House Majority Whip Steve Scalise is currently under fire for a speech he gave before a "White Supremacist" group over a decade ago, when he was a Louisiana state representative. No one alleges anything untoward about the speech itself, only that the audience was unacceptable.

In the grand democratic tradition, Scalise brought his case to the people. If you disagree with his proposals, bring your own case to the people; it is as simple as that. The audience who heard Scalise's speech is irrelevant to the merits of the speech.

These ad hominem, guilt-by-association tactics really grate on me. And even if the Left is not going to conduct themselves with intellectual integrity, we should.

As a literary man, I would like to see a literature of greater intellectual integrity. In my most recent Radix essay, I argue for a new "Classical" ideal as a means to this end. Hopefully, my own book lives up to these principles.