https://sguzman.github.io/marginalia/tags/politics/Recent content in Politics on MarginaliaHugoen-usWed, 03 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://sguzman.github.io/marginalia/posts/liberalism-as-political-domestication/Wed, 03 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://sguzman.github.io/marginalia/posts/liberalism-as-political-domestication/An analysis of the thesis that liberal orders weaken inherited forms of coordination and replace them with legal-rational administration, credentialed expertise, and therapeutic governance, producing domestication rather than simple emancipation.https://sguzman.github.io/marginalia/posts/liberalism-equality-and-the-leftward-drift-thesis/Wed, 03 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://sguzman.github.io/marginalia/posts/liberalism-equality-and-the-leftward-drift-thesis/An analysis of the thesis that liberalism is inherently unstable and tends to generate pressure for broader equality, assessing whether this leftward drift necessarily culminates in socialism or Marxism.https://sguzman.github.io/marginalia/posts/republicans-as-moderating-opposition-without-a-rival-order/Wed, 03 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://sguzman.github.io/marginalia/posts/republicans-as-moderating-opposition-without-a-rival-order/This report evaluates the thesis that Republicans in the United States often behave less like builders of a coherent rival governing order and more like a moderating or disciplining opposition inside a shared liberal governing field.https://sguzman.github.io/marginalia/posts/liberalism-social-disembedding-and-managed-dependency/Tue, 02 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://sguzman.github.io/marginalia/posts/liberalism-social-disembedding-and-managed-dependency/This report explores the thesis that actually existing liberalism, especially when fused to advanced capitalism, tends to dissolve pre-liberal or nonmarket social bonds, reconstructing social coordination through commodified, bureaucratic, therapeutic, credentialed, and managerial mechanisms that create new dependencies.https://sguzman.github.io/marginalia/posts/american-conservatism/Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://sguzman.github.io/marginalia/posts/american-conservatism/This report formalizes and tests the claim that American conservatism is intellectually unstable because the United States was founded not as a traditional conservative order, but as a modern liberal-republican revolution. The evidence supports a qualified version of the critique: the founding is liberal and revolutionary at the level of first principles, but more conservative at the level of institutional engineering and social practice.https://sguzman.github.io/marginalia/posts/puritan-moral-psychology/Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://sguzman.github.io/marginalia/posts/puritan-moral-psychology/This report analyzes the formal thesis that modern American progressivism inherited and secularized a durable moral-political grammar first institutionalized in New England Puritanism. The grammar includes covenantal mission, collective guilt, moralized authority, public scrutiny of conduct, and disciplinary institutions.https://sguzman.github.io/marginalia/posts/culture-gothic/Mon, 20 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://sguzman.github.io/marginalia/posts/culture-gothic/Aesthetics for the Maimedhttps://sguzman.github.io/marginalia/posts/prestige-economy-of-knowledge-in-early-modern-europe-c-1100-c-1850/Sat, 11 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://sguzman.github.io/marginalia/posts/prestige-economy-of-knowledge-in-early-modern-europe-c-1100-c-1850/Executive Summary: In medieval and early modern Europe, a discipline’s prestige depended largely on its convertibility into real power and status. Law attained immense prestige from c.1100–1700 because it underpinned kings’ and noble…https://sguzman.github.io/marginalia/posts/nations-right-wing-critique/Sat, 04 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://sguzman.github.io/marginalia/posts/nations-right-wing-critique/<ul> <li>Nations as Imposed Constructs: Many modern nation-states were defined top-down by colonizers, conquerors or bureaucrats, not by the people who lived there. Colonial powers drew artificial borders—often straight lines on maps—that spl…</li> </ul>https://sguzman.github.io/marginalia/posts/piketty-liberal-pmc-critique/Sun, 22 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://sguzman.github.io/marginalia/posts/piketty-liberal-pmc-critique/Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century emphasizes that the explosion of inequality in recent decades has been driven not by impersonal market forces alone but by an unprecedented surge in top managers’ earnings. Piketty…https://sguzman.github.io/marginalia/posts/republican-administrations-as-the-enforcers-of-u-s-imperial-policy/Sun, 22 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://sguzman.github.io/marginalia/posts/republican-administrations-as-the-enforcers-of-u-s-imperial-policy/Republican Administrations as the Enforcers of U.S. Imperial Policyhttps://sguzman.github.io/marginalia/posts/journalists-and-the-u-s-state-structural-alignment-incentives-and-evidence/Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://sguzman.github.io/marginalia/posts/journalists-and-the-u-s-state-structural-alignment-incentives-and-evidence/Journalists