Daily Archives: February 15, 2022

Last nights Super Bowl marked the end of an era and the beginning of a new one. You can focus on the two quarterbacks in the game, following a year that saw the retirements of Ben Roethlisberger and Tom Brady. You can focus on the halftime show and the plethora of ads playing off of nostalgia for late-Gen Xers and Millennials, with artists performing songs that dominated early-aughts radio. I thought it was great. Only the brightest minds saw how it was warping our nations very soul.

Back to the ads: the movies and TV shows being promoted may be streamers, but the formulas are the same and the callbacks are obvious. Remember how you loved The Lord of The Rings 20 years ago? Its back with diverse Hobbits!

Remember Fresh Prince? Its a gritty reboot rated TV-MA!

Remember J. Lo and Ben? There they are again! Can I get a GIGLI 2 chant?

Its hardly irritating, because at this point its so obvious. Awkwafinas ad for Disney+ as having the most Goats was the most friendly wall-breaking acknowledgment of this when she references Bart hassling Woody, shes referencing characters from a show that premiered in 1989 and a movie that premiered in 1995. This is the nostalgia for what is now the largest generation in America you want to share it with your kids now, if youre a mature adult, or complain about the lack of collectible Book of Boba Fett action figures if youre not.

This is all to be expected. There is nothing new under the sun, and Millennial nostalgia is likely to dominate our culture for decades past its end point in ways that Zoomers will complain about using forums Millennials dont even recognize as existing.

But theres a much more important aspect of what we saw going on in the Super Bowl: the Millennials arent just the most sizable generation now in terms of sheer numbers, spending power, and cultural drive. Within the world of sports where, unlike the world of politics, winning actually matters they are in charge.

Last nights game featured two Millennial head coaches facing off against each other, both born in the 1980s. The idea that at age 36, Sean McVay already has a coaching tree may sound ridiculous but he does, and his opposing coach last night is in it. The head coaches of the Vikings, Chargers, Eagles, Falcons, Browns, Packers, Cardinals, Broncos, and 49ers are all elder Millennials, with ages ranging from 36 to 42.

They are the same age as their veteran players. They are young enough that they are now calling play action fakes for players they once did the same with on Madden dynasty mode. This advancement of new blood, even within aged franchises, is one reason why the NFL stays fresh and innovative, why its 2021 season ended with such an amazing run of compelling, competitive games, and why it remains the most dominant sports, television, and common cultural force in America.

Compare this for a moment to the other powerful force in America our decrepit political leadership that has learned nothing and forgotten nothing. The New York Times Jonathan Martin pushed out one of his narrative-setting pieces yesterday, looking at the GOPs Senate recruitment battles, and it contains an interesting insight into how our octogenarian leadership class cant learn new tricks. This same week last year, a similar McConnell-focused piece was in the WSJ, explicitly comparing the current cycle to the Tea Party moment of 2009 and teased weighing into primaries to help ward off what I guess hes calling goofballs these days.

And how is that working out for him? Not well. Not well at all.

For more than a year, former President Donald Trump has berated Gov. Doug Ducey of Arizona, savaging him for refusing to overturn the states presidential results and vowing to oppose him should he run for the Senate this year.

In early December, though, Ducey received a far friendlier message from another former Republican president. At a golf tournament luncheon, George W. Bush encouraged him to run against Sen. Mark Kelly, a Democrat, suggesting the Republican Party needs more figures like Ducey to step forward.

Its something you have to feel a certain sense of humility about, the governor said this month of Bushs appeal. You listen respectfully, and thats what I did.

Bush and a band of anti-Trump Republicans led by Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky are hoping he does more than listen.

As Trump works to retain his hold on the Republican Party, elevating a slate of friendly candidates in midterm elections, McConnell and his allies are quietly, desperately maneuvering to try to thwart him. The loose alliance, which was once thought of as the GOP establishment, for months has been engaged in a high-stakes candidate recruitment campaign, full of phone calls, meetings, polling memos and promises of millions of dollars. Its all aimed at recapturing the Senate majority, but the election also represents what could be Republicans last chance to reverse the spread of Trumpism before it fully consumes their party.

McConnell for years pushed Trumps agenda and only rarely opposed him in public. But the message that he delivers privately now is unsparing, if debatable: Trump is losing political altitude and need not be feared in a primary, he has told Ducey in repeated phone calls, as the Senate leaders lieutenants share polling data they argue proves it.

