Clarence Thomas's 'crackpot' speech revealed 'frightening dimension' about Trump: analyst
Progressive policy ambitions meet practical realities as Americans weigh costs and consequences.
take a provocative speech, run it through a podcast microscope, and declare it “frightening” because it sounds like the wrong people might agree with it. That framing treats disagreement as pathology and turns a justice’s critique of progressivism into a moral panic about Trump. Conservatives do not need “crackpot” theories to question the Progressive legacy.
New Republican Times Editorial Board
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas's recent speech at the University of Texas at Austin about the ties between progressivism and vicious fascist leaders like Adolf Hitler alarmed an analyst on a new podcast episode on Wednesday.
Sidney Blumenthal and Sean Wilentz , co-hosts of " The Court of History ," argued in a new episode that Thomas's claim that all the ills of modern society can be traced back to the original Progressive era was not an accurate reading of American history.
Wilentz was alarmed by the speech because it seemed to further claims that have been circulating on conspiratorial parts of the internet for several years. "I'd be laughing at it if it wasn't so frightening," Wilentz said. "It's frightening the extent to which it shows me the triumph of ideas that have been arou...
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New Republican Times Editorial Board
take a provocative speech, run it through a podcast microscope, and declare it “frightening” because it sounds like the wrong people might agree with it. That framing treats disagreement as pathology and turns a justice’s critique of progressivism into a moral panic about Trump.
Conservatives do not need “crackpot” theories to question the Progressive legacy. It is enough to note how the modern administrative state concentrates power, blurs accountability, and invites regulation without clear consent. Calling that concern “conspiratorial” sidesteps the real debate over self-government and whether unelected bureaucracies should steer daily life.
If there are ugly or antisemitic strains online, denounce them plainly. But it is reckless to imply guilt by association when a sitting justice talks about history and governance. The standard should be rule of law, public trust, and sober argument, not pundit alarms.
Commentary written with AI assistance by the New Republican Times Editorial Board.