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The article focuses on the current state of the U.S. presidential-selection process, and how the nomination process helped candidate Donald Trump in winning the Republican Party’s nomination for the presidency.

The article presents a reprint of the article "Shaken and Stirred" by James W. Ceaser, which appeared in the "Weekly Standard" magazine. It discusses the 2016 U.S. presidential election which has featured a strong reaction from the people against a progressive intellectual elite. The rise of President-elect Donald Trump whose nomination as Republican presidential representative has led to a civil war within the party was also noted.

Using election results as our point of departure, this article places the 2016 presidential election in historical perspective. Trump's victory was an "expected" outcome, as races following two-terms of one party rule usually go to the opposition party. Trump also ran close to fellow Republicans competing for Congress despite his unusual relationship with many of those in the party he captured. Trump's victory in the presidential contest proved remarkably economical. He lost most of his votes relative to Romney in 2012 in places where it did not matter, while his opponent ran up the score in the states she already had locked down. We further measure the increasing geographic concentration of each major party's electoral support and consider how this relates to the controversy over the Electoral College. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a reprint of the article "The Facts and the Furious," by James W. Ceaser, which appeared in the book "Issues on My Mind: Strategies for the Future," by George P. Shultz. Topics discussed include column in the journal "New York Times" titled "The Year of the Angry Voter," the appeal of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, and the anger of U.S. Senator Ted Cruz.

The article presents a discussion of progressivism and politics in the U.S., adapted from the magazine "Weekly Standard." Topics include the impact of modern progressivism on politics since 2009, the three components of progressivism such as ideas from the intellectual movements of the left, theories from original progressives of the 20th century, and the practices and patterns of behavior from the central role of progressivism, and the idea of leader democracy by modern progressives.

This essay explores the scope of President Obama's re-election victory in 2012 by comparing it to previous presidential elections in American history. Three conclusions are drawn. First, Obama's margin of victory in 2012 is modest by historical standards, though Obama did make history by becoming the first re-elected President to lose both Electoral College votes and popular vote share between his first and second election. Next, despite some claims that challenger Mitt Romney squandered an easy opportunity to win, the historical record of incumbents seeking a second term suggests that the advantage always lay with President Obama. Finally, the 2012 election marked a further step in a changing pattern of presidential elections in which national margins of victory tend to be much smaller, state landslides are more numerous, and swings from one party to another between consecutive presidential elections are minimized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the 2012 presidential elections debates in the U.S. It mentions of the efforts of the electoral analysts in order to prepare voter behavior models for the prediction of the outcome of overhanging election. It also focuses on the effect of foreign policy decisions of U.S. president Barack Obama's on his chances at the election.

This essay treats the Progressives' critique of the Founders' doctrine of natural rights. Natural rights had been attacked before the Progressive era—by proponents of the racial science of ethnology, advocates of philosophy of history, and followers of Charles Darwin—but the Progressives launched the most thoroughgoing and systematic critique in American history. The leading thinker conducting the critique was America's foremost philosopher John Dewey. His critique had five major points: (1) that America had entered an entirely new age of social and economic organization requiring a different political theory; (2) that all theoretical claims of truth, like natural rights, are relative to the age in which they were born and thrived; (3) that theoretical ideas serve the aims of different classes, with natural rights representing the economic and political interests of the emerging bourgeoisie; (4) that natural rights encouraged a diminished goal for human beings, emphasizing the fulfillment of individual self-interest rather a higher idea of human development and of social cooperation; and (5) that any metaphysical claim in politics is undemocratic by virtue of ascribing a standard of right that is prior to and higher than a decision of a democratic majority. The paper concludes by briefly sketching the influence that this critique had on the heirs of the Progressives, the modern liberals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the concept of gratitude in its public, private, religious, cultural and political aspects within a historical and philosophical context. The author contends that gratitude is one of the most basic themes of Christianity and Judaism. An overview of gratitude's meaning, including perspectives by U.S. President Abraham Lincoln and from the Bible, is presented.

