Recent Viewpoints

Kerby Anderson Today is Election Day, and two important questions might or might not be resolved tonight. The first question is: Who will win the election? Given the number of mail-in ballots still to count, we might not know. The second question is: How peaceful will be our transition of power? In the past we have had a few bumps in the road. Back in 1960, there were questions about whether John F. Kennedy won the presidency fairly. Rumors quickly…

Kerby Anderson Tomorrow is the election. You may have already voted, like tens of millions of Americans. But if you haven’t voted, I encourage you to vote because your vote might make the difference. In the past, many groups circulated articles and e-mails talking about the importance of one vote. In the last few elections, we haven’t needed these reminders because some of the elections in the last few decades provide numerous illustrations. For example, George W. Bush won the…

Penna Dexter Coverage of pre-existing health conditions has been a hot button in presidential debates and senate hearings for a Supreme Court nominee. In one debate, former Vice President Joe Biden argued that “100 million people who have pre-existing conditions” will lose their health insurance if the Trump Administration wins an Obamacare case set to be argued at the US Supreme Court November 10. This is false. Republican attorneys general are asking the Supreme Court to strike down the Affordable…

Kerby Anderson Why are suicides surging in America? There is no easy answer to that question, but there are some important clues. Some of the answers have been put forth by the latest CDC reports. We do have a number of deaths of despair that result from intended suicides as well as from opioid overdoses. And we also see suicides that have increased among our veterans that show the relationship between military combat and PTSD. But there are social, intellectual,…

Kerby Anderson One argument used to prove systemic racism is the extent of racial disparities. On the Internet you will find lots of charts that show differences between black and white that are then used to prove racism. One way to respond to those charges is to look at one of the last columns ever written by black economist Thomas Sowell with the provocative title “Football and Fallacies.” He talks about the reaction from the players in the NFL when…

Kerby Anderson A term being used by certain pollsters is the “shy Trump voter.” It designates voters who plan to vote for Donald Trump but aren’t telling pollsters how they will vote. Some pollsters believe these voters exist, while most pollsters reject the idea. One writer at FiveThirtyEight said their polling organization “found little sign of shy Trump voters.” Another report from the American Association for Public Opinion Research found no evidence of such voters. David Catron counters that this…

Kerby Anderson Yesterday I talked about a new book by Rod Dreher. In it, he talks about a book by Hannah Arendt on The Origins of Totalitarianism published after World War II. She documented what happened in Germany and the Soviet Union. It helps us see when totalitarianism is coming. Here are a few warning signs. The first is loneliness and social atomization. Totalitarian movements are “mass organizations of atomized, isolated individuals.” Twenty years ago, Robert Putnam published his book…

Kerby Anderson A new book (Live Not by Lies) by Rod Dreher warns Christians about the coming “soft totalitarianism.” He explains that this is different from what we read in novels like Brave New World or in Nineteen Eighty-Four. The old, hard totalitarianism came from the state (Germany, Russia) and was dedicated to the eradication of Christianity. This new totalitarianism usually comes from the left in society but is also dedicated to the eradication of Christianity. The soft totalitarianism of…

Penna Dexter This election we’ve heard discussions of some radical, far-left ideas on the campaign trail.  But it was a real shock last week to hear a presidential candidate voice support for a right to gender transitions for 8-year-olds. At the ABC townhall in Philadelphia, the mother of a third-grader who identifies as transgender asked candidate Joe Biden, how he, if elected president, would protect the rights of people who claim a different gender under U.S. law. Vice President Biden…

Kerby Anderson The US economy is doing better than most economists predicted. Harrison Dunn says we are witnessing the “sharpest economic snapback in US history.” This isn’t what many pundits and economists predicted. Most assumed we would still be trying to dig out from the devastation of the pandemic lockdowns. This economic snapback may also explain why the Gallup poll that I mentioned in a previous commentary has 56 percent of voters believing they were better off today than they…

Kerby Anderson Critics of mass mail voting point to problems with government efficiency and the potential for voter fraud. The quick response often is a throwaway line that many states have been doing mail-in voting for years with no problems. The editors of the Wall Street Journal then ask: “What do they have the rest of us lack? Well, for one thing, check out their solid deadlines.” For example, registered voters in Colorado are to be mailed a ballot by…