ArcaMax

This week, Paul Krugman of The New York Times posited a theory: Red states cause depression and suicide. In a column titled "America's Red State Death Trip," Krugman wrote: "In 1990, today's red and blue states had almost the same life expectancy. Since then, however, life expectancy in Clinton states has risen more or less in line with other ...Read more

This week, South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, who has risen to the top of the heap in early Democratic presidential primary polling in Iowa and New Hampshire, came under serious sustained attack for the first time in his candidacy. Buttigieg's early candidacy gained credibility thanks to the moderation he displayed compared with other ...Read more

This week, Chick-fil-A, the immensely popular Christian-owned chicken sandwich giant, caved to the cultural left. For years, the left targeted Chick-fil-A, dating back to the 2012 revelation that Chairman and CEO Dan Cathy supports traditional marriage -- and, horror of horrors, that charities given donations by Chick-fil-A support traditional ...Read more

This week, The Atlantic released its newest issue, provocatively titled "How to Stop a Civil War." Leading its collection of essays is a fascinating piece by Yoni Applebaum. In it, Applebaum posits that at the crux of America's vitriolic politics lies demographic change: "The United States is undergoing a transition perhaps no rich and stable ...Read more

This has been an awful week for the purported new 2020 Democratic presidential front-runner, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass. For months, Warren has received nearly unmitigated praise from the media for her bevy of "plans." She's been praised as "wonkish" and "brainy" and "focused." Her growth in the polls has been the dual result of a strong ...Read more

This week, four of the top candidates for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination -- Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar, Julian Castro and Bernie Sanders -- gathered at the J Street Conference to explain why the United States ought to pressure the state of Israel to make concessions to terrorists, why the Obama administration was correct to ...Read more

In the Bible, the people of Babel unite in fighting God; they decide to build a massive tower to challenge God's supremacy. God, annoyed by their presumption, promptly causes them to speak a variety of tongues, dividing them and ending the foolhardy project.

The story represents a simple truth: unity relies, at least in large part, on shared ...Read more

Failing Democratic presidential candidate Beto O'Rourke is raging against the dying of his political light. Desperate and alone, his campaign on the precipice of collapse, Beto has banked on one policy: radical honesty. And that means he is now saying the quiet part of the progressive agenda out loud. This is a candidate who openly claims he'll ...Read more

In recent years, the NBA has become famously political. During the heyday of the Black Lives Matter movement, the NBA permitted players to wear slogan-printed T-shirts in support, and stars like LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Paul spoke out loudly on the issue. The Sacramento Kings actually announced a partnership with the local branch of...Read more

President Trump is a bull in a china shop. He says inadvisable things to inadvisable people, mainly because he is inadvisable -- literally no one can advise him. The vast majority of things Trump says are ignored or brushed off by those who understand the difference between bloviation and manipulation. Still, Trump's constant stream of noise can...Read more

In July, Adam Grant, organizational psychologist at Wharton Business School, tweeted: "Agendas aren't driven by problems. They're driven by solutions. Calling out what's wrong without proposing ways to make it right is complaining."

This week, complaining was the order of the day.

The complaining was largely done by enthusiastic minors, to ...Read more

Last week, Democrats held their first true presidential debate. With the field winnowed down to 10 candidates -- three of them actual contenders for the nomination -- only one moment truly stood out. That moment came not from Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders but from a candidate desperate for attention: Beto O'Rourke.

O'Rourke ...Read more