and the U.S. State Structural Alignment, Incentives, and Evidencehttps://sguzman.github.io/marginalia/posts/moby-dick-as-yankee-self-aggrandizement-and-self-indictment/Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://sguzman.github.io/marginalia/posts/moby-dick-as-yankee-self-aggrandizement-and-self-indictment/Moby-Dick as Yankee Self-Aggrandizement and Self-Indictmenthttps://sguzman.github.io/marginalia/posts/selective-freudian-explanations-in-political-and-media-discourse/Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://sguzman.github.io/marginalia/posts/selective-freudian-explanations-in-political-and-media-discourse/Selective Freudian Explanations in Political and Media Discoursehttps://sguzman.github.io/marginalia/posts/the-u-s-post-world-war-ii-boom-1945-1975/Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://sguzman.github.io/marginalia/posts/the-u-s-post-world-war-ii-boom-1945-1975/The U.S. Post–World War II Boom, 1945–1975https://sguzman.github.io/marginalia/posts/civilizing-injustice-colonial-conquest-and-moral-pretexts/Wed, 04 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://sguzman.github.io/marginalia/posts/civilizing-injustice-colonial-conquest-and-moral-pretexts/Executive Summary: This report critically examines the claim that foreign powers may legitimately conquer or annex a society because it tolerates grave injustices. In three historical case studies (British India’s abolition of sati,…https://sguzman.github.io/marginalia/posts/symbolic-post-masculinity/Wed, 04 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://sguzman.github.io/marginalia/posts/symbolic-post-masculinity/As advanced economies shift from heavy industry and traditional male roles toward service and knowledge sectors, masculinity’s material basis has eroded. Yet many men still crave the status and identity once conferred by breadwinning,…https://sguzman.github.io/marginalia/posts/united-states-of-empire/Wed, 04 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://sguzman.github.io/marginalia/posts/united-states-of-empire/The United States formally operates as a constitutional federation, but many scholars and critics argue it often behaves like an empire – a powerful center imposing a uniform vision over diverse regions. This report investigates whether th…https://sguzman.github.io/marginalia/posts/tyler-and-jews/Tue, 03 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://sguzman.github.io/marginalia/posts/tyler-and-jews/Tyler Oliveira’s recent video on Lakewood, NJ blends genuine local issues (rapid Orthodox population growth and school budgeting) with overt antisemitic framing. Local reporting shows the video (“Jewish Invasion”) went viral (2.2M+ views),…https://sguzman.github.io/marginalia/posts/report-elite-discourse-and-structural-critique/Fri, 27 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://sguzman.github.io/marginalia/posts/report-elite-discourse-and-structural-critique/Report Elite Discourse and Structural Critiquehttps://sguzman.github.io/marginalia/posts/yankee-white-supremacy/Fri, 27 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://sguzman.github.io/marginalia/posts/yankee-white-supremacy/We define Managerial Yankee White Supremacy as a paternalistic ideology in which (Northern) white elites disclaim overt racism but claim a unique moral and administrative role in “uplifting” other races. In practice they frame racial h…https://sguzman.github.io/marginalia/posts/corporate-capital-and-progressive-cultural-politics/Sun, 15 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://sguzman.github.io/marginalia/posts/corporate-capital-and-progressive-cultural-politics/Corporate Capital and Progressive Cultural Politicshttps://sguzman.github.io/marginalia/posts/labor-competition-and-intergroup-tension-between-african-americans-and-mexican-and-latino-workers-in/Sun, 15 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://sguzman.github.io/marginalia/posts/labor-competition-and-intergroup-tension-between-african-americans-and-mexican-and-latino-workers-in/Labor Competition and Intergroup Tension Between African Americans and Mexican and Latino Workers inhttps://sguzman.github.io/marginalia/posts/rebel-pmc-paradox-symbolic-rebellion-and-professional-managerial-embeddedness-in-left-liberal-insti/Sun, 15 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://sguzman.github.io/marginalia/posts/rebel-pmc-paradox-symbolic-rebellion-and-professional-managerial-embeddedness-in-left-liberal-insti/Rebel-PMC Paradox Symbolic Rebellion and Professional-Managerial Embeddedness in Left‑Liberal Instihttps://sguzman.github.io/marginalia/posts/the-carousel-of-right-wing-resistance-in-the-united-states/Sun, 15 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://sguzman.github.io/marginalia/posts/the-carousel-of-right-wing-resistance-in-the-united-states/The Carousel of Right-Wing Resistance in the United Stateshttps://sguzman.github.io/marginalia/posts/when-subverted-masculinity-boomerangs-into-underdog-masculinity/Sun, 15 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://sguzman.github.io/marginalia/posts/when-subverted-masculinity-boomerangs-into-underdog-masculinity/When “Subverted Masculinity” Boomerangs into “Underdog Masculinity”