Sublime

separation of powers,

Reagan cared more about the functions of self-government than his most ideological supporters. He knew how to persuade and when to compromise. But after he was gone, and the Soviet Union not long after him, Free America lost the narrative thread. Without Reagan’s smile and the Cold War’s clarity, its vision grew darker and more extreme. Its spirit

He gave a city hungering for leadership the impression that there was no part of his domain that he did not dominate.

THE RISE TO POWER

But now he needed executive support no longer. In the fields which he had carved out for his own—transportation and recreation—the passage of his “amendments” to the authority enabling acts had given him resources of money and power independent of Governors and Mayors. Their approval was no longer required.

➒ Make me smile.

By 2015 it was Donald Trump who had once again melded the combative Rothbardian style to Buchananite ideology. Trump did not simply defeat Jeb Bush; he humiliated him and his family on a personal level. Ditto Ted “Your father shot JFK” Cruz, and Marco “Google ‘gay rumors’” Rubio. Many in the thinking class assume Trump doesn’t know what he’s doing,