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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
Decoding Stephen Miller
ChatGPT says: Alliance Theory explains Stephen Miller as a perfect coalition enforcer who is now flirting with coalition rupture. Why he succeeds. Miller solves Trump’s core alliance problem. Trump’s base wants boundary enforcement more than policy elegance. Immigration is the … Continue reading
Posted in Alliance Theory, America, Stephen Miller
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Why do educated people use “distasteful” to condemn?
It seems weak and prissy and the opposite of compelling and logical and forceful. ChatGPT says: Because “distasteful” is doing alliance work, not moral work. Among educated elites, open condemnation is risky. Strong moral language signals passion, anger, or certainty. … Continue reading
Posted in Alliance Theory
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When Status Games Collapse
David Pinsof writes: When a status game collapses, the players experience something like an inversion of the social hierarchy. The higher one’s rank, the more people one must have stepped on to acquire it. The more time and energy one … Continue reading
Posted in Alliance Theory, America, Status
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Life Under A Clicktatorship
Gemini says: A “clicktatorship” is a term coined to describe a form of government that merges a social media-first worldview with authoritarian tendencies. It represents a governing style where decisions, policy, and official actions are driven by, and responsive to, … Continue reading
Posted in Alliance Theory, America, Journalism
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Rupert Murdoch vs The Establishment
I’m reading the new Gabriel Sherman book, Bonfire of the Murdochs: How the Epic Fight to Control the Last Great Media Dynasty Broke a Family –– and the World, and it seems like a case study in Alliance Theory, elite … Continue reading
Posted in Alliance Theory, Elites, Fox, Journalism, Rupert Murdoch, Tucker Carlson
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Charisma Requires Managing Social Paradox
David Pinsof writes Feb. 2, 2026: Being charismatic means being good at social paradoxes. Think about a charismatic person—Elizabeth Holmes, Robert Downey Jr., Bob Dylan, whoever does it for you. What powers do they have? What can they do that … Continue reading
Posted in Alliance Theory, Charisma, Economics, Status
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What Is Charisma?
David Pinsof writes: Being charismatic means being good at social paradoxes. Think about a charismatic person—Elizabeth Holmes, Robert Downey Jr., Bob Dylan, whoever does it for you. What powers do they have? What can they do that we can’t? Well, … Continue reading
Posted in Alliance Theory, Charisma
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How goes the elite crusade to extend the HRification of society?
ChatGPT says: Poorly, and in ways Alliance Theory would predict. The “HRification of society” was an attempt to scale workplace compliance norms into culture wide governance. It worked briefly when elite legitimacy was high and dissent was marginal. That window … Continue reading
Posted in Alliance Theory
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The Trump-Tucker Relationship
ChatGPT says: Alliance Theory sees Tucker and Trump as two high-status actors with overlapping but nonidentical coalitions, locked in a recurring coordination problem rather than a stable alliance. Trump is a coalition leader. Tucker is a coalition amplifier. They need … Continue reading
Posted in Alliance Theory, Tucker Carlson
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The Vetting Of Josh Shapiro
Since it was revealed in 1985 that American Jew Jonathan Pollard had stolen American national security secrets and given them to Israel which may have then traded them to the Soviet Union, Jews in national security have undergone more intense … Continue reading
Posted in Alliance Theory, America
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