The Aaron Renn Show

Online or other criticism, combined with receiving support from unexpected quarters, is one of the most powerful dynamics promoting political realignment today. I discuss these, why you need to protect yourself from them, and why you should be careful about how you criticize people on your own "team" online.

Twitter thread on career selection: https://twitter.com/aaron_renn/status/1590715709612433408

Twitter thread on presentations: https://twitter.com/aaron_renn/status/1589635724164288512

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Thoughts on the midterm elections in 2022 and why you should get out and vote.

With the ongoing flight from the label "evangelical", I will discuss the various meanings of this term and why, rightfully understood, there is no escape from the name.

There's an increasing consensus that elements of the Covid response went way too far - especially long term school closures. It's also clear now that many things that were said turned out to be untrue. For example, vaccine efficacy was clearly overstated. That may have been an honest error, but it was still a serious one.

Our society seldom holds people in leadership positions to account for their screwups or the failures that occur on their watch. I share thoughts on this, including a specific look at pastors and Covid.

AP: Online school put US kids behind. Some adults have regrets: https://apnews.com/article/online-school-covid-learning-loss-7c162ec1b4ce4d5219d5210aaac8f1ae

Daily Wire: How Church Leaders Aligned With Fauci To Discredit Experts Opposed To COVID Mandates: https://www.dailywire.com/news/how-church-leaders-aligned-with-fauci-to-discredit-experts-opposed-to-covid-mandates

The question of the vocation of masculinity today is not what it is but whether it exists. I examine how traditional societies, and texts like the Bible, assumed pervasive gender polarity that's greatly attenuated today. I discuss what would have traditionally been common attributes of masculine vocation, and how they relate to contemporary society and ideology. The key point of conflict is over the traditional idea that men needed to over-produce in order to provide a surplus beyond their own needs that would benefit family and community.  But so long as we live in a wealthy, prosperous society, weak gender differentiation will likely be the norm.

Videos from the 1980s show a vanished America. You see the near total absence of the detached, ironic, cynical tone that characterizes the country today and which came to the fore in the 1990s. It's largely a pre-obesity. And it's still a mass culture America. Despite its flaws, the median American today might actually be better off in that era than today.

Conservatives bristled when President Obama said "You didn't build that." But they should understand that theologically and practically, we did not actually build all that we've accomplished by ourselves. We benefitted from good fortune, and often especially from networks and access to capital. Paying it forward in terms of helping be the network for others is one of the way we show gratitude for what we've achieved and been given.

Conservatives tend to view the media as leftist. Due to certain experiences of the Reagan and Bush II administrations, they also seem to believe the media tries to undermine a muscular foreign and defense policy. In fact, on matters of foreign policy and reporting on foreign countries, the media should largely be seen as supporting whatever the US policy towards those nations might be, policy that is typically quite bi-partisan in nature.

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There's an element of social contagion in divorce. We are more likely to get divorced if our friends and associates are divorced. Hence, we should carefully monitor both our own and our spouse's friend networks, keeping an eye out for divorces. 

A Dutch soldier in Indianapolis for training exercises was murdered downtown, creating an international incident with global press and cabinet level officials in both the Netherlands and the US having to address it. And yet local Indianapolis leaders, in contrast to the abortion issue, can't talk about the role of crimes like this in our business climate and reputation. 

From crime to the water crisis in Jackson to drug abuse to our electric grid to elections to health care, Americas leaders cannot muster the will and ability to address serious problems. They are imprisoned by the ideological constraints of managerialism and hobbled by the increasing complexity of our systems.