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Conservatives look to preserve, Trump destroys

A recent poll found 65% of Americans considered President Donald Trump to be conservative or very conservative. That I do not understand. Trump is the opposite of a conservative. A conservative conserves, maintaining what is good and just and building upon it. Donald Trump is no conservative; he is a destroyer. For more than two centuries, the bedrock of American conservatism has been our Constitution, the world’s oldest single-document constitution governing a sovereign nation. It has served the country in its growth from 13 states to 50, from 4 million to 340 million people. ...

The right continues to play a dangerous game

“Why Can’t a Woman Be More Like a Man?” — Henry Higgins Those are the words librettist Alan Jay Lerner penned for the fictional professor Henry Higgins in the 1956 musical “My Fair Lady,” and honestly, it could have been the title of Helen Andrews’ much-discussed recent essay in Compact. She called it “The Great Feminization” but her screed is very much a hymn to men. Andrews’ essay has received applause from the right, where caveman masculinity is making a comeback, but she has fallen into the trap of black-and-white thinking. Andrews has discovered that men ...

Some things for Barack Obama and his band of brothers to consider

Dear former President Barack Obama, During former Vice President Kamala Harris’ 2024 presidential campaign, you chastised “the brothers” for what you perceived as their reluctance to vote for a Black female. You said: “We have not yet seen the same kinds of energy and turnout in all corners of our neighborhoods and communities as we saw when I was running. Now, I also want to say that that seems to be more pronounced with the brothers.” Did you tell “the brothers” who, for the sake of racial solidarity, you tried to shame into voting for Harris that you only believe ...

Wrecking ball more than a metaphor

Donald Trump’s sudden demolition of the White House’s East Wing may have been ugly, but it sure is a metaphor. It’s hard to pinpoint the most stomach-turning aspect of the razing, though Americans, who disapprove of it by 53% to 23% according to a new YouGov America poll, have multiple aspects to choose from. There’s the visual of a major piece of the symbol of American democracy turned to rubble. There’s the replacement of American history with a wholly unnecessary gaudy ballroom for the rich and famous. There’s the waste of $300 million on that ballroom provided by ...

Remember to turn off the lights when leaving

The phrase about turning off the lights when one leaves someplace appears to have originated with two real estate agents in Seattle. It was 1971 and Boeing was laying off employees during an economic downturn. It was meant to be humorous, though the unemployed probably didn’t see it that way. During the Arab oil boycott in 1973, Houston newspapers invoked the phrase as they sought to lure people from the North, which was suffering from high unemployment, fuel shortages and economic stagnation. Newspaper ads told of job openings with good salaries and benefits. Now come the ...

Misguided ‘compassion’ contributes to political polarization

For the past 20 years, the University of Notre Dame has sponsored a yearlong dialogue on a given theme, with featured speakers, panels and other public events at which the year’s theme is discussed and debated. This year’s theme is “Cultivating Hope.” Two weeks ago, Cardinal Robert McElroy, archbishop of the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C., participated in a Q&A session on campus with Notre Dame’s president, the Rev. Robert Dowd, CSC, during which McElroy offered his thoughts on ways to address political polarization in America. The event was too brief for a topic of ...