September 2019 W4: What’s Behind the Democrats’ Impeachment Gambit?

Kevin D. Williamson

"What’s Behind the Democrats’ Impeachment Gambit?"
"They think anytime a Republican is elected president, there must have been something 'illegitimate' going on."
National Review, September 26, 2019
https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/09/trump-impeachment-inquiry-democrats-refuse-to-accept-republican-electoral-victory/

          Kevin Williamson introduces his very first take on the Whistleblower scandal with contextually significant pieces of information about his own beliefs and biases about the current President of the United States. Following this, he takes a brief and objective look at the American structure of the Presidency and its varying public reactions. Despite the pure objectivity and neutrality that the concept of impeachment exhibits, however, Williamson turns it into a partisan attack on the Democrats for their actions and words as both a force in national politics and as a model for American democracy in the past 20 years. He does, however, make logical connections between the contexts of current events now and those of years past, as well as a reasonable political analysis that anyone who lives in a democracy should be able to understand. These applications of logos mostly compensate for the general turn-off of a piece of journalism that this would otherwise be, as it is safe to assume that most Americans are exhausted of the back-and-forth, empty ad hominem attacks that modern journalists rely on as a source of financial support and career experience. What Williamson fails to include, however, is a recognition of an opposing argument. He makes an implicit claim at the end of the text that boils down to a statement that Republicans will be likely to act in similar ways when placed in a similar situation as the Democrats are in now, but after just having denounced all of these tactics that the Democrats have employed, it seems Williamson fails to eliminate a possible hypocritical interpretation of his argument. Without having read his other articles and critiques, it is impossible for the reader to know that Williamson is also often critical of the Republican party for following in the Democrats' footsteps, and so the reader is left without sufficient information to draw positive conclusions about the validity of Williamson's argument.

September 2019 W3: The Divine Right of the Democratic Party

Kevin D. Williamson

"The Divine Right of the Democratic Party"

"Some progressives do not think we have two legitimate competing political camps. They think the U.S. is suffering from an infection: the Republican party."
National Review, September 11, 2019
https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/09/democrats-dream-of-nation-without-republicans/

          Williamson develops a counterattack in this piece to Michelle Goldberg of the New York Times, who has expressed desires to see the Republican Party disintegrate. Rather than defending the GOP itself, however, Williamson takes a broader approach and seeks to defend the American public. He does not praise the Republican Party, and in fact, he describes it in a rather unflattering manner, and so he looks instead at the successes of the Republican Party and how conservative America has influenced them. He claims that it is not Republicans who have gained success and that the Democrats and progressives despise, it is the collective conservative American public that is behind the flipside of polarized politics. No matter the party that represents them in the future, Williamson states, an attack on America's conservative interests in society will not be a matter of partisan discourse, but rather it will manifest itself as a disdain for political opposition.
          While Williamson fails to discuss the relevance of political civility in this piece--and one could argue that he does little more than only further disgrace it--he nevertheless utilizes strong argumentary tools to formulate a compelling essay. In a (positive) turn of events, he is able to reference real statistical data and relevant current events as primary pieces of support in a surprisingly coherent fashion. However, it is important to note that the tone of the essay is all-too-familiar in the world of new-age journalism. The apparent exigence for this piece is not one that feels particularly mature, nor is this column as a whole seemingly relevant or helpful in discussing politics in any professional manner. Still, for casual readers, it is an interesting (but perhaps redundant, for some) opinion on the hidden implications of partisan-fueled and politically-dishonorable American journalism.

September 2019 W2: Back Off from the ‘Resist’ Nonsense

Kevin D. Williamson

"Back Off from the ‘Resist’ Nonsense"

"Perhaps we should back off from the Third Reich analogies and begin to take our duties as citizens seriously."

National Review, September 15, 2019

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/09/resistance-politics-degrades-civic-life/

          Once again, Williamson's latest hot take of the week is a fiery jab at elitist left-wing America. Rather than poking fun at one specific individual or occurrence, however, he decides to take a closer look at the "Resist" movement that has taken America by storm since November of 2016 and analyze its effects and consequences henceforth. To give sufficient context, the aforementioned political movement is centered around the "resistance" to the actions and behaviors of our current President of the United States. With that said, I must applaud Williamson for taking a much more mature stance in this piece by abstaining from a childish and defensive reaction--typical of most popular political writing in the modern era--and instead relying on the truths of political theory and societal stipulations to support his argumentary appeals. While he remains liberal in his use of humor and sarcasm, it comes much more sparingly in this piece compared to his last, and they no longer consist of his argument's main support. Instead, his use of historical context and comparative evidence makes for a much more compelling form of journalistic political discourse.

September 2019 W1: Playing God

Kevin D. Williamson

"Playing God"

"The Democrats take a pause from persecuting Christians to try to coopt them."

National Review, September 8, 2019

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/09/pete-buttigieg-democrats-try-coopt-christians/

          A certain Pete Buttigieg, mayor of South Bend, Indiana, is a rising star in the Democratic party and a potential candidate for its 2020 presidential nomination. Recently, he made a statement concerning environmental regulations and air pollution and used his Episcopalian background to abuse methods of religious appeal. His rhetoric is one of the focal points in Kevin Williamson's latest critique of modern progressive politics. Williamson is fond of dawdling on Buttigieg's simple and informal diction but nevertheless is able to present several examples of the "religious Left" using fake and obscure spiritual ethical codes to promote political beliefs that either fail to have a notable correlation with or outright defies Christian theology. His approach to exposing the falsehoods of left-wing "Christian" politics manifests itself as that of an almost satirical style. His language is straightforward and often sarcastic, and yet it still forces the reader to pay close attention to his tone to grasp his humorous insights. Williamson's arguments, however, rely mostly on said appeal of comedic political banter to strengthen his stance, as there is little actual theological evidence presented in the article. Instead of countering a point with an excerpt from the scripture, he chooses to point out human hypocrisy and throw moral insults at the opposition. And so, unfortunately, the article becomes nothing more than a typical piece of political ranting, complete with weak (and hypocritical) partisan attacks and a complete lack of logical evidence. If one is not already convinced of the dying Christian conservative movement in the face of "new-age conservatives" and hyper-capitalist libertarians, look no further.