Of Bernie, Bloomie, and Adam
The individual who enters commercial life with Bloomberg-sized ambition takes on a burden few of us would envy.
From left, Democratic presidential candidates, former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., participate in a Democratic presidential primary debate Wednesday, Feb. 19, 2020, in Las Vegas, hosted by NBC News and MSNBC. (AP Photo/John Locher)Greta Gerwig and the Art of Return
Eliza Scanlen, Saoirse Ronan, Emma Watson, and Florence Pugh in Little Women (Sony Pictures).Rekindling Constitutional Ambition
Whatever the outcome of this year’s election, conservatives and other friends of American constitutionalism have our work cut out for us. The Republican candidate for president has not shown much familiarity with or interest in the workings of our constitutional system. And the Democratic candidate (as usual) has evinced a desire to continue, with judicial backing, a transformation of that system—one that further enhances executive and regulatory power while weakening the powers of Congress.
FDR as Tocquevillian?
As the ambit of modern life expands, like a gas, serious political ambition dilutes. We range more widely, but in a scattered way—a molecule of attention here, another over there. The time and care needed for real (as distinguished from Facebook) friendship and citizenship evanesce as we learn to think and feel in short bursts. Because it is worldwide, the Web is flimsy, thin-spun. Building character takes time but any twit can tweet. Citizenship requires patriotism, love of one’s own, but one loves nothing so ephemeral as virtual reality. Statesmanship takes sustained thinking, but the distracted mind sustains only nervousness. This is…
