Twilight of the Never Trumpers.
The central problem both parties face is not a matter of tone or rhetoric in the midst of the chaos and confusion—rhetorical and otherwise—caused by the fall of the old modes and orders. The salient fact of the moment is that the race is on to rethink and reground policy in light of our Republic’s founding principles.
Much wisdom here. I do not think many among the party elite have yet figured this out, but I do think this is an accurate diagnosis of our day. Or, at least, it is among the better attempts than I have seen elsewhere.
Not a vending a machine.
Delayed on arrival.
OâHare hallway
âHotel viewâ
Stuck at Chicago OâHare because a delay and @United policy wonât cover a hotel; and their âvoucherâ program was a joke. This is the window I next to my bench, er, bed for the night while I watch the rain and wait for it to quiet down enough to get some sleep.
Saturday morning at the farm
Magic Hour
Bus stop.
Show Me
Earlier this month I defended my dissertation and submitted all paperwork to complete my PhD. It has been a long time coming and I am obviously glad to be finished. My dissertation examined the development of international religious freedom and U.S. foreign policy during the Cold War. In it I make a very simple claim that efforts to promote religious freedom have been present in American national security strategy for much longer than most realize. I’m not the first to argue this. Anna Su ([Twitter](Exporting Freedom)) has argued something very similar in Exporting Freedom. (Indeed, when I first learned of her book my stomach sank because I thought my dissertation project had been scooped, as it were. Thankfully there are enough differences that my advisors and I agreed that I was good to go.) These are welcome developments in the IR scholarship. I am eager to add my voice to the scholarly discussion.
Shortly after defending—by which I mean the next day—my wife and I packed up our place. This fall I begin a two-year appointment as a postdoc fellow at Kinder Institute on Constituional Democracy. My primary duties will be working with undergraduates in some of Kinder’s very excellent programming for first and second year students. In the spring I am slated to teach a course on U.S. Foreign Policies. In addition to my book project, I have some other manuscripts in progress, but more on those later as they get closer to completion. For now, it is time to settle in and crank out my widgets.
Just another day at the office. #lincolnfellow
Road trip
Fortuna.
Happy Motherâs Day to my lovely wife, @lgarabisperez. Sheâs a terrific mom to Nacho and Paco (not pictured).
Eye spy
Old Austin
Pacoâs first strawberries
Nederland.
Paco likes strawberries. First fruit with myself and @lgarabisperez
Spring days in Austin. #streetphotography #ricohgr
Few months ago I took some friends to Franklin who were in town from Ohio. We weâre first in line. As Ice Cube would say, damn it was a good day.