In conversations with senators and would-be senators, McConnell is blunt about the damage he believes Trump has done to the GOP, according to those who have spoken to him. Privately, he has declared he wont let unelectable goofballs win Republican primaries.

History doesnt bode well for such behind-the-scene efforts to challenge Trump, and McConnells hard sell is so far yielding mixed results. The former president has rallied behind fewer far-right candidates than initially feared by the partys old guard. Yet a handful of formidable contenders have spurned McConnells entreaties, declining to subject themselves to Trumps wrath all for the chance to head to a bitterly divided Washington.

Last week, Gov. Larry Hogan of Maryland announced he would not run for Senate, despite a pressure campaign that involved his wife. Ducey is expected to make a final decision soon, but he has repeatedly said he has little appetite for a bid.

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McConnell has been loath to discuss his recruitment campaign and even less forthcoming about his rivalry with Trump. In an interview last week, he warded off questions about their conflict, avoiding mentioning Trumps name even when it was obvious to whom he was referring.

If Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, who is an outspoken Trump antagonist running for Senate this fall, wins her primary, it will show that endorsements from some people didnt determine the outcome, he said.

Murkowski appears well-positioned at the moment, with over $4 million on hand while her Trump-backed rival, Kelly Tshibaka, has $630,000.

Hes made very clear that youve been there for Alaska, youve been there for the team, and Im going to be there for you, Murkowski said of McConnells message to her.

Even more pointedly, McConnell vowed that if Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, the second-ranking Senate Republican, faces the primary that Trump once promised, Thune will crush whoever runs against him. (The most threatening candidate, Gov. Kristi Noem, has declined.)

The Senate Republican leader has been worried that Trump will tap candidates too weak to win in the general election, the sort of nominees who cost the party control of the Senate in 2010 and 2012.

We changed the business model in 2014 and have not had one of these goofballs nominated since, he told a group of donors on a private conference call last year, according to a recording obtained by The New York Times.

But McConnell has sometimes decided to pick his battles in Georgia, he acceded to Herschel Walker, a former football star and Trump-backed candidate, after failing to recruit Perdue to rejoin the Senate. He also came up empty-handed in New Hampshire, where Gov. Chris Sununu passed on a bid after an aggressive campaign that also included lobbying from Bush.

In Maryland, Hogan was plainly taken with the all-out push to recruit him, although he declined to take on Sen. Chris Van Hollen, a Democrat

McConnell also dispatched Collins and Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah to lobby Gov. Hogan. That campaign culminated last weekend, when Romney called Hogan to vent about the RNCs censure, tell him Senate Republicans needed anti-Trump reinforcements and argue that Hogan could have more of a platform in his effort to remake the party as a sitting senator rather than an ex-governor.

Im very interested in changing the party, and that was the most effective argument, said Hogan, who is believed to be considering a bid for the White House.

The party has changed indeed, and quite obviously so. This crew of Republicans from the past who previously enjoyed relevance are still struggling to grasp how much it has changed.

The situation in Missouri is a good example of this. The three leading candidates vary in how much they are likely to be in favor of a more Trumpian agenda should they end up in the Senate but the idea that any of the three will be McConnell acolytes seems absurd. The decisions in primaries in 2022 are likely to come down to a choice between Trumpian candidates and conservatives who have made peace with his popularity in the party.

McConnells recruiting failures in Maryland, New Hampshire, Georgia, and elsewhere indicate how unwilling he is to adapt to a changing conference, but also how tired his playbook comes across when trying to push politicians to join a Senate under his leadership. Deploying Bush-era figures to convince post-Bush candidates to come in for the big win just wont work, not on potential candidates who actually want a long and relevant future in the party.

This is not an ageist insult. Grand Old dogs can and sometimes do learn new tricks. But it is an insult to anyones intelligence who has been following politics for the past decade to think that we are going back to the old ways of doing things. The Republican Party of old has passed in and out of rigor mortis. It cannot be raised from the dead.

The sooner its leadership is filled with new blood who reflect this fact, the sooner it will have an impact on the nation that actually lines up with the priorities of the people who put them there. And the political risk in failing to do this is far higher than McConnell seems to think.

