Power Line

The old saying is that “sex sells,” and after the sexual revolution of the last several decades who can dispute that? Meanwhile, “identity politics” is the obsession of the current moment. Is there a connection? Yes, argues Mary Eberstadt in her new book Primal Screams: How the Sexual Revolution Created Identity Politics. Eberstadt, currently a senior research fellow at the Faith & Source

As promised in our last episode, we return early this week with the first in a series of bonus episodes devoted to a deep dive into the New York Times‘s agitprop “1619 Project” that seeks to place slavery and racism as the central fact of the American story. In this first installment, Power Line’s International Woman of Mystery, “Lucretia” (who happens to teach political philosophy and American... Source

This special double-header-end-of-summer Power Line Show features Steve Hayward and Power Line co-founder John Hinderaker venting about the “1619 Project” along with “Lucretia,” Power Line’s International Woman of Mystery. The “1619 Project” is so badly flawed that in the coming weeks we’re going to produce a series of special shows going point-by-point through its poisonous defects... Source

Readers of Thomas Kuhn’s famous book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions will know his central thesis that when anomalies and contradictions arise in a reigning scientific theory it creates a crisis out of which new theories emerge to replace the old. We may be seeing the beginnings of such a crisis for modern Darwinism, which appears to have gaps and contradictions that can’t be explained or... Source

“Prudence” is not just something Dana Carvey liked to lampoon back when President George H.W. Bush was in office. Rather, it is the highest and most essential quality of those superb human beings we used to call “statesmen” before political science and history banished both terms in a fit of egalitarian madness that has yet to abate in our leading intellectual circles. One antidote to this... Source

By popular demand from listeners, this special edition of the Power Line Show features both Kelly Jane Torrance of the Washington Examiner and “Lucretia,” Power Line’s International Woman of Mystery. Kelly Jane is just back from serving as an official election watcher over in Ukraine, and lays out a delightful political scene that does Donald Trump one better in the TV entertainment division. Plus... Source

In recent years an arcane term from political science—the “administrative state”—has become a prominent part of everyday discussion. The administrative state refers to the trend, decades in the making, of transferring lawmaking power away from the legislative branch of government to permanent, unelected bureaucrats and executive agencies. The administrative state undermines a central principle of... Source

To paraphrase Karl Marx, a specter is haunting . . . well, just about everybody: the specter of a revival of nationalism. This week Steve Hayward attended the National Conservatism Conference in Washington, which was sponsored by the brand new Edmund Burke Institute. As Christopher DeMuth put it, “who knew that the next big thing would be the nation-state.” Of course if you say you are in favor of... Source

One of my teachers in graduate school, the great constitutional historian Leonard Levy, insisted that “a history must serve its readers with explanations that suit the horizons of their curiosity and with writing that entertains and stirs them.” No one exemplifies that vivid style of biography and history better than Andrew Roberts. I caught up with Andrew in San Francisco this week... Source

By popular demand from listeners, we’re bringing back “Lucretia,” Power Line’s International Woman of Mystery, on this special edition for the July 4 holiday. Many listeners asked us to offer up mini-tutorials on various aspects of the American Founding and political thought in general, so we break down the Declaration of Independence, drawing notice to five key features—including how some of the... Source