Saturday roundup

Doug Bandow has a piece at The National Interest entitled "German Politics: From Boring and Stable to Unpredictable." The main point is that the two parties that have been by far the major players since the late 1940s, the Christian Democrats and the Social Democrats (well, there was that 1946 - 1989 period during which the eastern portion had as its for-all-intents-and-purposes exclusive party the Socialist Unity Party) have waned markedly in influence and a number of more populist groups have been on the rise. This was really brought home in Merkel's recent failed attempt to forge a grand coalition.

Germany is one of those countries that has actually been a series of nation-states, from the days of the Holy Roman Empire through the entity known as Prussia through the North German Federation, the empire of the Kaiser days, the Weimar Republic, the Third Reich, the side-by-side German nation-states of the above-mentioned period, and the current iteration. Memorable leaders have held sway during these periods, including Frederic the Great, The first and second Wilhelms, Bismarck, the monstrous Adolph Hitler. Since his end in a Berlin bunker, the succession of leaders has been - well, somewhat boring and stable. But through it all, there has been a readily identifiable culture, one that at times has contributed some of the greatest music and literature to the world, and seen the development of a number of social-science disciplines that have come to modern prominence.

Because of the lack of political continuity, however, the rest of Europe has always had good reason to be wary of what Germany was up to. Are we entering such a period now? Also, what effect is the recent influx of immigrants having on the cultural continuity?


Ivanka Trump is taking her own entourage to the Global Entrepreneurial Summit in India, and it doesn't include any high-level State Department people.

Yesterday, I linked to two pieces by Erick Erickson in which he talks about staying put in central Georgia rather than moving to the Acela Corridor and how it's impacted his career. David French at NRO today takes the context out a level, looking at the change in the tone of Erickson's polemics as his faith has deepened and assumed central importance in his life:

Erickson built his early reputation as a fearless conservative firebrand. His language could be lacerating, his devotion to the conservative cause seemed absolute, and he was on no one’s short list of cultural peacemakers.

But life happens. No, that’s not correct; God happens. Christians are familiar with the concepts of justification and sanctification. Justification is the moment when God — through His Son’s atoning sacrifice — declares a man righteous in His sight. Sanctification is the lifelong process of spirit battling flesh, of the redeemed man’s journey to holiness. In other words, it means that we change, and God uses many different instruments to accomplish that change.

Indeed. As I said yesterday, when God positions himself front and center in one's waking consciousness, One starts looking at the basics of how one is treating other people.

This is the question before me as an opinion writer as well: how to stand unwaveringly for principles one knows to be good, right and true without copping an attitude.


The other day, I put up a post entitled "Someone Please Take Away His Phone." The particular cringe-inducing Twitter snit Trump was engaged in at that time was with LaVar Ball. Well, no one has heeded my imploring. The national embarrassment president has now geared up for his annual Twitter tussle with Time magazine over whether he'll be named Man of the Year. Only Squirrel-Hair could have the world's most powerful position and still have the world's most fragile ego. "Probably is no good." A comprehensive archive of his he-really-tweeted-that outbursts would be quite a read.

Paul Mirengoff at Power Line says that Attorney General Jeff Sessions may actually be the Trump cabinet member getting the most - and most conservative - things accomplished. Fronts on which this can be seen include voting rights, immigration and identity-politics issues.