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In 2022, The Torch Will Be Passed Whether You Like It Or Not - The Federalist

The Biden administration has been steadily ratcheting up its abuse of power to attack political enemies and criminalize dissent. The egregious overcharging and heinous treatment of January 6 detainees in the DC gulag is one painful example. But its making even more dangerous moves toward creating thought police. And they are bold enough to announce it publicly.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security released a National Terrorism Advisory Bulletin on Feb. 7, 2022 that outlined their thought crime agenda. It states, The United States remains in a heightened threat environment fueled by several factors, including an online environment filled with false or misleading narratives and conspiracy theories, and other forms ofmis- dis- and mal-information(MDM).

False or misleading narratives could very well be used to describe the entire programming schedule of CNN and MSNBC. They even have a TLA (three-letter acronym) for the problem, so you know were deep into a bad government solution.

The desire to control what people watch, hear, read and eventually think is deeply embedded in the lefts playbook. They have been at this for generations, but recently have succeeded to the point they are comfortable just saying it outright. They have convinced 40 percent of millennials that hate speech is not protected by the First Amendment. The trick now is linking speech they want to shut down to terrorism.

They did that very effectively after the January 6, 2021 riot. They took a political protest that spiraled out of control and labeled it an insurrection or a coup. Then they began to spread that beyond the small number who committed any violence to the vastly larger who peacefully protested. Now they are roping in anyone who supported investigating the election results in any way.

Then they added weak charges of seditious conspiracy for some of the rioters. This ignored the fact that their own indictments showed the conspiracy they found was not to overthrow the government or even the election. It was to have a Quick Reaction Force (QRF) across the river from DC in case Antifa attacked or the unlikely event President Trump himself invoked the Insurrection Act and asked for assistance.

The hysterically named Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the US Capitol is working feverishly to spin all of this into a web. They are unlikely to succeed because all available evidence so far appears to show no actual conspiracy to conduct an attack on the U.S. Capitol.

But the situation has huge usefulness to the Biden administration. It gave them a way to smear large numbers of their political opponents as seditionists, coup plotters, insurrectionists and the big prize, terrorists. That is precisely what theyre aiming at with this new threat document.

The primary terrorism-related threat to the United States continues to stem from lone offenders or small cells of individuals who are motivated by a range of foreign and/or domestic grievances often cultivated through the consumption of certain online content, the document states.

They make their goal of speech control perfectly clear by specifying the consumption of certain online content. What is stunning is their unashamed belief that policing this falls withing their purview. It seems to call for an agency focused on ensuring that only online content the government feels is legitimate is alloweda Ministry of Truth, if you will.

The agency gets even more specific: There is widespread online proliferation of false or misleading narratives regarding unsubstantiated widespread election fraud and COVID-19. Grievances associated with these themes inspired violent extremist attacks during 2021.

Aha, there it is. Those right-wing extremists are at it again. And pay close attention to the phrasing inspired violent extremist attacks. That is a direct path to incited violent extremist attacks and to material support for terrorism. That is how they will criminalize speech they dislike.

Currently, this only applies to foreign terror organizations. But at this pace it wont be long until they extend that to domestic groups.

That fits right in with their earlier National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism from June 2021, which is directed at designating political opponents of the left into that category. They explicitly tie their social engineering agenda to this new threat: This approach must apply to our efforts to counter domestic terrorism by addressing underlying racism and bigotry.

Anyone who is not fully on board with the lefts agenda on those topics is part of the problem, and that means you are supporting the domestic terrorists. The Biden administration also foreshadowed the thought policing by announcing they were deputizing the tech tyrants in this noble cause. Jen Psaki admitted from the podium that the administration tells Facebook what posts to censor.

They have now bragged they are using state power paired with private efforts to push a political agenda. This level of coordination calls into question the legality of having the social media sites act to censor things the government cannot. That is forbidden, but it remains now for a case to be made that Facebook, Twitter, and the rest are acting as agents of the government.

The censorship is bad, but this is really social engineering using the threat of a jackboot on your neck or a trip to the gulag as the motivation to comply. That was why they needed the additional terror multiplier.

We must resist and push back the ever-growing abuse of power in this country. If they succeed in criminalizing dissent, the left will have a clear path to the statist paradise they so deeply desire. The next elections must bring people to Washington deeply committed to rooting this out. That can begin with a new Congress writing budget instructions forbidding a single dime be spent on this anti-constitutional garbage.

A republic, if you can keep it was Benjamin Franklins worry. This is exactly what he meant. Time to do some of that We the People stuff and shut this down.

Jim Hanson is president of Security Studies Group and served in U.S. Army Special Forces.

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Biden's Homeland Security Announces It Will Investigate Thought Crimes - The Federalist

Trust in corporate media is at an all-time low, but too many Americans still believe the corrupt press even though they are characterized by lying for political gain.

