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The Post-Liberal Right threatens to roll back American liberty.





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The new album is good, telling stories in easygoing, crisp, syncopated melodies, which are more uplifting than her previous album. The Tortured Poets Department with 31 songs is a superior album and not merely because it’s longer and themed to romantic loss and grief. It’s deeper. The Life of a Showgirl reflects upon a new upswing in Taylor Swift’s life. The young woman is engaged to be married for the first time.

Understandably, she’s more reserved about her privacy. Vulnerability is a superpower and Swift interviews, writes, sings, performs and trades as though she knows this. In song after song throughout her career, as I’ve written in recent years, she mines and explores the challenges, the turmoil and the heartbreak of romantic love, particularly through the lens of being famous in the envious, darkening 21st century. The Life of a Showgirl marks her progression toward personal—which is to say private— happiness.

This is what leftist critics despise: that she loves a man—that she’s capable of being happy and intelligent, writing lyrics and music that reflect the truth—that she’s selfish. As I wrote about her appearance as part of a couple at the Super Bowl, her defiance stems from egoism. Taylor Swift’s 12th album is no exception. Its theme is that, contrary to today’s rampant effects of altruism and collectivism, the anti-egoist slogan that your life’s not about you is wrong—“hundred percent,” as everyone keeps adding to everyone else in reply (in another overstated and annoying catchphrase)—Swift’s life is absolutely and unabashedly all about Swift. As yours is about you.

Taylor Swift turns catchphrase into wry commentary and profound, sometimes subtle, lyricism. The title song simply sings of pop stardom in duet with Sabrina Carpenter. With songwriters Max Martin and Shellback, Swift delivers more, new thoughtful pop songs. Dovetailing her chosen lyrics, themes and subtexts into each song as usual, the cumulative effect of the whole 12-tune album is still biting, bitter and cutting yet infused with romanticism and softness. The smooth-sharp contrast of “Elizabeth Taylor,” a twist on Shakespeare’s tragic flaw in “The Fate of Ophelia,” the breathy “Opalite;” everything’s cheerful with her familiarly clipped diary entry tone.

“Father Figure,” like Prince’s best songs, re-casts relationships with androgyny, and “Ruin the Friendship,” “Wish List,” the penis-themed “Wood,” “Cancelled!” and “Actually Romantic” can and will be taken any number of ways, with or without unique punctuation. Songs in sequence alternate and flow. The best tunes are the sweetest and most romantic: a standout song, “Eldest Daughter,” affords insightful, psychological astuteness and “Honey,” which makes an argument and case in point as it casts a spotlight, simultaneously casts a spell. As ever, vulgar lyrics pop, punctuate and abound. “Honey” in particular and The Life of a Showgirl in general tell a story, unfolding with seriousness, lightness, romance, love and joy.

Recently, a podcaster asked the billionaire about whether this would be her last album because she’s getting married and, presumably, contemplating having kids. Taylor Swift was taken aback, responding with an expression of egoistic love which rejects the false choice of ambition or family and conveys a proper orientation to romantic love between adults: “I love the person that I am with because he loves what I do, and he loves how much I am fulfilled by making art and making music. That’s the coolest thing about Travis. He is so passionate about what he does that me being passionate about what I do … connects us.” So does The Life of a Showgirl.

Related Episodes, Articles and Links

Yahoo! News reports that the IEEPA tariff cases will be argued on November 5:

Does President Trump have legal authority acting on his own to impose large import taxes on products coming from otherwise friendly countries?

Trump is relying on a 1977 law that empowers the president to act when faced with an "unusual and extraordinary threat" from abroad. The measure does not mention tariffs or taxes.

In a pair of cases, lower courts ruled the tariffs were illegal but kept them in place for now. Trump administration lawyers argue the justices should defer to the president because tariffs involve foreign affairs and national security.

I looked at reasons the Court might rule one way or the other here, here, and here. Of the three posts, I consider the third the most interesting and, to my not-legally-trained mind, the best outcome.

The article is titled "Here Are 5 Major Supreme Court Cases to Be Argued This Fall." Aside from the dates given for each case, the most striking thing is just how much government meddling there is in our lives even aside from Trump's capricious, illegal, and unpredictable import taxes.

Here is a list of the other four cases, followed by my quick, laissez-faire take on each. (There can be more to say about what a proper ruling would look like in each case, given the fact that we live in a mixed economy, but I am passing over that.)

• Conversion Therapy and Free Speech: The government has no business licensing, let alone directly interfering with the speech of mental health counselors, let alone members of any other profession. Simply by being involved in setting standards (a task which can and should be performed by market actors), the government is limiting speech and interfering with freedom of contract.
• Voting Rights and Black Majority Districts: The government should ensure equal numbers of people per representative, regardless of any other consideration, perhaps barring geographic proximity. Incidentally, the less the government does that isn't its proper job -- protecting individual rights -- the less of a temptation there would be to gerrymander in the first place.
• Transgender Athletes and School Sports: The state shouldn't be operating schools or meddling in how people choose to organize athletic competitions among themselves or their own children.
• Trump and Independent Agencies: At last, a case that could conceivably occur within a completely free country! I say, could, though. In a freer society there would be very few such agencies and less surface area for infection by party politics/temptation for a power-luster to install cronies.

It is sobering to consider the above list, and reflect on the fact that the current President wishes to greatly expand his improper power over us, while preserving the already extensive and entrenched tyranny that had already existed before he came along.

-- CAV