R.I.P. GOP
Born of a righteous conviction that no person should be enslaved, the Republican Party died this week, a victim of its leaders’ lust for power and abandonment of the Union which Lincoln fought to save. At its zenith, the GOP advanced a freedom agenda derived from the ideals of the American experience and the European enlightenment. A commitment to free labor, free markets, free trade, and free institutions provided the … Read More
American Democracy and the Authoritarian Tradition of the West
Dr. Mario DiNunzio explores the legacy of the enlightenment and the European reaction to the American Revolution. The west’s fascination with authoritarianism didn’t stop with the American Revolution—or even with the French. DiNunzio puts that history into context with implications for the rise of new authoritarian movements today. Mario DiNunzio is Emeritus Professor of History at Providence College, where he has taught for many years and he continues to teach … Read More
Authoritarian Powers in the Age of America First
PICKS OF THE WEEK “The Authoritarian Challenge: China, Russia and the Threat to the Liberal International Order” | Aaron L. Friedberg “Making China Great Again” | The New Yorker “The Rise and Rise of Viktor Orban” | The Financial Times “A Sober Trump Reassures the Davos Elite” | The New York Times In the immediate aftermath of the Cold War, Western policy elites—basking in the glow of their perceived success—came to believe that the … Read More
Picks of the Week: Creeping Authoritarianism
The Governing Cancer of our Time | The New York Times The best predictor of Trump support isn’t income, education, or age. It’s authoritarianism. | Vox More than five years ago in The Providence Journal, I wrote of a specter haunting America. Then I was concerned about impatience on the left of the political spectrum and my growing sense that authoritarianism was gaining in popularity. I repost those … Read More