In Commonplace, Nicholas Phillips takes on the new trope that import tariffs serve the interests of the “deep state” that populists want to dismantle. It’s the opposite, Phillips argues: the current regime of “free” trade (in fact, heavily rules-bound and highly unequal) has been concocted main by unelected officials and little-known bureaucratic agencies – the deep state’s very pillars. They are now terrified by a democratically elected, pro-tariff President and are grasping for ways to avoid losing control.

A Spite That Knows No Bounds
Gratingly awful global scold Greta Thunberg’s latest stunt is to turn on her own motherland. Sweden has been very good to her, but the former social-democratic paradise’s mugging by the realities of uncontrolled immigration do not sit well with the keffiyeh-clad rabblerouser. “For years, Sweden took more asylum seekers per capita than any other country in Europe,” writes Fredrik Karrholm in The Spectator. “Now asylum numbers have fallen to their lowest level since 1985.”