A new poll from The Federalist and Susquehanna Polling & Research out on Friday found that at least 75 percent of American voters rightfully dont trust the corrupt press because outlets mispresentthefactstopushapoliticalagenda. According to the same poll, 15 percent of likely voters still do believe the corporate media tells the truth when communicating news to its readers and viewers.

Fake news outlets have given the people zero reasons to believe they have Americans best interests at heart so why isnt trust in corporate media even lower?

For years, media outlets staffed by leftists and pedophiles have used their influence to change political tides in their favor. Corporate media outlets such as CNN, MSNBC, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, and more have proven they exist to serve Democrats. Their sleazy attempts to craft false narratives became extra apparent during the 2016 election cycle when then-candidate Donald Trump gained popularity for calling out the fake news media.

Trump was one of the few 2016 candidates willing to criticizethe companies that 58 percent of Americans say have become the enemy of the people, and for his boldness, the media slandered him. For years, corporate media reporters and pundits who knew better helped craft and amplify the Russian collusion hoax in hopes that they could shift the nations affinity for Trump toward their preferred candidate. When word got out that their precious Steele dossier was bogus, the corrupt press did not recant their abhorrent coverage but doubled down on it.

During Trumps presidency, the corporate media relentlessly lied about what he said, what he did, his allies, and his Supreme Court nominees, even going so far as to spread conspiracy theories about whether the Republican used a digital background in a video addressing Americans following his bout with Covid-19.

While the corporate media readily smear and lie about conservatives and Trump, they worship the ground Democrats walk on. When President Joe Biden assumed office in January of 2021, the corrupt press tripped over each other to offer him resounding praise, glowing profiles, and fluffy coverage featuring fun facts about his favorite ice cream flavors.

Even before the 2020 election, multiple outlets ran interference for the Biden campaign by repeatedly refusing to cover the Hunter Biden laptop scandal because, in their eyes, it doesnt amount to much. When Big Tech also censored the major New York Post story that had the potential to change voters minds about casting a ballot for Biden, these same media outlets pumped out defenses of the digital nuking.

In just the last two years, corporate media downplayed the destruction and violence caused by rioters during the 2020 summer of rage, misrepresented the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, cheered on fake fact-checks attempting to silence discussions about election integrity and the Wuhan lab leak theory, which most Americans believe, fearmongered about the coronavirus, and covered up the sins of its own pundits and their kin.

When Americans complained about inflation and the supply-chain crisis, corporate media published articles demanding that citizens stop shopping. When Americans in southern states expressed worry about the surging number of border apprehensions thanks to Bidens crisis, the Democrat media tried to distract them with a fake whipping story.

Its alarming that 15 percent of American voters still trust the propagandists who run the corrupt press. Fake news outlets dont care that their work is sloppy because their objective isnt spreading the truth. Its controlling the narrative and maintaining power.

Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and co-producer of The Federalist Radio Hour. Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire and Fox News. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @jordangdavidson.

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Why Do 15% Of Voters Still Believe Corporate Media Tells The Truth? - The Federalist

After the embarrassment of the Freedom Convoy, Canadas Justin Trudeau is facing a new challenge to his authority. This time, its coming from within his own party.

For the last two weeks, more than 1,000 truck drivers have converged on Canadas capital, Ottawa, to protest the countrys coronavirus restrictions. Their movement, dubbed the Freedom Convoy, is demanding an end to the countrys strict vaccine and mask mandates for travel across the U.S.-Canada Border, or Trudeaus resignation as prime minister.

Initially, Trudeau dismissed the group as a fringe minority that didnt represent the views of Canadians. Since it began, however, the protest has attracted more than 10,000 participants and gained global attention as a flashpoint in the civil divide over pandemic restrictions.

It has inspired another planned truck convoy in the United States, from California to Washington D.C., as well as other protests in solidarity around the world. Another group of truckers have blocked traffic on the Ambassador Bridge connecting Detroit, Michigan with Windsor, Canada the largest port of cross-border trade costing Canadas economy more than $300 million per day.

Opinions of the protest have been sharply divided along political lines, especially in the United States. While corporate media outlets have been quick to side with the Canadian government, calling it a cult and insurrection, conservative politicians and commentators have endorsed the protest. Four GOP state attorneys-general in Florida, Texas, West Virginia, and Louisiana have vowed to investigate crowdfunding website GoFundMe for shutting down a fundraiser for the truckers that raised $7.5 Million.

