An opinion blog on politics, society, and culture.https://realistagenda.com/en-ushttps://realistagenda.com/blog/echoes-of-nativism/https://realistagenda.com/blog/echoes-of-nativism/The rhetoric used against immigrants today is that they are diseased, criminal, and unable to assimilate. It's not new. It's a direct echo of the nativist playbook from a century ago. This is a deliberate revival of our worst instincts.Wed, 16 Jul 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://realistagenda.com/blog/living-in-a-land-of-imagination/https://realistagenda.com/blog/living-in-a-land-of-imagination/Imagination builds fake realities. In politics, stories are repeated until belief replaces truth, and facts become irrelevant. What starts as make-believe turns into gospel, and people fighting to defend things that were never real.Wed, 01 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://realistagenda.com/blog/maga-gop-human-empathy/https://realistagenda.com/blog/maga-gop-human-empathy/It's not just a policy disagreement. The MAGA movement has weaponized a lack of compassion, turning cruelty into a political virtue. This is an analysis of the empathy deficit at the heart of today's GOP.Mon, 14 Jul 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://realistagenda.com/blog/the-strange-afterlife-of-pj-orourke/https://realistagenda.com/blog/the-strange-afterlife-of-pj-orourke/That P.J. O'Rourke quote about liberalism is making the rounds again on social media. It’s a perfect example of how the modern right uses the ghosts of its intellectual past to fuel a movement that has abandoned intellect entirely.Thu, 17 Jul 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://realistagenda.com/blog/the-tariff-shell-game/https://realistagenda.com/blog/the-tariff-shell-game/The modern GOP's embrace of tariffs is both a cynical shell game played with language, and bad economics. Let's call their 'tariffs' what they actually are. They are an import tax that is passed on to consumers.Thu, 17 Jul 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://realistagenda.com/blog/they-believe-themselves-virtuous/https://realistagenda.com/blog/they-believe-themselves-virtuous/A defining feature of modern right-wing politics is the conviction that cruelty is a moral necessity. This is a deep dive into the self-righteousness that fuels the MAGA movement and its allies.Wed, 16 Jul 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://realistagenda.com/blog/this-has-always-been-trumps-character/https://realistagenda.com/blog/this-has-always-been-trumps-character/The attempts to memory-hole Donald Trump's past are a fool's errand. A jury has found him liable for sexual abuse. Dozens of women have accused him. His predatory behavior and contempt for women have been a core, public part of his brand for forty years.Fri, 18 Jul 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://realistagenda.com/blog/truth-as-a-convenience/https://realistagenda.com/blog/truth-as-a-convenience/The modern right's relationship with truth is inconsistent, and it's a deliberate strategy. This is an analysis of the epistemic rot that has made good-faith debate impossible.Tue, 15 Jul 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://realistagenda.com/blog/unbearable-shallowneess-of-now/https://realistagenda.com/blog/unbearable-shallowneess-of-now/We are drowning in a sea of context-free information, and the refusal to do the hard work of thinking is becoming a catastrophic failure of citizenship.Sun, 13 Jul 2025 00:00:00 GMT