Settling in on the long series on Ronald Reagan, this week we close out his early, formative period. This is the week where we start with the "A Time for Choosing" in support of Barry Goldwater. This was a political awakening (going woke eh?) and that really flipped
The Fulcrum: how Reagan was the pivotal point in conservatism
The mail said groundswell. The room of businessmen who'd already funded one broadcast said something more like a plan. Book One closes with Reagan's actual declaration of candidacy.
The Fulcrum: how Reagan was the pivotal point in conservatism
Thirty years of radio timing, union politics, and rehearsed economics, compressed into thirty minutes. The numbers inside it don't all add up quite as cleanly.
The Fulcrum: how Reagan was the pivotal point in conservatism
Goldwater's own advisers didn't want Reagan on the air. One rich Californian wrote a personal check and put him there anyway. Episode IV
recap
The posts from the week of September 26 through October 3. We are going to do a deep and LONG series on the sainted one of the right, Ronnie Reagan.
The Fulcrum: how Reagan was the pivotal point in conservatism
$125,000 a year, in 1954, to host a TV show. The agency that arranged it owed its whole television business to a waiver he signed himself.
The Fulcrum: how Reagan was the pivotal point in conservatism
Before the conservative, before the Republican, there was a man whose father got his job from Roosevelt's own patronage machine. That part never really left him.
The Fulcrum: how Reagan was the pivotal point in conservatism
A lifeguard chair, a dead wire, a line about losing your legs that became his memoir's title. The making of Ronald Reagan starts long before anyone was watching.
The Fulcrum: how Reagan was the pivotal point in conservatism
Introducing a dive into the Reagan mythos. THe good, the bad, and the downright ugly. Three acts, from his acting days, through his performance of a lifetime, to the canonization and saint hood. No shiboleths spared
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Only one post the week from September 19 - 26.
People love to bitch about all the hands out seeking tips. Most of those who bitch really don't understand why service workers are underpaid, and how we got here.
Posts from the week of September 12 - 19, 2026. Immigration, electoral fuckery, and DHH as this week's "This Fucking Guy"
DHH wrote "there's no quid pro quo here" and then described the quid in the next sentence. That's the whole piece in one paragraph.
Every time one exclusion fell in nineteenth-century America, another one rose to take its place, usually enacted by the people who had just finished climbing out from under the last one.
A judge confirmed at fifty-five can't borrow the naivety of the twenty-four-year-old who first got noticed. Neither, really, can anyone else.
Switch electoral systems, restore the Founders' actual vision, or take the party back from the inside. All three get tried on for size in this piece. None of them fit, and the reasons are worth understanding in detail rather than taking on faith.
Fourteen months ago I argued the "right way" barely exists. Since then they fired a quarter of the immigration judges, deleted legal status for a million people who followed every rule, and still won't touch an employer.
Sarah Longwell wants the Chamber of Commerce wing back at the center of the GOP. The physics says the room that made that possible doesn't exist anymore, and there's no path back to it.
Posts and notes from the week of September 5, though September 12, 2026
NASA's planetary defense chief on Nathan Myhrvold: "He's a very smart man, but that doesn't make him an expert in everything." That's the whole piece, honestly.
Roughly 75 million Americans live under a body that taxes, regulates, fines, and can take their house. It isn't in the Constitution, and neither party will touch it.
