Quotes from Ben Domenech

The human heart tends toward tribalism before tolerance. We can go back to that world. It still lives in all of us. Fighting it is the challenge, particularly at a time when the most audacious thing you can do is show some grace.

What we're witnessing really is a political realignment, I mean I think we're moving from a traditional understanding of left-right politics that we've had for a long time.

Evangelicals have, for decades, believed that the country was more conservative than not, more Christian than not. The bipartisanship on religious liberty and the civic faith of the country was conducive to that. Now they've woken up to a reality in the Obama years that this was a polite fiction.

For many Americans, 2016 will be remembered as a terrible year. It was a year in which the lack of faith in our institutions was laid bare.

One of the things I endeavor to remind people of consistently when I am asked to speak to groups around the country is to consider the possibility that we are led by a pack of idiots. This is not out of any animus toward our leadership class, but borne out of experience.

A repeated problem with the Obama administration has been the lack of understanding that contracts only matter if they are enforceable - and if there is a party willing to do the enforcement.

It'd be nice to claim that the American press, while maintaining objectivity and balancing against bias, is still inherently American - that they are patriots who love this country even as they report on its defects.

Father John Misty is rebelling not against repression or foolishness but the ephemeral nature of mankind. He seeks permanence in a fleeting age, and he does not find it because the one place he could find an answer, he considers closed off: a locked door.

In a healthy republic, there is a need for figures who understand that the presidency is not the be-all and end-all of the people.

The goal of any worthwhile and effective journal of opinion analysis in navigating what is an increasingly tribal and divisive period in American history should be to promote real debate. That does not mean retreating to our corners and pretending that, if we ignore the perspectives we don't like, they will magically go away.

For years, the NFL was the one league apparently immune from ratings downturns of any significance.

For being the largest generation in American history, the Millennial generation inspires a ridiculous degree of overgeneralization.

Gawker thrived on embarrassment and shame, seeking to demolish not just celebrities or politicians but average random people whose sins it would expose for traffic and commenters who gloried in its actions.

Gawker was a site built to destroy lives. Its mission was to discover the worst moment in a person's life - and then publicize it for profit.

Making a good meal for someone, even if it is nothing complicated, is an expression of love: it is an invitation to share, for one dinner at least, in our common humanity.

I stopped being a Republican because of the Iraq War.

'Rogue One' does not feel like a 'Star Wars' movie. There are no scrolling yellow letters. There is no classic John Williams score. It feels like a movie of a different type set in the 'Star Wars' universe, a movie where there is no magic to save you. It is not a movie for children.

Belief that your tribe is good and other tribes are evil is what everyone thought for most of human history.

While I am not a journalist, I have, myself, written more than one thing that has been plagiarized in the past.

You have the right to free speech as an American - you have no right to use YouTube to do it. And the mobs that exist can form very quickly if they are offended by your presence there.

Donald Trump came along and spoke in a language that speaks directly to a portion of the Republican base with what they want to hear. I don't think that he actually has a very significant ideology.

When I was much younger, my siblings and I would routinely tune in to watch 'Bill Nye the Science Guy' on PBS. He was a fascinating instructor bent on helping kids achieve a basic understanding of science. When he engaged in politics, it was only very briefly if at all.

Being a bureaucrat means never having to say you're sorry.

I have seen cabinet secretaries who type with two fingers.