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Oct 13, 2023 | 
americanpurpose.com | Peter Hefele |Gary Schmitt |John J. DiIulio
The three frontrunners for the GOP presidential nomination have declared war on “the deep state,” also styled as “the administrative state.” Former President Donald Trump has vowed that if returned to office he will strip federal employees of their civil service protections and “shatter the deep state.” Meanwhile, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has warned the “bureaucracy” and its “deep state people” that on day one of a DeSantis presidency he’d “start slitting throats and be ready to go.” And...
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Oct 11, 2023 | 
americanpurpose.com | Peter Hefele |Gary Schmitt |Richard Aldous
Does the ability to produce great art depend upon living in a free country? For a time the rhetoric emanating from the United States—including from President John F. Kennedy himself—suggested it did. Classical music expert Joseph Horowitz delves into the sources of this Cold War-era hyperbole in his new book, The Propaganda of Freedom: JFK, Shostakovich, Stravinsky, and the Cultural Cold War. He joins host Richard Aldous to discuss Soviet-era cultural achievements, cultural diplomacy, and more.
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Oct 11, 2023 | 
americanpurpose.com | Peter Hefele |Gary Schmitt
In our 21st century, every upcoming election seems like the most important in history. The upcoming Polish one is no exception. In the view of opposition activists, Poland is just one step away from becoming a Catholic version of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Turkey should the ruling Law and Justice party (PiS) win on October 15.
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Oct 11, 2023 | 
americanpurpose.com | Peter Hefele |Gary Schmitt |Michael Kimmage
John Reed was born in Portland, Oregon in 1887. After growing up in the Pacific Northwest, he became a journalist. Somehow he made his way over to Russia just in time for the Bolshevik Revolution. His classic eyewitness account, Ten Days that Shook the World, which was published in 1919, was hardly an objective interpretation of this revolution. It was sympathetic journalism, evidence of the American romance with the Soviet experiment and a book of striking scenes and images.
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Oct 10, 2023 | 
americanpurpose.com | Peter Hefele |Gary Schmitt |Abram Shulsky
The subject line of an email I received from The Spectator World in July asked the question. In the tech and financial worlds, AI (artificial intelligence) has been the topic du jour, the “next big thing.” Whether it will cause as big an upheaval in the way we live as the Internet (and personal computers and smart phones, which provide almost universal access to it) remains to be seen, but billions of dollars are being staked on the belief that it will.
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Oct 5, 2023 | 
euobserver.com | Peter Hefele
For too long, keeping the problems — literally — at bay has been left to southern European member countries of the EU. But just like the Ukrainian war is a pan-European challenge and not just limited to the Eastern member states, the same can be said of the bloc's dealings with our southern neighbourhood. The past colonial experiences of France, Spain, and Italy are at least a double-sided sword, as this greater knowledge comes with potentially strained relations and vested interests.
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Oct 4, 2023 | 
americanpurpose.com | Peter Hefele |Gary Schmitt |Richard Aldous
You've successfully subscribed to American Purpose Great! Next, complete checkout for full access to American Purpose Welcome back! You've successfully signed in. Success! Your account is fully activated, you now have access to all content. Across America, from college campuses to corporate boardrooms, a set of ideas has taken hold affirming race, gender, and sexual orientation as the essential prisms through which we experience life.
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Oct 4, 2023 | 
americanpurpose.com | Richard Aldous |Peter Hefele |Hans Zeiger
The Civic Bargain: How Democracy Survivesby Brook Manville and Josiah Ober (Princeton University Press, 299 pp., $29.95)What is democracy, and what must citizens do to keep it alive? These are ancient questions that have been resolved in different ways through the ages. History teaches that freedom is hard work, and there are no guarantees of its survival.
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Oct 3, 2023 | 
americanpurpose.com | Peter Hefele |Gary Schmitt |Francis Fukuyama
In the closing days of the Trump administration, the White House issued Executive Order 13957 creating a “Schedule F” category of federal employees. Schedule F workers could be fired at will, and federal agencies were ordered to move large numbers of employees into this category. The Biden Administration immediately rescinded Schedule F upon taking office.
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Sep 29, 2023 | 
americanpurpose.com | Richard Aldous |Peter Hefele |Thomas Koenig
Tyranny of the Minority: Why American Democracy Reached the Breaking Point by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt (Penguin Random House, 384 pages pp., $18.72) Alexis de Tocqueville once observed that “[s]carcely any political question arises in the United States that is not resolved, sooner or later, into a judicial question.” Had he toured America today, Tocqueville might similarly conclude that scarcely any critique of our politics fails to devolve sooner or later into a critique of our...
