Just an FYI to the “No Kings” Democrats: you don’t get to blather to us about “No Kings” while calling for the disarmament of a population under military occupation. The people running these demonstrations seem too historically illiterate to remember that the American Revolution was a war, and that it got rid of the King by killing his troops. Continue reading
Tag Archives: trump
The Fascist Regime
Back in March, I wrote a post here called “I Think They Call This Fascism,” meant to be a preliminary inquiry into how to define “fascism” and apply it to present circumstances. I laid out seven methodological issues that arise in defining “fascism,” the second of which was how the concept of “fascism” applies to totalitarianism and authoritarianism. At the time, I was conceptualizing totalitarianism as revolutionary and all-encompassing, and conceptualizing authoritarianism as traditional and more limited in scope. Though I still think that totalitarianism vs authoritarianism is an essential issue, it now occurs to me that the preceding conceptualization, somewhat uncritically adopted from Jeane Kirkpatrick’s account, is misleading or wrong.
Continue reading“Not the Time for Cowardice”
Statement of Sadaf Jaffer in support of a municipal resolution supporting the Immigrant Trust Act, Montgomery (NJ) Town Council, Sept. 4.
Good evening,
As a former mayor and state legislator, I urge you to pass a resolution supporting the Immigrant Trust Act and to do everything in your power to ensure that our state assemblymembers Roy Freiman and Mitchelle Drulis cosponsor it as well. Continue reading
A Challenge to the Union County Board
Statement to the Union County Board of Commissioners
Administration Building
Elizabethtown Plaza
Elizabeth, New Jersey
June 12, 2025
(Temporarily pushed down; will bring it back to the top when I can.)
My name is Irfan Khawaja. I live in Princeton, and work in Iselin.
The Board has voted to auction the Union County Jail to the highest bidder. We all know that the highest bidder is likely to be ICE. So let’s get real: you’ve auctioned it off to ICE. Continue reading
Memo to Joe
Imagine dropping Joe Biden right now in the middle of Gaza, and telling him to find his way to the nearest cancer treatment center. It’d be a long, arduous, circuitous trip, because there isn’t one. Thousands of people don’t have to imagine that. They’ve lived it for the duration of Joe Biden’s presidency, and have lived a version of it ever since the Israelis imposed a blockade on Gaza in 2007, with Joe Biden’s eager acquiescence. In other words, they’ve lived, at Joe’s behest, the Hell that it would universally be thought tasteless to wish on him.
Continue readingThose Corpses in Yemen
Just to state the painfully obvious: The “Signalgate” controversy broke this past Monday, March 24th. It’s now Friday, so five full days have gone by since it began. In five days, I think it’s safe to say that 99.44% of mainstream discussion on this controversy has focused on the Trump Administration’s inappropriately having used Signal to discuss war plans, stupidly having mistakenly put Jeffrey Goldberg on the chat, and then immorally having lied about it. Not even 1% of the remainder has focused on any deeper question of moral substance: Why are we bombing Yemen? Is it justifiable to do so? Continue reading
Hegseth and the Houthis
As usual in American politics, everyone’s talking the Hegseth and the Houthis story to death, but almost no one’s focused on the right part of it. The story, of course, is that Hegseth and Co had planned to bomb Yemen, and did. They discussed their war plans on the Signal app, but accidentally put Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor of The Atlantic, on the chat. That was a gigantic breach of protocol, but Hegseth et al didn’t notice Goldberg’s presence. A big national controversy has now arisen about what to do. Investigate Hegseth? Force him to resign? Prosecute him? Continue reading
Pete Hegseth is (Half) Right
Everywhere one looks, commentators are aghast at Pete Hegseth, Donald Trump’s choice for Secretary of Defense. But as usual when it comes to defense matters, everyone is wasting their energies on the wrong questions. Hegseth has become notorious for his view that women should not play combat roles in the US military. This pointless red herring has now become the centerpiece of opposition to him. How could he believe such a thing? How could he say it? What kind of cretin rejects the universal belief that women should serve in combat roles in the US military? Continue reading
El Pueblo Unido Jamás Será Vencido
I encountered this rally purely by chance tonight at Hinds Plaza in Princeton, focused primarily on migrant rights. Short speeches in English and Spanish, then a quick march from Hinds Plaza to Palmer Square and back. Ran into a handful of Trump supporters who tried to drown us out with an infantile chant, but ignored them, yelled louder, and walked past.
Continue readingREPUBLICAN FREEDOM WITHOUT NON-DOMINATION?
How much of republicanism can we get without making any essential reference to domination? Maybe quite a lot.
First, whatever job the government has, if carrying out this job requires substantial power that is liable to abuse, then part of your political ideal should be republican democracy (and you should be very leery of even putatively ideally benevolent dictators). In particular, you might want a high level of assurance, born in part through moral recognition, that the government or government officials will not behave like the criminals that they are supposed to protect us against (supposing that this, at least, is part of the job that governments have). Just say no to a charter city run by Elon Musk or whatever.
Policy of Truth 