Americans are increasingly unable to afford housing. For many young people, the “American Dream” seems out of reach. In moments of economic frustration, populists on both the Left and Right rush to identify villains.

Left-wing populists like Zohran Mamdani, Hasan Piker, or Bernie Sanders, blame the very wealthy and cite rising wealth and income inequality as the reason why, for example, home prices have soared. Right-wing populists often blame immigrants, arguing that more people inevitably mean more expensive rents and higher home prices.

He spoke with a very thick Sicilian accent. “Ah, young fellow,” he said to Vito. “People tell me you’re rich. You and your two friends. But don’t you think you’ve treated me a little shabbily? After all, this is my neighborhood and you should let me wet my beak.” — The Godfather, Don Fanucci tries to shake down Vito Corleone

In his exhaustive study of the American Revolution, Conceived in Liberty, Murray Rothbard describes the American revolution as the first “successful war of national liberation” and “a people’s war, waged by the majority of Americans having the courage and the zeal to rise up against constituted ‘legitimate’ government, [and throw] off their ‘sovereign.’” How was this liberation to be achieved?

What is the real purpose of policing?

While previous criminal justice reformers asked how to make it more just or more humane, Michel Foucault (1926–1984) was more concerned that behind the apparent humanization of the prison system hid the guileful calculations of power. 

For conservative leaders like Buckley, what really matters is that you support the American imperial warfare state. The stuff about freedom is window dressing.