Kevin D. Williamson

A 2015 case against Trump, from conservative iconoclast Kevin Williamson. Since it is from 2015 it focuses on Trump's main 2015 point: unlimited illegal immigration is bad. Williamson seems to see racism, populism, and idiocy in any such view. Trump's business troubles, celebrity, and former Democrat positions are bandied about too. All of it is true, to a certain extent. 2016 was a different story. Once Trump was the nominee his advisors were better, his platform extended, and his contrast with the Fabian Socialism of Hillary Rodham Clinton was stark. I still didn't vote for him in 2016. I did in 2020, because Trump did a lot of conservative things.… (altro)

The title, "the smallest minority" refers to the individual. So this is a libertarian book. If that is not convincing, on the page that usually has the dedication, the author instead states that he "took" the title from Ayn Rand because she does not deserve it.

The first chapter's title is "A Volscian Commission." Its not clear to me why its called that since the Volsci were an Italic Osco-Umbrian tribe, well known in the history of the first century of the Roman Republic, according to Wikipedia, and there is no further mention of them in the chapter. Wikipedia often provides a "significance in broader culture" if it is warranted but perhaps forgot to here. It would seem to me more likely that Williamson wants to impress the reader with his intellect.

There are two chapter headings (out of eleven) that are clever, however: "The Road to Smurfdom" and "Shouting Fire in a Crowded Feedback Loop." (Tip of the hat to Hayek and Holmes.)

I believe the field of libertarianism has been so thoroughly gone over that Williamson is forced to resort to words like "ochlocracy" instead of "mob rule" and "streitbare Demokratie" instead of "militant democracy." There is also a liberal sprinkling of Latin words and phrases and Shakespeare quotations, some of them long enough to require indented margins. I'm sure Williamson knows the word for that too; he knows that the word for the squiggle or flourish at the end of a signature is a "paraph." He also uses a little symbol to mark subsections (I sure he knows the word for that too) that resembles the Fat Boy atomic bomb.

The chapter "Jeffrey and Me" about his firing or cancelling at "Atlantic [Monthly]" is quite humorous and cautionary and well worth reading. But then he goes and ends the chapter with:

But you don't need to worry about guys like Jeffrey and me. We're going to do fine.
It's the rest of you poor dumb bastards who need worrying about.

Obviously Jeffrey doesn't need worrying about since we have just been told Jeff Bezos ex-wife is his mistress; and anyone who knows the slightest thing about Ayn Rand-ism knows that her disciples don't like to be mollycoddled anyway.

While I agreed with everything I read, and I only got halfway through the third chapter, I was a little put off by the profanity and aggressive tone and will probably stick to Chuck Klosterman next time I get in the mood for this kind of outre writing.… (altro)