It now seems that Trudeau is losing the left, as well. In the last two days, members of Canadas parliament in Trudeaus Liberal Party caucus have criticized his mask and vaccine mandates.

Joel Lightbound, an MP from the politically important province of Quebec, slammed the government for politicization of the pandemic and normalizing [Covid measures] with no end in sight. In a speech on the Freedom Convoy implicitly challenging Trudeau, he claimed no epidemiological evidence had been provided in support of the measures and demanded a timeline to end all mask and vaccine mandates.

The next day, another Liberal MP, Yves Robillard, endorsed the speech, claiming He said exactly what a lot of us [in the caucus] think, and saying Canadas Covid mandates had affected his mental health.

These comments are a political earthquake for Trudeau. While in the United States members of Congress often dissent from their leadership, Canadas parliamentary government means party discipline is rigid. Backbench MPs usually never break with the prime minister on any issue, and risk expulsion from the party (and loss of their seats next election) if they do. That even two MPs from Trudeaus party would criticize him openly is unprecedented, revealing that opinion is souring on his leadership during Covid-19 and response to the protests.

Moreover, if Robillards comments are to be believed, several other Liberal MPs may share these views. In Canadas parliament, where Trudeau has a minority, this could set the stage for a challenge to his premiership if more support is forthcoming, with the Liberal caucus or parliament as a whole, voting to reject confidence in Trudeaus government.

Success of either measure would remove Trudeau as prime minister, one of the Freedom Convoys objectives. It would also likely plunge Canada into a general election, the second within five months after the last one in 2021.

All this comes as the opposition Conservative Party faces its own leadership race after former leader Erin OToole was ousted from his job because of the Freedom Convoy. OToole, a center-right politician with liberal positions on vaccines and masks, had been reluctant to support the protests, which angered his caucus and led to his swift removal by a vote of MPs last week.

Ottawa-area Conservative Pierre Poilievre known for his social media clips of verbal jousting with Trudeau in parliament is the frontrunner in the race to replace him, and has openly embraced the protesters. These events demonstrate that the Freedom Convoy is beginning to impact mainstream politics across North America.

More than one dozen U.S. states, and four of Canadas ten provinces, this week announced timelines to end most Covid regulations within the next month. Meanwhile, the Freedom Convoy continues to garner donations. After its removal from GoFundMe, it has raised nearly $9 million on the Christian crowdfunding website GiveSendGo.

Arjun Singh is a freelance writer in Ontario, Canada.

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Freedom Convoy To End Covid Tyranny Is Getting Results Worldwide - The Federalist

Stuck in a rut. Caught in the rat race. Our culture has a variety of ways of describing the feeling, each hoping to encapsulate a sense of frustration at a monotonous, fruitless, often urban lifestyle that leaves people feeling trapped, irredeemably beholden to a way of life that doesnt satisfy their sense of purpose.

Even worse, the feeling is a natural response to a society that so often sacrifices the values that give life meaning for an unrelenting insistence on efficiency, hence why this is so acutely felt in our urban economic centers. This demand inevitably erodes the finer local and regional peculiarities that give a community character and a distinct identity. It seems that quietly accepting the monotony of modernity is assumed to be a critical aspect of maturing. Sometimes this monotony is imposed from the top down.

Consider one of big businesses oft ignored crimes against society; the soulless art frequently featured in their ads, often derisively referred to as corporate flat art, corporate Memphis, or even Big Tech Art. Its everywhere, from The New York Times to Facebookto the popular dating app Hinge.Its visible in The New Yorker, YouTube, the World Health Organization, the United Nations, and a litany of other organizations and companies.

When I queued up music and sat down to write this, I was bombarded with an ugly array of gangly armed flat people telling me that Google Fi is a phone plan that can.Im even personally haunted by the specter of flat art whenever I enter my universitys gym.

This unsettling ubiquity has given rise to a subredditthats dubbed it globohomo art, an abbreviation of global homogenization. Commenters condemn it as a stylemostly used by large companies and sociopolitical organizations that push for a globalized and homogenized society devoid of social and cultural identity. While its widespread use and sheer ugliness has opened it to criticism and mockery, its struck a chord not simply for what it looks like, but for what it represents.

It might seem strange to dedicate any time to discusssing ads that are often witnessed only momentarily in hastily skipped YouTube shorts or swiftly dismissed in unsolicited pop-ups. But while their presence in our life is often fleeting, the style embodies a widespread cultural malaise that is anything but.

