Source: Law & Liberty
by Graham McAleer

“Robert D. Kaplan is one of America’s most prolific and important writers. Presidents have consulted his books, and as an expert in geopolitics, he is a member of both the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board and the Chief of Naval Operations Executive Panel. Astonishingly, Kaplan publishes a book most years and his latest Waste Land: A World in Permanent Crisis contends that the West’s democratic liberalism is caught in a fatal pincer of conformity and conspiracy. Taking his theme from T. S. Eliot’s long form poem written in the wake of World War I, Kaplan argues that the West is a declining civilization but not on account of pressure from other great powers. China and Russia are also declining powers, so the West’s problem is internal. A gifted civilization, the West has unleashed powerful forces that have boomeranged.” (04/03/25)

https://lawliberty.org/book-review/liberalisms-bleak-future/

Source: OtherWords
by Sonali Kolhatkar

“President Donald Trump has called ‘tariff’ ‘the most beautiful word in the dictionary.’ He claims tariffs will restore American trade supremacy, bring lost jobs back to the United States, and most bizarrely, replace income taxes. Tariffs can be a useful tool to regulate global trade in the interest of jobs, wages, labor rights, the environment, and consumers — if applied correctly. But Trump’s chaotic, overly broad tariffs are only likely to hurt working people. They won’t ensure labor rights or protect the environment. They won’t even return jobs to the U.S., if his first term tariffs are any indication. Because new tariffs require congressional approval, Trump manufactured a crisis about the flow of drugs and undocumented immigrants across U.S. borders in order to use executive power to unilaterally impose tariffs.” (04/03/25)

https://otherwords.org/tariffs-can-be-useful-but-not-how-trump-is-using-them/

Source: The Bulwark
by Will Saletan

“Trump’s belligerent pursuit of this fantasy is a convergence of his pathologies. Among them: 1. He’s a narcissist. He thinks the world should serve and bow to him. 2. He’s obsessed with money. He seeks oil in Iraq, waterfront property in Gaza, and minerals in Ukraine and Greenland. 3. He sees all land as real estate. He wants Canada and Greenland not just for their wealth but for their size. 4. He’s willing to use violence. He proved that on January 6th. … But to understand Trump’s attacks on Denmark, you have to consider one more thing: his history of sexual predation. Trump notoriously boasted about grabbing women without their consent — and about not caring whether they’re attached to other people. In a twisted way, this sheds light on his disregard for Danish sovereignty and Greenlandic autonomy.” (04/03/25)

https://www.thebulwark.com/p/stop-groping-greenland-predatory-denmark-psychosexually-sick

Source: Niskanen Center
by Brink Lindsey

“Trump’s return to the presidency is certainly bad news for the constitutional separation of powers and the rule of law more generally – and thus must be seen as a setback, and possibly a grave one, for the political institutions of the open society. But is a broader turn against the open society under way as well? Are post-liberals like N.S. Lyons correct to see in Trump’s victory a repudiation of the open society’s failing shibboleths? And, beyond that, to see it as a vehicle for the revitalization of older, deeper, neglected loyalties?” (04/03/25)

https://www.niskanencenter.org/the-open-society-and-the-friends-it-needs

Source: Reason
by Eric Boehm

“In order for a tariff to work as a revenue-generating policy, it must actually exist — because a threatened tariff generates no revenue. For the same reason, a tariff that exists only to persuade another country to take some specified action is useless for revenue, because it would be removed once the other country complies. Tariffs cannot be both the primary means of funding the federal government’s budget and a tool of foreign policy. In fact, they’re not particularly effective at either of those jobs. Unfortunately, Trump seemingly lacks any awareness about the economic costs of his tariff obsession, and he does not have a strong sense of intellectual consistency.” (04/03/25)

https://reason.com/2025/04/03/the-trade-war-were-losing-to-ourselves/