Many of President Trump’s supporters are aggrieved about a New York production of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar which features a Caesar that looks rather Trump-like. This has produced some discussion of how far this comparison should really go, and whether having a Trump-like Caesar encourages political violence. Much of the arguments surrounding this are a bit muddled because many folks only have a surface-level understanding of Caesar’s historical role. So let’s unpack it.
Category: Politics
Concerning the nature of man and the state, and how best the latter can be structured to augment the former.
Teach for America Tricks Young People into Being Scabs
Last month, we talked about how Mike Pence ran down the schools in Indiana while he was governor, slashing state educating spending by about 11.5% (relative to GDP) and creating a massive teacher shortage as good teachers defected to neighboring states and fewer Hoosiers elected to go into education. Today I want to talk about the pivotal role programs likes Teach for America play in aiding and abetting these efforts to annihilate the public schools.
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How the Lib-Dems and the SNP Failed the Progressive Movement in Britain
The Labour Party was able to increase its vote share to about 40%, a level which has often historically been enough for Labour to form governments on its own.
But Labour was unable to form a government because the Conservatives also increased their vote share, albeit by a smaller amount:
This large Tory vote share enabled the Conservatives to prevent the assembly of a grand coalition of the left. Much of the turnover came from the collapsing UKIP vote, which fell more than 10 points from 2015 levels. But some of it came from the SNP, which dropped 1.7 points and 12 seats to the Tories. And some of it even came from the Lib-Dems, who lost 0.5 points and failed to win over many anti-Brexit Tory voters. Labour took care of business, but the junior partners came up short. What went wrong?
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The DUP is Not Okay
Not to be discouraged by a hung parliament, British Prime Minister Theresa May now intends to govern with the aid of the DUP, the “Democratic Unionist Party” of Northern Ireland. This is unbelievably reckless and puts the security and future of the British people at risk.
The 3 Groups Only Corbyn Could Win for Labour
Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party has gained 31 seats in parliament and increased its vote share by nearly 10 points. This gives Labour its largest vote share by percentage since 2001. This is somewhat perplexing, because Corbyn had a net approval rating of -11, even during the final week of the election campaign. But even though many ordinary Labour voters might have preferred a more traditional Labour leader, they appear to have nonetheless preferred Corbyn’s Labour Party to the alternatives. In the meantime, Corbyn helped bring in three groups of people which a more traditional Labour leader might have failed to attract.
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Benjamin Studebaker 