Daily routines can become suffocating. Our natural desire for adventure is off-shored to superhero movies or Star Wars films, each of which seems to blur into the next. Empty hookups and pornographyare presented as alternatives to genuine connection.Even exciting but ultimately fruitless escapism, be it a weekly bout of intoxication or Sundays big game, is permitted on a consistent schedule.

Its not the timing thats the problem per se life has to be organized. Its thatthe lack of spontaneity only exacerbates monotony increasingly punctuated only by consumer-oriented alternatives to genuine sources of meaning.Its emblematic of an outlook that views people as consumers, communities as economic zones, and our nation as a global shopping mall.

The style itself, just like much of our glass, concrete, and steel modern architecture, is evidence of our emphasis on hyper-efficient mass production and demand for utility. The buildings look just as at home in Tempe as they would in Tokyo, which is to say their sought-after universality has prevented them from having any true home at all.To the extent this art expresses anything, it reeks of a disingenuous, oppressive contentment, existing solely to smoothen the rougher edges of a sales pitch.

In vain, these flat people endeavor to provide a vaguely human touch to a plea for you to consume another product. Their artificiality remains whether they are advertising a phone plan that can, a New York Times account, or the latest subscription service so you can watch social justice inspired remakes while you and your Tinder hook-up share a microfinanced Papa Johns pizza. In their attempt to humanize this consumerist malaise, the flat people have become the subjects of scorn, properly noted as the avatars of the chronic commodification and dehumanization that stems from our obsession with efficiency.

Despite the criticism, the style does have a redeeming quality. Its honest. In order to maximize profit, global corporations have developed an overarching impulse; to relentlessly homogenize our world. Flat art is simply an embodiment of this proclivity.

I recall driving with my dad through his hometown as a kid. Each trip was dotted with stories of his childhood. He would tell of the mom and pop toy store he used to ride his bike to just across the railroad tracks and of the apricot orchards hed run through with his friends.The toy store had gone out of business long ago. The rows of apricot trees had been paved over, displaced by rows of cookie cutter apartment complexes.

Although he could drive just down the road to his old neighborhood, my dad could never go home. The little details that make a home had been erased, in part by chain stores all too eager to sacrifice local culture and the beauty that comes with it for profit maximization.

At the time, I was oblivious to the fact that this phenomenon wasnt unique to my dads hometown, thatlocal cultures across the country were being strip-mined to make way for strip malls.This process was only accelerated during lockdowns, when mom and pop shops closed while the Walmarts and Targets stayed open and Blackrock began snapping up neighborhoods.

After all, why allow a family-run Italian pizzeria to flourish when Roundtable can buy it out and copy and paste their business form from one town to the next? Why create new art when you can just copy and paste the same green man with lanky limbs from one display to the next? Why invest in beauty when you wont make a financial return, or in distinct cultural identities when theyll only impede the spread of chain stores and corporate hegemonies?

There are higher virtues above efficiency and transferability, and value cant just be measured in dollars and cents. Communal fulfillment requires more than Chinese-produced trinkets or fast food from the open-24-hours McDonalds that replaced Guss Deli. Communities need identity and people need genuine sources of meaning, not just cheap substitutes.As Roger Scruton so brilliantly articulated, we need beauty.

With our neo-liberal ruling class inextricably aligned with the corporate world and big finance, our political realignment gives the right an exhilarating opportunity; a chance to be the vanguard of a romantic approach to public life.Isnt this exactly what so many unconsciously clamor for every time they engage in their preferred vector of escapism and try to dodge the oppressive homogeneity that has made everywhere familiar, but nowhere home?

Any political project that intends to affirm the dignity of local cultures or the virtue of beauty can only do so by subjugating the influence of corporate conformity beneath the natural human desires for aesthetic beauty and communal self ownership. President Trumps mandate for a revival of classical architecture was a step in the right direction, although it was swiftly revoked by Biden. Other tangible steps must be discussed by city planners, architects, artists, policy makers, and communities themselves.

What we do know however, is that this imposition of standardized soullessness will prove too suffocating to tolerate, and more importantly, that beauty can only be defended when we cultivate a healthy disdain for the willful ugliness that characterizes so much of our public life.