Alexis de Tocqueville's account of the formation of the American regime identifies two constitutive moments: the Puritan colonization and the Revolution and the Constitution (1775–1789). Contrary to historians of the day, Tocqueville gave as much credit to the Puritans as to the Founders. Yet far from being a pure history, Tocqueville's narrative also had the purpose of promoting a new political foundation that replaced the philosophical doctrine of natural rights with an account based on “Customary History.” Tocqueville's approach was intended to further a great theoretical project inaugurated by Montesquieu that offered an alternative model to the mainstream Enlightenment position for how political philosophy should enter into and influence political life. This article analyzes the two-founding thesis, explores the underlying theoretical project on foundations of Tocqueville and Montesquieu, and presents and assesses the debate on the merits of attempting to change the political foundation of the American regime. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This essay explores the scope of the Democratic Party's victory in the 2008 elections by comparing it to other U.S. elections since 1896. Three conclusions are drawn from the analysis: (1) that Obama's personal victory, though significant, was far from being massive, or even unusual, by historical standards; (2) that the Democratic congressional victory of 2008, relative to the midterm election of 2006, falls in the upper range of congressional victories in a presidential year; (3) that the Democrats' victory becomes more impressive in light of its reversal of the 2004 election, which represented the high-water mark for Republicans since 1928. The essay also briefly considers whether and in what sense the Democrats' victory might have inaugurated a party realignment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is a slightly revised version of a speech the author delivered at the John M. Olin Center at the University of Chicago in 2001 for a conference titled "Leo Strauss's Natural Right and History: Contexts and Subtexts." It addresses the question of where Leo Strauss situated his best-known work, "Natural Right and History," in relation to specific problems and issues raised in American political thought. Strauss's work is concerned with political philosophy in general, but he framed the initial questions of the book in terms of how they related to developments in American intellectual life. The practical consequences of certain modern ideas, Strauss argued, were being worked out in their most historically important way inside the United States, and he kept this theme constantly in the background of his analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Worries about “the rhetorical presidency” ultimately concern the danger of presidential demagoguery. As such, they echo an important theme of the Founders, who erected several barriers to the emergence of the president as demagogue in chief. In the ancient sources on which the Founders partly drew, the worry was the popular or pseudo-popular leader who seizes on widespread envies, fears, or hopes in the service of his political career—in contrast to the statesman, who pursues the public good and is, therefore, less interested in how to gain office than in how to use it. Later iterations emphasized the “superstitious,” “prejudiced,” or ideological nature of demagogic appeals. When Woodrow Wilson proposed that the president should seize the public-policy initiative in the name of the people, he sought to insulate the presidency from charges of demagoguery by arguing that no leader who spoke falsely on behalf of the people could expect to win the office. True adepts of the “progress” of public opinion, hence of the public good, are non-demagogic by definition. Although one is hard pressed to find an American president who can unambiguously be called demagogic, one does find demagoguery among presidential candidates, especially during their campaigns for party nomination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay is an effort to delineate an important factor shaping the context of congressional and presidential leadership--the results of midterm elections--and to investigate the responses of leaders in the dramatic situation of the loss of majorities by the president's party in both houses of Congress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to measure the strength of the parties in each state, the Major Party Index (MPI) was built by averaging the results of the six major elections that take place in the fifty states. This index allows us to describe the absolute and comparative partisan leaning of each state in each election and identify trends of party strength over time within individual states, among regions, and within the nation as a whole. The MPI sheds considerable light on three general developments: (1) a national change from Democratic dominance in the 1980s to a Republican edge by 2002, (2) significant regional realignments in the South and New England, and (3) a strong trend toward greater consistency between partisan voting at the federal and state levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the implementation of affirmative action and positive discrimination policies in the U.S. and France. Components and phases of the affirmative action regime; Consequences and costs of the affirmative action policy; Factors that influenced France to use the positive discrimination policy.

Argues that the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe must be seen in the context of developments since the 18th-century. Association of the term ideology with communism; Parties that entered into a series of conflicts that played out in the great wars of the 18th-century; Beliefs that arise regarding the political idols of communism.

Focuses on issues surrounding public philosophy in the United States. Opinion of social and political scholars on public philosophy; Definitions; Criticisms.

Discusses the relationship between political parties and presidential ambition in the United States. Functions of the presidential selection system; Roles of the founders of a political party in the presidential selection; Overview of the political career of legislators Martin Van Buren and Woodrow Wilson.