The Post-Partisan Emporium

  PATRICK LAWRENCE: ‘Vote Joy’ — a Delusion of Nostalgia Those populating the vice president’s joy-and-vibes crowd can pretend to celebrate a state of elation while acquiescing to their candidate’s approval of mass murder. Balloons fall after Vice President Kamala Harris’ speech at the Democratic National Convention last month.  (Chris Bentley, Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) By  Patrick Lawrence M any commentators have attempted to describe the astonishing devolution of Democratic Party politics into sheer marketing:  Kamala Harris as product, “new and improved” like a laundry detergent or a frozen dinner. Vanessa Beeley calls it “cartoon theatrics,” and it’s as good as I’ve seen. In two words the British journalist captures from a useful distance the infantilism of the Harris-for-president campaign and the Hollywoodization of American politics. I thought I’d seen everything in this line until a few days ago, but in this, the most unserious political season of my lifetime,...

  ‘The Pride Reich’: Riding for a Fall ‘You’ve reduced your identity to the most immature and hedonistic part of you, the part that would exploit someone else for your own gratification'. — Jordan Peterson JOHN WATERS ‘Pride’ display in Malaga shop window Give Us Back the Moon In June This used to be the beautiful month of June,  but between the geo-engineers and the LGBT goons, it has in many places become a cloudy, dispiriting time. Walking around Malaga and Seville these past few days, and coming upon my umpteenth window display constructed in observation of Pride Month, I was impelled to revisit  The Power of the Powerless , the famous 1978 essay written by my great hero, the late Czech philosopher and playwright (and sometime politician), Václav Haval, and as a consequence to amend and update a refection upon it that I myself wrote many years afterwards. In what is perhaps his most famous essay, vac employs as a central motif the image of the greengrocer who is requi...