago, the Democratic Party had leaders like Presidents Harry Truman and John F. Kennedy who were proud of our country and our citizens. These leaders would have never embarked on a foreign ‘apology tour’ like Former President Barack Obama or allowed our country to be invaded by millions of illegal immigrants like Former President Joe Biden. In the 1980’s, a coalition of moderate congressional Democrats known as the ‘Blue Dogs’ assisted President Ronald Reagan to pass historic tax cuts, which unleashed tremendous economic growth and enabled our country to exorcise the ‘malaise’ that another Democrat President, Jimmy Carter, had infamously described. The ‘Blue Dogs’ were essential for the Reagan agenda to succeed. Additionally, then-House Speaker Tip O’Neill (D-MA) and Reagan were friends and enjoyed occasional evening cocktails together. This relationship helped Reagan and Republicans pass their legislation in a Democrat controlled Congress.” (02/16/26)
“Over the past decade, the United States has outperformed every other G7 nation. Key measures show why the US is not just getting bigger, but also growing richer.” (02/16/26)
