- November 10, 2016
David Burress
Movement conservatives in power usually avoid open or visible lawbreaking, but they have no respect for the traditions and conventions that make democracy possible. Instead they seek to systematically disempower and destroy all actual or potential opposition. In Kansas you can see this in the vote suppression movement, the defunding of Planned Parenthood, the subversion ...
- November 9, 2016
David Burress
Political analysts are talking about Trumpism leading to a new party system. I don’t see it happening, or at least I don’t seen how drastic changes are possible in the near term.
“Party system” is academic jargon for the alignment of major factions or interests into the two party system. Every thirty years or so they ...
- November 2, 2016
David Burress
Two kinds of explanations are being proposed for Trumpism–economic and social. Both are based on mobilized ressentiment, a form of class rage. According to the economic story, Trumpists are angry about the economic loss and stagnation of the middle class, which is to say a loss in absolute status or well-being. According to the social ...
- November 2, 2016
David Burress
I do not know an exact or specific name for the following language fallacy, although it is closely related to linguistic prescriptivism.
In prescriptive approaches to language, a would-be authority figure lays down alleged rules of correct usage. In contrast, scientific approaches to language are descriptive–they study how language actually gets used in various circumstances. In ...