Chesapeake Observer

An Invitation

January 19, 2021

Though we enjoy writing about topics that interest us and on which we have some knowledge, it was never our goal to include only our own voices in this journal. Once again, we invite readers to submit to us articles on topics of current interest that have important implications for the future. ... Read More

Thinking About Things: What Will They Do Without Trump to Bash?

January 5, 2021

First of all, good riddance to 2020 and welcome 2021! Second, no year is off to a proper start without a look back at the prior year through the memorable eyes and hilarious brain of Dave Barry. However bad 2020 was, his review of it is enough to bring laughing tears to the eyes of left and right alike. Indeed, he is one of the few people left in the world who can skewer everyone with a light touch and not seem generally, well, hateful - without that special malice which seems to so afflict the left. His column is here, sadly behind the Washington Post paywall for some. Dave Barry’s 2020. Third, I have been wondering what all those reporters, their staffs, the editors, OpEd writers, late-night comedians, Big Tech, the universities and their academic apparatchiks, sonorous and not so sonorous voices on public and private radio, and the rest of the center left will do once the curtain finally falls on the remnants of the Trump administration. Certainly, the New York Times writers seem as energetic as ever - even just yesterday exclaiming about the “lack of decency” in the country, especially that part of it that might have supported any aspect of the Trump administration. Republicans: Traitors to Democracy and Profiles in Cowardice. So much for healing and unity. The Grey Lady seems bent on vengeance, like Madame Defarge but without the knitting. ... Read More

Worth Reading

JDQB:

Last weekend’s Wall Street Journal Interview was a highly favorable summary and review of Philip Howard’s new book Public Unions vs. The People. I had not appreciated that all presidents, even the sainted FDR, opposed public unions until JFK legislated them into existence supposedly “as a payback for union support.”. The book’s author, a lawyer, has concluded that the public union problem has become so entrenched that it cannot be solved politically, but must be attacked through the courts as an unconstitutional limitation on the executive power to terminate employees, a proposition that has strong constitutional precedent. A link is here (paywall). I was persuaded to buy the book.

I am new to Mark Halperin, who puts out a daily email called Wide World of News. On Saturday he did a short piece on Trump’s nearly two-hour stemwinder at the annual Conservative Political Action Committee CPAC conference. Then on Sunday he did an equally short piece critiquing DeSantis’ performance in his first “major” speech, which was at the Reagan Center. The former is The Trump Machine Hums at CPAC . and the latter is Is That All There Is?. Spoiler alert: he thinks Trump did way better than expected and that DeSantis did worse than expected.

WDM:

I urge readers to ignore the title and skim through the insider-only story of the Intellectual Dark Web to get to Christopher Rufo's perceptive discussion of the need for conservatives to get beyond writing polemics about CRT and gender ideology and get down to political action. One of his points, in bare bones, is that public school curricula are and always have been set by government bureaucrats, the political bodies that appoint them, and the voters that elect them. Conservatives should not therefore be deterred by accusations of "banning books" from electing their own to run the schools and revise the curricula. The other is that those who care about these issues have no choice but to work to take over the Republican party, as there is no other route to electoral success.