DECEMBER 1, 2023
Sebastian Bennett is a foreign affairs officer in the nation’s capital. He has held a number of jobs in government, including as an aide to a Senator on Capitol Hill and as a presidential management fellow at a major federal department. Sebastian has also worked for think tanks, both in the nation’s capital and in Madrid. He was also a White House Intern. Sebastian has a post-graduate degree in international relations. Due to the sensitive nature of his current position, he is writing for The Daily Dissident, which he co-founded, under an assumed name.
Two Jews may have three opinions but they’re likely to share political preferences. At least that goes for American Jews, who tend to lean left. “Jews earn like Episcopalians,” the sociologist Milton Himmelfarb once wryly observed, “and vote like Puerto Ricans.” Politically conservative Jews have long rued this supposed contradiction, viewing each election cycle as an opportunity for their coreligionists to come to their senses. Many had hoped Continue Reading...
It was of no karmic significance that Art Basel Miami Beach, arguably the nation’s premier art fair, opened soon after the UN published its latest climate report. The two were entirely unrelated. Nevertheless, global warming might have been a central theme at the annual extravaganza, which claims to feature the “highest quality” contemporary art, given the threat it presents. The UN report underscored the point, warning that dramatic action is Continue Reading...
At a critical moment in the 2016 presidential campaign, President Obama met with Republican congressional leaders and, after presenting them with evidence of Russian tampering, asked that they uniformly condemn it. GOP Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and others refused. The evidence just wasn't there. But it was. And many of the same lawmakers eagerly condemned Hillary Clinton's perceived misdeed, as reported by the FBI. So much for Continue Reading...
Liberal democracy faces grave dangers, most significantly, perhaps, from rapacious capitalism that unremittingly concentrates wealth. Putin is another threat. After consolidating his own power in Russia, he has stepped up a campaign against liberalism abroad, first in Russia's "near abroad" in Eastern Europe, and now the US. Is Trump his latest trophy? Continue Reading...
For eight years, the GOP employed strategic obstructionism to stymie Obama's mildly progressive agenda, even when his proposals, such as the Affordable Care Act or the stimulus, closely aligned with their own. Putting country first? Nope. This was pure partisanship in the service of partisanship. And it worked! Continue Reading...
Is the so-called "liberal," "elite" media really as cosseted and cloistered as its critics suggest? Actually, yes. Like the Democracy Party, the media - defined here as the mainstream variety - largely comprises well-educated, coastal types who have little in common (and often disdain) middle-America, working class whites. Little wonder it has earned the latter's ire. Continue Reading...
What happens when the purported party of the working class abandons its proletarian roots, while the other major party pushes crazed conspiracy theories, paranoia, and racism as an obfuscatory tactic to conceal its plutocratic agenda? A virulent populism that threatens the republic. Whose to blame for Trump? We all are. Continue Reading...
