Half-right, in a bad way: David Brooks and the founders’ ugly racial legacy

In his Feb. 26 column, “The Governing Cancer of Our Time,” New York Times columnist David Brooks praised the founding fathers in contrast to today’s tea partiers and other zealots for favoring politics over brute force, and compromise over intransigence. He’s partly right in that solving social conflict through politics and compromise is one of […]

Odd couple: Me on the front page, Hobby Lobby on the back

Today the Bowling Green Sentinel-Tribune published a nice profile (by David Dupont) of me and FIghting over the Founders, right on the front page.  The Sent-Trib doesn’t publish on Sundays or holidays, so this is its “Independence Day Weekend Edition.” And, right on cue, just as I point out that people use the founders for their political purposes, there’s […]

Next step, Obama in breeches? Organizing for Action uses Gadsden flag

Organizing for Action, the political organization descended from Obama’s 2012 presidential campaign, is now giving out bumper stickers inspired by the Gadsden flag that tea partiers have loved so much.  What’s interesting to me is how stylized this flag is.  I think the stethoscope is clear, but the graphic and caption on it wouldn’t make […]

Five years on, tea party part of the visual landscape

The picture on the left accompanied an article in today’s New York Times about young Republicans at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference.  The article makes a point of profiling a young Republican with a green-and-orange mohawk.  But to me, what’s more interesting is that it does not comment at all on the man on the right, […]