Front Porch PC
The other day, I emailed Richard an article by Bill Kauffman praising the "reverse migration" of Blacks to the South in general, and author Ernest Gaines's return to Louisiana in particular. Richard asked me to write a short blog on it. As I began, I found it difficult to concisely express my thoughts without saying something more substantial about Kauffman, whose worldview (or, as I’m sure he’d like to call it, “local-view”) is popular among a number of libertarians and traditionalist conservatives, particularly the “Front Porch Republic” types.
For those of us tired of the traditional Left/Right paradigm in American politics, one has to appreciate Kauffman’s attempt at a new political historiography of sorts. He champions localism, populism, and anti-imperialism over corporate capitalism, empire, and political centralization.
In this vein, he proudly rejects the neoconservatives, cosmopolitan libertarians, and the Fox News crowd, while embracing Agrarians, decentralist libertarians, and a number of figures identified with the Left such as William Jennings Bryan and Gore Vidal (who wrote the forward to his excellent book, America First.)
I’d imagine that Kauffman would happily admit that he has a Romantic and sentimental view of America that animates his commentary much more than any sort of thorough political analysis. With enthusiastic prose, he will make historical figures and contemporary political and cultural figures he champions come alive.
