Political Thoughts of Timothy A. Raty

  I had originally considered entitling this article “The Death of Liberalism”, but it would be in bad taste while the patient is still technically alive on its deathbed. It did not take long for it to be sent there from its pinnacle at the end of the Cold War some thirty-four years ago. Ironically, this was partly caused by remnants of 20 th century collectivist ideologies ( e.g. , Islamic fundamentalism and communism) or variations thereof ( e.g. , Putin’s and Trump’s nationalism bear striking resemblances to those of the Axis Powers of the 1930s); ideologies which liberalism had mostly defeated by 1992. Even Nazism, which should have been dead and buried after instigating the bloodiest conflict in human history, has made a comeback.  Liberal democracies are under a threat no less existential than those of World War II, but now are in a more precarious position. Unlike then, the British Empire no longer exists (and several of the key nations composing it, such as Egypt an...

It is unquestionable that the agenda of President Donald J. Trump (R) is to vest all fundamental government powers in the office of the President. It is also unquestionable that he is using such power to dictate the actions of others, whether they be universities, law firms, media companies, state and local governments, or foreign governments. As the magnanimous felon famously stated, “ I run the country and the world. ” His efforts have largely been successful and there is a lesson therein which should be learned by the Left. In America, for well over a century (since at least the beginning of the Progressive Era in the 1890s), the Left (with the cooperation of the moderates) have pushed for the expansion of government influence into nearly all aspects of life: education, healthcare, social welfare, business and labor, agriculture, manufacturing, banking, transportation, etc. This expansion fell well short of the pure socialism of annihilating the concept of private property, as ...

The combination of the facts that almost all segments of the American public desire authoritarianism and that President Donald J. Trump (R) is giving these segments what they want by being a few steps shy of terminating the U.S. Constitution, presents a daunting challenge to those opposed to MAGAism. Despite all the warning signs of the dangers of MAGA and Trump, despite having the explicit support of some of the leading Never Trump Republican leaders, and despite record-breaking, good economic indicators, the Democratic Presidential ticket lost by a solid margin in 2024. Unlike European countries, the United States has a front-ended political system; various political factions coalesce around a broad ideology (forming a political party) prior to elections (in back-ended systems, like in Europe, the various factions form their own parties with their own ideologies, then coalesce with each other after elections in the form of governing and opposing coalitions). As is want after ever...

 While the beginning paragraphs of the U.S. Declaration of Independence are the most quoted, it is often overlooked that our Founding Father’s listed 27 grievances against Great Britain’s King George III and outlined their reasons for declaring independence from the British Crown. Here is how these grievances stack against former President Donald J. Trump (R): He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them. While “Governors” in the Declaration’s context is in reference to King George’s ministers, it can also be applicable to the Governors of the United States during both the COVID-19 Pandemic and other natural disaster situations, when President Trump pressed the issue of withholding aid to “blue” States and areas, due to the lack of popular support for him in such. Though not the same concretely, this gri...