Forgetting to Learn the Moral

American Samizdat: On Losing American Democracy

I’ll be frank. I’ve lost paid subscribers because of what they think my “politics.” There is much I could say about that but what I want to say is this. I’ve written many times that what I’m doing with American Samizdat is not about “politics.” I have politics. But I don’t write about them. If there were a political leader who represented all of my political views but who behaved like Donald Trump and demonstrated his pathological corruption and absence of character, I would oppose him. That point falls on apparently literal deaf ears. American Samizdat defends and pursues human dignity, human freedom, and human decency, all of which are inseparable from each other — so I’ll let none claim to me that they believe in freedom and support and vote for Donald Trump. About dignity and decency, I don’t think they would even make the effort.

The philosophy — it’s not a political ideology — that supports those three virtues and that vision of humankind is that which arose from the Enlightenmen…