The new culture war is about national identity rather than religion and 'transcendent authority.' It focuses on which groups the United States will formally admit to residence and citizenship. It asks the same question as the old culture war: 'Who are we?' But the earlier query was primarily about how we define ourselves morally. The new question is about how we define ourselves ethnically, racially and linguistically. It is, in truth, one of the oldest questions in our history, going back to our earliest immigration battles of the 1840s and 1850s.
E. J. DionneWhat is working in the economy is a natural comeback plus some effects of the policies we've been following. But I'm sort of worried about the long term effects.
E. J. DionnePolitically, Donald Trump doesn't seem to care much about what he says. He gauges the effect. Sometimes, in the middle of a speech, he will change his direction if the audience doesn't like him.
E. J. DionneWhat I am really worried about is that Donald Trump steps outside norms about, for example, what he does about his business. If he holds on to his business or just lets his kids run it, this opens up enormous possibilities for conflicts of interest.
E. J. Dionne.. the publication of Friedrich A. von Hayek's The Road to Serfdom in 1944 is rightly seen as the first shot in the intellectual battle that was to turn the tide in favor of conservatism i.e. non-statist liberalism .
E. J. DionneHere you had John McCain and Lindsey Graham in a very principled way standing up and defending Barack Obama. You had people like Gene Robinson and a lot of other liberals, who said, and this I personally agree with, however flawed Rand Paul was as a messenger, we need a debate about this. The administration has not been forthcoming enough about its drone policy.
E. J. Dionne