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Corporate Flat Art Proves Big Business Is Infatuated With Ugliness - The Federalist

On a hot, cloudless spring afternoon on May 30, 1922, nearly 50,000 people assembled to witness the dedication ceremony of the Lincoln Memorial. Modeled after a Greek temple, the beautiful edifice was constructed with Colorado Yule marble and Indiana limestone with an immense Olympian-like statue of a tired Abraham Lincoln in a Roman-like chair. The distinguished audience included President Warren G. Harding, his cabinet secretaries, the justices of the Supreme Court, and the members of the memorial commission.

Fast-forward nearly 100 years to self-anointed moral guardians defacing a statue of Lincoln in San Francisco and woke students at the University of Wisconsin demanding the immediate removal of the one on their campus. Why has one of our most venerated leaders become the latest target of this puritanical mobocracy?

As we prepare to celebrate the centennial anniversary of our famous historical marker, it is illuminating and instructive to compare contemporary critiques with how Lincoln was regarded during his time. It says much about the failure of our education system to teach young people how to understand the past.

In his keynote address, Harding maintained that Lincolns greatness stemmed primarily from his devotion to the union and its preservation. It gratified him to dedicate this superb monument to the savior of the republic. Chief Justice William H. Taft dubbed it a sacred religious refuge in which those who love country and love God can find inspiration and repose.

Another high-profile speaker was Robert Russa Moton, president of Tuskegee University. Shamefully, his audience was segregated, with African-Americans shunted off to the side. Equally disgraceful was the Lincoln Memorial Commissions censorship of his remarks.

In his original draft, Moton warned that this memorial which we erect in token of our veneration is but a hollow mockery, a symbol of hypocrisy, unless we together can make it real in our national life, in every state, and in every section, for the things which he died. Moton thereby challenged the nation to live up to Lincolns ideals lest the monument become a hollow vessel devoid of transcendent meaning.

Such brazen rhetoric was too much for Taft, especially for the dedication of a memorial in what was largely still a southern city. Moton had little choice but to comply, and the speech was revised for him. Gone were the condemnations of racism and its attendant poverty and hopelessness, replaced by praise for Lincoln as the healer and uniter and for the South and its role in sectional healing. One can scarcely imagine the gall Moton must have felt in having to praise a region then steeped in Jim Crow laws.

Why did Moton cave into such humiliating demands? He, like Lincoln, had to navigate through a perilous era. For African Americans, particularly in the South, the 1920s were the proverbial worst of times. One year before the Lincoln Memorial was dedicated was the infamous Tulsa race riot. Lynchings were still occurring throughout the region, and the majority of African Americans were relegated to sharecropping and menial jobs while also being disfranchised from the political system.

Yet Moton did not give in to despondency, instead declaring that black men and women were proud of their American citizenship. He movingly quoted from Lincolns Second Inaugural Let us, therefore, with malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right: as God gives us to see the right then added let us strive on to finish the work which he so nobly began, to make America the symbol for equal justice and equal opportunity to despair.

In other words, Moton did not give up on Lincoln or his memorial. As Martin Luther King Jr. would do a half-century later, he beseeched Americans to live up to the ideals and aspirations of the 16th president. The memorial could thus serve as inspiration to exhort white Americans to follow, in Lincolns famous words, the better angels of our nature.

Modern critics of Lincoln seem less able to adopt a nuanced view of Lincoln or to consider the historical milieu in which he operated. The social justice warriors in San Francisco and at the University of Wisconsin specifically cited the 1862 Dakota Uprising, after which Lincoln approved the hanging of 38 Native Americans by the U.S. Army.

As one activist wrote on social media: It has to do with his role in the largest mass execution in US History. A story we were not taught in high school. Sadly, what students are also not often taught is that history is frequently messy, complicated, and complex with few, if any, characters in proverbial black and white hats. Such nuances are not effectively distilled into Twitter posts.

In fact, the Dakota Uprising provides an illuminating example of why a reevaluation of Lincoln or any figure, for that matter requires historical context. Lincoln faced relentless pressure on multiple fronts to rubber-stamp the execution of 303 Dakota Native Americans. Settlers sent multiple warnings they were prepared to not only kill the men but also women and children.

Minnesota Gov. Alexander Ramsey affirmed that private revenge on the border would occur if the death sentences were not carried out. Lincolns own Republican-controlled Senate, with the 1862 elections looming, passed a resolution calling for him to approve the executions.

Lincoln had to make this judgment during the midst of the Civil War when it was going poorly for the Union. He had also recently lost his 11-year old son, Willie, to typhoid fever. Nevertheless, Lincoln and his assistants expended precious time to assiduously review the transcripts.

