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1 month ago | 
providencemag.com | Jeffery Tyler Syck |James Diddams
The last decade has seen the political establishment – whether the neoliberal left or the Reaganite right – in a state of total bewilderment. Since the ascendency of the populist right in the form of Donald Trump and the populist left, epitomized by Bernie Sanders and his supporters, center-left and right politicians cannot get a handle on what they are missing.
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Dec 11, 2024 | 
lawliberty.org | Tyler Syck |Jeffery Tyler Syck |Rachel Lu |Mark Pulliam
Elections do not tell us very much in the normal course of events. The wins and losses of American parties hinge on a variety of shockingly ephemeral factors: candidate quality, the state of the economy, national mood, etc. The result is that most elections amount to a response to a temporary set of circumstances that no more reveal true shifts in the popular mood of the nation than an hour scrolling X.
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Dec 9, 2024 | 
providencemag.com | Jeffery Tyler Syck |James Diddams
In less than ten years, China’s nationalized healthcare system has killed over fifty thousand people through peaceful, lethal, injection. These deaths are not random but befall those who have become a burden upon society – the poor, terminally ill, and clinically depressed. The Chinese rationalize these policies according to the belief that these individuals have nothing else to contribute to civilization.
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Nov 6, 2024 | 
providencemag.com | Jeffery Tyler Syck
A common line of rhetoric, at least for as long as participatory democracy has pervaded the West, is that politics is a nasty and cruel thing and so engagement in politics inevitably makes us nasty and cruel people. This view is so commonplace that I imagine each and every one of us, particularly those who study or work in politics, hear it at least a couple of times a week – from our friends, relatives, and neighbors.
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Jul 1, 2024 | 
lawliberty.org | Michael Wear |Jeffery Tyler Syck |Tyler Syck |Richard Samuelson
It is evident to anyone watching the news that our political climate is consumed with fractious, hyper-polarized, gamesmanship. To put it simply, our government resembles less and less the orderly debating society envisioned by the Constitution, and more and more some sort of blood sport—everybody has a team, they cannot fathom the other team having any redeeming qualities, and all the onlookers are howling for the slaughter to start.
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Jun 27, 2024 | 
providencemag.com | Jeffery Tyler Syck
Since 2017, French President Emmanuel Macron has been the de facto leader of the Western liberal democracies. By comparison, Trump is too nationalist, Biden too old, British politics have been too turbulent, Trudeau is too vapid, and Scholz too pliable. However, Macron’s prominence in the international community is more than leadership by default.
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May 6, 2024 | 
courier-journal.com | Jeffery Tyler Syck
As hard as it is to believe, 30 years ago Kentucky was a swing state. Not just a swing state but a bell weather state—we had a well-established reputation for backing the man who would go on to win the presidency. Likewise, our Senate and congressional races were almost always fiercely competitive. Nowadays Kentucky is a ruby red state. We have not voted for a Democratic president since Bill Clinton and the GOP has super majorities in both chambers of the General Assembly.
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Apr 9, 2024 | 
providencemag.com | Jeffery Tyler Syck
Few figures in American history have had as distinguished a political career as Henry Clay. First elected to office in 1803 as a member of the Kentucky state legislature, his career ended in 1851 when he died as a sitting member of the United States Senate. In his near half-century of public service, he also served as Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, Secretary of State, founder of a new political party, and a three-time candidate for the presidency.
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Feb 7, 2024 | 
providencemag.com | Jeffery Tyler Syck
By and large inaugural addresses tend to be dull affairs. Few remember their general content and fewer can quote them from memory. Those inaugural addresses we do remember tend to rally the American people around a vision for the nation carefully calibrated to resolve the crisis of the age – think of Lincoln’s dour ruminations on the origins of war or Franklin Roosevelt’s bold defiance in the face of economic hardship.
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Oct 4, 2023 | 
providencemag.com | Jeffery Tyler Syck
When the interpretation of history becomes divorced from the facts of history, a frightening set of political prescriptions capable of upending society are likely to follow. Samuel Moyn’s recently published Liberalism Against Itself is one such case; a historiographical recasting that fails to engage with the subjects of its critique. His work is a harsh attack on the skeptical moderation of Cold War liberalism and a paean of praise for revolutionary utopianism.
