We began the week with staff writer Bradley Devlin’s feature about Governor Ron DeSantis’s war with the Walt Disney Corporation. As “The Ratcatcher” begins, quoting Humpty Dumpty, “The question is, which is to be master—that is all.” And as DeSantis told Devlin in their conversation, “Protecting what we believe is a free society,” means preventing “social transformation without representation,” like the kind being advanced by Disney. The fight is not just about wokeness; it is about corporate power and what it means to be a self-governing state.

The chaos at the southern border has only grown with the end of Title 42. Assistant editor John Hirschauer reminds readers that as illegal immigrants are bused to cities across the country, the labor and housing effects—pushing homeless veterans out of a shelter in New York City, for example—are a microcosm of what a broken mass immigration system is doing to the country as a whole. In Portland, Maine, migrants already comprise more than 70 percent of those in the city’s shelters, and that population is only growing.

And in his column this week, managing editor Jude Russo examines the Durham report. While there is little surprising in the report to those that have paid attention since 2016, its modest recommendations and the FBI’s “we’ve already fixed it, trust us” response again raises the question of whether the modern security state is compatible with self-government. As Russo asks, “…will these organs and legal mechanisms always lead to entrenched cartels operating without political accountability, pursuing their own ends irrespective of the will of the people?” All signs point to yes.

Best,
Micah Meadowcroft
Web Editor

Learning to Love Small Government Again

Michael Warren Davis