Peter Seal

The actual “birthright” belongs to my children, and the children of all real Americans. They have a birthright to live in a country that resembles the one our ancestors established. And now that birthright, the only true birthright, has been destroyed in favor of the imagined “birthright” of children born to parents who don’t even belong in this country and who have no ancestral or cultural ties to it whatsoever. Total madness. Suicide. Words cannot describe how evil this is.

Ossoff just has the sauce, man. I think that across America, there is a real appetite for a liberal politician who tells us that America is not bad, it's good, that we've always been good, and that we're so much better than the current administration makes us out to be.

My impression is that large numbers of Gen Z men would prefer some kind of "hustle" or get rich quick scheme than a job. They aren't all targeting passive income, but that's one of the components of this.

Is there a market for smart, right-wing content? I've gone back and forth on this. But I'm now convinced that Jerusalem Demsas might be the most successful living journalist in terms of bringing right-wing arguments to a large, highly educated audience that wouldn't otherwise hear them. Check out the top ten performing articles of all time at The Argument. Here are the topics 1) Criticizing Jon Stewart for not understanding economics 2) Praising Mississippi teaching kids phonics 3) Criticizing education research for being weak and sloppy 4) Criticizing UCSD for low academic standards 5) A case you should be able to do things that hurt people, in the context of disability accommodations 6) A critique of Critical Race Theory 7) On the ineffectiveness of money transfers to end poverty 8) A case against "equity" in education 9) Praising red states for moving forward with self-driving cars while criticizing blue states 10) An argument that the trans backlash is real What do you notice here? That's arguably 10 out of 10 articles that take the right-wing position on some policy debate. I'd say the last one is arguably neutral, but it is usually the kind of thing argued by conservatives. These are basically all articles that could've been published in The Wall Street Journal. This makes me optimistic. It indicates that the reason smart people reject conservatism is that it has the stench of MAGA, racism, conspiracy theorists, and religious fundamentalists. Trump supporters and Republican voters generally want trash content. This repulses smart people. But simply frame it as liberalism, and you can argue against CRT, equity, and the excesses of the Americans with Disabilities Act. I sometimes wonder whether smart right-wingers need to make peace with the bigots and conspiracy theorists in their coalition to be relevant, or they are a hinderance to advancing their goals. The success of The Argument has tilted me toward the latter perspective. The smart aspects of modern conservatism can appeal to a large, educated audience. You just have to disassociate these ideas from the trash that is out there, and which dominates in the Trump era.

Nearly all those who say the US should only admit the most talented immigrants would not themselves clear the bar they're proposing. They're effectively saying "Immigration is ok so long as you keep out people like me."

A lot of Republicans are saying this list is right wing, but last I checked, the Republican Party isn't the party of competence-focused institutionalism, it's the party of corruption, authoritarianism, apathy to truth, and smashing the institutions. I think there's room.

Excellent priority list for one of the most important projects in contemporary American politics: a hostile moderate takeover of the Democratic Party.

California high-speed rail cost now up to $231 billion. That means the average worker in the state will pay out over $12,000 to fund a single project that almost no one will ride. CA rail will be studied for generations, a truly once-in-a-lifetime level of government failure.