In the end, Lincoln commuted 265 of the sentences. Writing to the Senate, he justified his decision by making a distinction between Native Americans who participated in massacres and those who engaged in battles. His riposte to Senate pressure was: I could not hang men for votes.

Lincolns final verdict reminds us of the often tragic nature of history. Leaders often face dilemmas in which no good alternatives exist. Choices that seem so obviously crystal clear to us from the perspective of our more comfortable 21st-century lives were murky for Lincoln, who was simultaneously confronting an existential threat to the republic.

Memorials invite us to imagine and wonder about the worlds that great men and women inhabited, as well as their life-and-death decisions at hazy and potentially deadly turns in the road. As we prepare to celebrate the centennial of the Lincoln Memorial, let us remember that the man it commemorates succumbed to heartache, indecision, and second-guessing, yet transcended them to envision a nation with a new birth of freedom.

Like Moton, Lincoln did not allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good. Let us view the Lincoln Memorial not as a tomb to a flawless individual (a notion the self-deprecating Lincoln would assuredly have ridiculed), but as a step in Americans ceaseless quest for self-correction and expanding liberty.

Danton Kostandarithes earned a bachelor of the arts degree in classical culture from the University of Georgia and a master's and Ph.D. in U.S. history from Tulane. He currently teaches high school history in Jacksonville, Florida.

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Why Abraham Lincoln Still Towers Over His Critics - The Federalist

The first time I watched the classic 90s film Youve Got Mail with one of my gal pals, I was shocked.

For years, I heard my girlfriends rave about the movies picturesque plot, dreamy bookstores, and darling main characters who eventually fall in love. After watching the film, however, I discovered that a movie that was marketed to me as a staple romantic drama was actually a twisted story of broken relationships and unchecked desires.

Youve Got Mail glorifies emotional cheating. From the beginning of the film, characters Kathleen Kelly and Joe Fox sneak around behind computer screens to get more online chatting time with each other. As much as I adore a good bookstore rivalry, the characters relationship with each other is quite literally built on lies.

With Valentines Day fast approaching, plenty of media outlets are suggesting movies that dont just document infidelity but laud it. At the top of almost every list is The Notebook, a film that, while renowned, is centered on a relationship that characters repeatedly return to despite their commitments to others.

Other fan favorites that excuse disloyalty in the name of true love include Me Before You, Titanic, Love, Actually, Sleepless in Seattle, Letters to Juliet, and more. Even one of my once-favorite romantic comedies, While You Were Sleeping, depicts the beginning of a relationship that was based on falsehoods.

Theres also a long list of TV shows such as Sex and The City, Friends, and The Office that are also guilty of endorsing unfaithful behavior so the characters can supposedly find the love and happiness they think they deserve. But is love true if its built on lies?

The message at the end of these films and shows always seems to be the same: It doesnt matter how you fell in love. It doesnt matter whom you ditched to be with another person. In these types of stories, the end always seems to justify the means.

But does it? There are plenty of studies indicating that infidelity is not all it is chalked up to be. Cheating in any form, including emotional cheating, is one of the top reasons spouses file for divorce. It is bad for physical and mental health, can cause long-term psychological effects, wreck homes, leave children feeling betrayed and traumatized, and hurt work performance.

Overall, cheating is bad for people and bad for society. It hurts souls, destroys relationships, and leaves people feeling wounded.

A nation already struggling with rampant hookup culture, declining marriages, falling birth rates, and no baby booms in sight doesnt need to encourage people to violate their relational commitments. It needs to encourage true love based on trust, loyalty, devotion, and faithfulness. It needs people to get married, start families, and raise them with moral values and religion that automatically decrease their chances of cheating in a relationship.

Despite these negative effects, disloyalty in relationships is constantly romanticized by Hollywood and others who have influence in cultural mediums such as movies and TV. Chances are, Hollywood wont stop pumping out disgusting content that promotes immoral lifestyles. You, however, can stop engaging and endorsing that content by watching it.

When your spouse, boyfriend, or friends suggest a romantic-themed movie night in honor of Valentines Day, steer clear of the classic yet problematic films that can affect your thinking and actions in relationships.

Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and co-producer of The Federalist Radio Hour. Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire and Fox News. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @jordangdavidson.

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Infidelity Is Bad For Society And You. Why Do We Keep Romanticizing It? - The Federalist