Brian M Downing and the world at war. Timely, thoughtful, and nonpartisan analysis of military matters. @BrianMDowning1.
Brian M Dowing Today’s populism isn’t a cult. It’s a broad-based movement that’s grown in numbers and vitality over the last fifty years. Pollsters and social scientists for the most part missed it, though anyone who saw Arbitron and Nielsen’s radio ratings knew something was up. Politicians and academics and Read More …
Brian M Downing Rural-dwellers, opponents of big government, traditional nationalists, working people, and the religious right constitute the popular base. They have emotional attachment to America. When asked if they love their country they unhesitatingly affirm it. Other Americans respond, “Well, yes…but.” The base sees the rest of the country Read More …
Brian M Downing Religion was once central to family, community, and nation. The three formed a coherent whole. The new land created a covenant for a free, devout people. Religion and patriotism were, as Robert Bellah put it, fused into a civil religion. Both religion and patriotism have declined significantly Read More …
Brian M Downing Many in the movement see themselves as true patriots – descendants of homesteaders and workers and soldiers. Their love of America is deep and gut-level. They see others speak the appropriate words and stand for the Anthem but judge their affection as shallow and less forceful. They’re Read More …
Brian M Downing Americans see themselves as independent, self-reliant, and opposed to intrusive forces. That was essential to the merchants, craftsmen, planters, and farmers who opposed British taxation and Church of England expansion. “Don’t tread on me” was embroidered into flags and myths. The principle surfaced during the Whiskey Rebellion, the Read More …
Brian M Downing Studying the quarrels of an ancient day [we] can at least seek to understand both parties to the struggle and want to understand them better than they understood themselves; watching them entangled in the net of time and circumstance [we] can take pity on them – these Read More …
Brian M Downing Vladimir Putin, then a junior KGB enforcer, saw the Soviet Union’s collapse as a geopolitical catastrophe. Most of the world deemed it a blessing, especially Eastern Europe which had endured Moscow’s rule since 1945. Another geopolitical shift may be coming. The view here has for some time Read More …
Brian M Downing Henry Kissinger died yesterday at the age of one hundred – fifty-four years after becoming Richard Nixon’s foreign policy architect. He directed policy at critical junctures of the Cold War and amid the Vietnam conflict, He remained a commentator on world affairs until only a few months Read More …
Brian M Downing Anti-democratic sentiment is on the rise, though adherents see themselves as defenders of the nation. There’s a gap between this sentiment in the country and political power in Washington – between blood and soil and principles and processes. The gap may be closing with the aid of Read More …
Brian M Downing In the absence of common values, in a period when national institutions have lost their prestige, romance, and unifying force, when so much of life is increasingly antagonistic and violent, geographic and racial fissures do not augur well for the country. Without the reemergence of unifying forces, Read More …