Michael Lind is one of the most perceptive political and social observers of our time. He ‘scooped’ the Trump revolution, as I have said, before Trump even declared himself a candidate. And he has continued to be as perceptive. But […]
Howard Ahmanson
Opportunities for Positive Testimony
The candidacy of Donald Trump, and his takeover of the Republican Party, has split the American evangelical world and is, I think, purging it. But it is creating opportunities for positive testimony as well. The Daily Beast, far from a […]
An Addendum to the Manifesto: My Youth as a Deficit Hawk – Howard Ahmanson
It occurred to me that during the first period in my life that I was a conservative, which was in my youth, I was motivated mainly by deficit hawkery. I was ten in the year that Nixon ran against Kennedy, […]
A Manifesto: Important Events That Shaped My Political Views – Howard Ahmanson
As I reflect upon the beginnings of my present political views, I believe that three specific events shaped my way of thinking. The first was my conversion to Christianity. The second was my introduction to ‘Reconstructionism’ and my subsequent move […]
The ‘Single Family or Bust’ People Will Probably Leave Southern California, No Matter What Land Use Policy We Now Follow
A lot of people, especially families with children, would prefer a single-family home. Of course they would, and I’m not going to find fault with that lifestyle as long as it’s not forced on everyone. Perhaps they should be required […]
The Religious Right Failed to See What Was Coming
We have repeated Francis Schaeffer’s warning about ‘personal peace and affluence’ often at Blue Kennel, but it’s time to do it again. He declared, back about 1970, that the ‘Silent Majority’, a term Nixon had begun to use, was composed […]
Do We Have Something to Offer Working Class Whites? An Open Letter to the CCDA Leadership
In the last couple of years there have been a number of stories about an increase in the death rate of working class whites that has not been paralleled among their African American and Latino counterparts. At the same time, […]
Authoritarianism is a Hot Subject Nowadays
There is a lot of intellectual fuss about ‘authoritarianism’ nowadays, because of the rise of Donald Trump and what appears to be the overthrow of traditional ‘fusion’ conservatism. A long essay by Amanda Taub in “Vox” is the most thorough […]
The Adams Map: A Different Spectrum, A Challenge – Part 2
It occurs to me that Adams anticipates Trump. However, when I wrote this I thought the people on the lower left corner weren’t going to turn out to vote. Therefore the culture wars between the upper left and lower right […]
Richard Nixon: A Precedent for Donald Trump?
It occurred to me that a possible precedent for Donald Trump might be none other than Richard Nixon. Now I think that Nixon was a far more intelligent man than Trump, and, for all his sins, a person of superior […]