Source: Astral Codex Ten
by Scott Alexander

“Every country, from the best to the worst, has a ruling party that can (and does) try some undemocratic things, but is too afraid to try others. Democracy versus dictatorship is a spectrum, not a binary choice. … But some of the people demanding that Orban critics apologize don’t seem to just be mincing words. They seem to be implicitly denying the spectrum concept of democratic backsliding at all, arguing that if it’s possible to lose an election, past concerns must have been misplaced and retroactively embarrassing for the concern-holder.” (04/15/26)

https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/orban-was-bad-even-though-we-dont

Source: The Hill
by Max Burns

“President Trump’s second term has been nothing if not a laundry list of broken promises. But few Americans have suffered more from Trump’s deceptions than the nation’s struggling farmers. … Trump captured 62 percent of the rural vote in 2024, 4 points better than his performance in 2020, based largely on promises to lavish prosperity (and federal money) on small farms on the verge of collapse. Like so many Trump promises, the help never arrived.” (04/15/26)

https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/5830567-trump-economy-hurting-farmers/

Source: The UnPopulist
by Thomas D Howes

“Elie Wiesel is often credited with the observation that the opposite of love is not hate but indifference. Indifference is clearly not morally neutral. To respond with indifference when love and concern are due is a sign that something has gone wrong — whether it’s a voluntary fault and thus immoral, or something involuntary and inculpable. But indifference in such cases is never something to praise or, worse, advocate for. Yet that is just what Vance consistently does. He is not alone in this. A growing current on the right has explicitly reframed indifference as a virtue — denouncing empathy toward immigrants, refugees, and foreign peoples as ‘suicidal,’ manipulative, or simply naive.” (04/15/26)

https://www.theunpopulist.net/p/jd-vances-devil-may-care-attitude

Source: Persuasion
by Seva Gunitsky

“There are three well-known, and well-trodden, families of explanation for the emergence of right-wing populism. There is the economic story: deindustrialization, stagnant wages, the hollowing out of the working class. The cultural story: immigration, demographic change, the anxiety of losing a familiar world. And the institutional/technological story: declining trust in democratic norms, the fragmentation of media, the algorithmic amplification of outrage. None of these, however, explain why this moment has coalesced not around a particular program or a set of policies but around a similar character type: the swaggering, transgressive, dominance-performing strongman.” (04/15/26)

https://www.persuasion.community/p/the-rise-of-the-incel-global-order

Source: Bluegrass Institute
by Caleb O Brown

“Kentucky’s next generation deserved better from this legislative session. For two years, Kentucky’s Housing Task Force built a record, heard from builders, experts, local officials, and families struggling to afford a place to live. Ultimately, the task force embraced recommendations advanced by the Bluegrass Institute last year. … Legislation that was one concurrence away from final passage would have altered the housing marketplace to make homes more affordable, enhance Kentuckians’ property rights, clear away needless regulatory barriers, and give developers greater confidence to undertake projects. Kentucky lawmakers couldn’t get the job done, and that failure carries real consequences for young people across our commonwealth.” (04/15/26)

https://www.bluegrassinstitute.org/kentucky-general-assembly-failed-to-deliver-on-housing-affordability/