This year, Gabriel Boric won the Chilean Presidency by riding a populist wave of anti-market sentiment. Populism is a political tool not tied to any particular ideology, and it can drive people to very dangerous conclusions. In this case, Boric convinced Chile that the rich elites maintained power in his nation at the expense of […]
Archives
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Chile’s New Direction
26 Dec 2021
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History doesn’t repeat, Mark Twain said, but it sometimes rhymes. Sometimes the rhymes are so compelling that they cry out for comment. President Biden’s speech on August 31, 2021, on the end of the war in Afghanistan was, for me, one of those times. It recalled to me a speech given on June 4, 1940, […]
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2020: The Year the Senate Died?
03 Aug 2020
Pity the history teachers of the future who must deal with the calamities of 2020. But the year’s politics may not be defined by a pandemic or the potential end of a shambling presidency; instead, the United States Senate is leaping toward the gaping maw of democracy, and our government may never recover. Former President […]
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American Cities Break and Burn: We Need a Creed
30 May 2020
I live in a village with three stop lights, one of which blinks when school is out of session. I am a white college professor on a mostly white campus within a white religious tradition. The smoke, shattered glass, and pepper spray now etched into too many urban landscapes are alien, but so is having […]
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**Over several posts, I hope to look at 1) what the Constitution says about impeachment, 2) presidential impeachments in history, and 3) how President Trump’s actions should be judged in light of the Constitution, history, and other standards frequently brought to bear.** The third presidential impeachment trial unfolds before us. Our Senators will soon cast […]
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**Over several posts, I hope to look at 1) what the Constitution says about impeachment, 2) presidential impeachments in history, and 3) how President Trump’s actions should be judged in light of the Constitution, history, and other standards frequently brought to bear.** Impeachment is often described as the nuclear weapon of the legislative arsenal. Though […]
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9/11: Who Could Ever Forget?
11 Sep 2019
I was born after the moon landing. I always regretted that I did not live during those moments when all of America huddled around television screens–somehow both apart and together at the same time–to experience monumental history. In 2001, I got to share in a collective moment of a different kind. I was teaching at […]
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The Mailbag! – Vol. 29
10 Jun 2019
Matt’s Marvelous Mailbag seeks to provide marginally adequate answers to much better questions about politics, economics, social life, theology, or any potpourri you see fit to have answered. Send questions to mailbag.bereans@gmail.com. Q: Daniel asks: “Thoughts regarding the recent revelations surrounding Martin Luther King Jr.? How do we reconcile revelations like this regarding people, who […]
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D-Day +75: An Astonishing Achievement
06 Jun 2019
Every American should take a pilgrimage to the cemetery that overlooks those beaches.
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Weekly Sage #26: James Burnham
03 May 2019
The Weekly Sage hopes to regularly bring brief profiles of key contributors to thought and faith before a Christian audience for historical education and awareness of valuable resources. James Burnham “The situation with Marxist ideology is the same as that with the leading capitalist ideologies. As we saw in connection with the latter, however, the […]
Bert Wheeler
Jeff Haymond
Marc Clauson
Mark Caleb Smith
Tom Mach