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"Luke Ford reports all of the 'juicy' quotes, and has been doing it for years." (Marc B. Shapiro)
"This guy knows all the gossip, the ins and outs, the lashon hara of the Orthodox world. He’s an [expert] in... all the inner workings of the Orthodox world." (Rabbi Aaron Rakeffet-Rothkoff) LATEST POSTS:
- Robert Putnam: The Man Who Counted What America Lost
- W. Bradford Wilcox: The Sociologist Who Tells America to Get Married
- Peter Moskos: The Cop Who Talks to People
- Julius Krein
- Ryan Burge: The Numbers Man in the Empty Church
- Emily Oster: The Economist in the Delivery Room
- The Most Ridiculous Story Ever Told
- Tanner Greer
- Economist Tyler Cowen
- Richard Reeves: A Life in Institutions
- Jake Adelstein: The Reporter Who Became His Story
- Jim Goad (1961-2026)
- Moira Greyland
- Robert Oscar Lopez: The Inconvenient Witness
- Two Ledgers: Decoding the Gurus and the Price of Talk
- The Pervert’s Progress: Costin Vlad Alamariu and the Making of Bronze Age Pervert
- Curtis Yarvin: A Life Against Democracy
- Mark Helprin: Against the Current
- Mark Brandt: The Man Who Asked Who Else Is Prejudiced
- John T. Jost: The Psychologist of Acquiescence
BEST POSTS:
- * The Enlightenment Wasn’t Enlightened (6-23-26)
* Mr. Burge Draws The Line (6-23-26)
* 'Improving on Democracy' (6-17-26)
* People Leak To People Who Are Fun (6-11-26)
* Why Does Australia Produce So Many Great Journalists? (6-11-26)
* Steve Wynn and the Press: Power, Litigation, and the Contest Over Las Vegas (6-3-26)
* Sheldon Adelson and the Journalists (6-3-26)
* The Vigilant Animal: Thinkers Who Reject the Myth of Human Gullibility (6-2-26)
* The Cost of Refusing the Misunderstanding Myth (6-2-26)
* Show Me How It Travels (6-2-26)
* The Norm Explainers (6-2-26)
* Centering Marginalized Voices (6-1-26)
* What would it look like if the Washington Post put its reader first? (6-1-26)
* What would it look like if the Financial Times put its reader first? (6-1-26)
* What It Would Mean for the Los Angeles Times to Put the Reader First? (6-1-26)
* What It Would Mean for The New York Times to Put the Reader First? (6-1-26)
* Why Wembanyama Lives on the Perimeter (5-31-26)
* The Emotional Palettes Of San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco & Sacramento (5-27-26)
* The Administrative Capital: Sacramento Legal Culture (5-27-26)
* San Diego - The Quiet Republic (5-27-26)
* The Quiet Bar: San Diego Legal Culture (5-27-26)
* SF v LA Legal Culture (5-27-26)
* Why Talent Travels Poorly Between San Francisco and Los Angeles (5-27-26)
* San Francisco and Los Angeles as Rival Models of Urban Access (5-27-26)
* Social Cliques in New York, 2026 (5-25-26)
* Social Cliques in San Francisco, 2026 (5-25-26)
* The Rival Courts of Washington (5-25-26)
* The City of Private Rooms (5-25-26)
Category Archives: Alliance Theory
The Relaunch Of Heeb Magazine
The relaunch of Heeb Magazine offers a clear study in factional capture and the shift from high-decoupling cultural exploration to low-decoupling political mobilization. In Alliance Theory, a legacy brand like Heeb represents a form of symbolic capital. Arye Dworken describes … Continue reading
Posted in Alliance Theory, Heeb
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SMH: I’m Jewish. I live in Bondi. But I take no comfort from Herzog’s visit
David Leser writes for the Sydney Morning Herald: October 7 and its aftermath created an unprecedented catastrophe for the Palestinian nation-in-waiting, but it also created a moral and spiritual catastrophe for the Jewish people in terms of our relationship to … Continue reading
Posted in Alliance Theory, Jews, Journalism
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Decoding The TV Show Industry
In the world of Industry, the Pierpoint trading floor serves as a laboratory for the shifting, precarious bonds that define Alliance Theory. At its core, the show treats every relationship as a strategic alignment built to secure status or capital. … Continue reading
Posted in Alliance Theory, Brexit, Britain, Finance, Hollywood
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Australia’s Elites Unite Against Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Party
The Australian elite geometry is currently shifting toward the “European Model” of institutional containment to deal with the rising One Nation threat. The Combatting Antisemitism, Hate and Extremism Act 2026 is the primary mechanism for this elite unification. The Unification … Continue reading
Posted in Alliance Theory, Australia
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Keir Starmer Looks Vulnerable
Keir Starmer’s governing coalition is unusually moralized. It is built on professional class voters, institutional elites, NGOs, legal culture, and media actors who place extreme weight on reputational purity, safeguarding norms, and procedural virtue. This coalition is powerful but brittle. … Continue reading
Posted in Alliance Theory, Britain
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Why Does The MSM Render Some Explosive Events As Bland And Boring As Possible?
I notice that when there are dramatic news events that might work against the interests of elites, the MSM work overtime to render the explosive as bland as possible. I’m thinking about the horrors at Waco and Ruby Ridge, and … Continue reading
Posted in Alliance Theory, Journalism
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The federal disasters at Ruby Ridge (1992) and Waco (1993) served as the primary trauma-anchors for the modern populist movement
By applying my four favorite tools, we can see how these events did not just “happen”—they reconfigured the American social geometry, shifting the sacred status of the state to a polluted, “managerial cartel” in the eyes of millions. 1. The … Continue reading
Posted in Alliance Theory
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Decoding The ABC Four Corners Investigation Of The Bondi Terror Attack
Using my four favorite tools—Jeffrey Alexander’s cultural sociology, David Pinsof’s Alliance Theory and “Everything is Bullshit” framework, and Stephen Turner’s analysis of expertise—we can decode how the 2025 Bondi massacre serves as a catastrophic failure of institutional “sacred” rituals and … Continue reading
Posted in Alliance Theory, Australia, Bondi Beach
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Decoding Islam
Gemini says: Alliance Theory suggests that political Islam functions as a strategic network of supportive and antagonistic relationships designed to manage social threats and mobilize power. In this framework, religious belief systems are often “patchwork narratives” that shift to advance … Continue reading
Posted in Alliance Theory, Islam
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Decoding Hate
Gemini says: Alliance Theory suggests that political belief systems and moral campaigns are not about abstract values but are strategic tools used to mobilize support for allies and opposition to rivals. When an elite-driven campaign targets a “normal, healthy evolved … Continue reading
Posted in Alliance Theory
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