My Top Ten Posts of 2024 (#10 - #6)
The most popular columns from Governing Right's first year
I started “Governing Right” in May because I wanted a place to discuss a right-of-center approach to public life. This is my 70th post (I’ve averaged almost three per week), and I’m very grateful to my readers. Thank you.
I’m probably won’t have any new material between now and the new year, so I wanted to review what has worked so far. Over two columns, I’ll reveal and briefly discuss my Top 10 posts of the year. The rankings are based on a combination of views, shares, likes, subscribes, etc (speaking of which, if you like Governing Right, please consider sharing this, liking it, and/or becoming a paid subscriber).
Over the break, I’ll give fresh thought to how to improve this column in 2025. If you have reactions to this list or ideas for Governing Right more generally, let me know.
10. “When Judges Get Governing Wrong” (Part 1 & Part 2): 10/22/24, 10/29/24
I’ve long believed that there’s too little good writing about judging authored by non-lawyers. Attorneys generally see like judges instead of like governing agents, so too often writing about court decisions ignores important aspects of the duties and authorities of legislative- and executive-branch officials.
In the first part, I explained my views on the big mistakes judges often make. In the second part, I get more specific by discussing these mistakes in the context of a handful of SCOTUS cases related to education.
9. “The Pardon of Hunter Biden”: 12/2/24
President Biden’s pardon of his son Hunter infuriated me. Other people wrote about the hypocrisy of the act, the damage to the rule of law, the politics, etc. But I was angry for a different reason: It was a blatantly anti-republican abuse of power that would’ve appalled our framers and that should appall anyone who cares about republican virtue. The concept of republicanism is a recurring theme of Governing Right, and this unwise pardon was a chance to show why republicanism matters.
Over the years, I’ve occasionally pitched an idea to a publication and gotten a polite decline because the idea wasn’t news-y or fiery enough. Readers want something splashier, I’ve frequently been informed. So it was with this piece. A couple publications said they would prefer takes that talked about what the pardon meant for Trump or whether Biden should be impeached. Republicanism is kind of dry and academic, I was told. So I wrote it and put it on “Governing Right”. It became one of my most-read pieces of the year.
I think readers sometimes prefer a little less splashiness.
8. “On Grief”: 11/8/24
Paid subscribers get my regular column called “Community Day” where I discuss the novel I’ve written and the process of writing fiction. You might think that readers of a governing-related newsletter wouldn’t care much about fiction, but this series has consistently generated some of the most interaction, highest readership, and most new subscribers.
Several of these posts did unusually well, including the first one, “Why A Novel” (on why I decided to write a novel), and “The Novel’s First Line” (where I discuss how I thought about that very important initial sentence). These pieces started getting more readers after “Writing the Wife,” which is about the challenge of creating a character that the first-person narrator doesn’t want to talk about.
But the most popular “Community Day” column was on writing about grieving characters, particularly men. Here’s how that column begins:
I had a theory: It must be very, very difficult to write novels about grieving men. Bear with me.
Some of the most famous, most compelling characters in literature are women dealing with tragedy. Penelope in The Odyssey; Miss Havisham in Great Expectations; Hagar, Mary, and Hannah from The Bible, Sethe in Beloved, the unnamed narrator in “The Yellow Wallpaper.” There are even lists, debates, and conversations about modern “sad girl” fiction.
Now, throughout literature there are certainly cruel men. Angry men. Ambitious men. Weak men. Duplicitous men. But grieving men? Not nearly as much.
Since it made the Top 10, I’ve now freed “On Grief” from its paywall.
7. “Trump's Appeals Court Selections”: 12/11/24
This one surprised me. I didn’t think people would be as interested in this subject as I was.
For a larger project on the educational backgrounds of America’s leaders, I’d collected data on the post-secondary schooling of all federal appeals-court judges. I’d heard a few conversation recently speculating on the types of people Donald Trump would appoint to the bench in his second term. Since I had all this data, I grouped the judges based on which president appointed them.
This was new data—it hadn’t been collected, analyzed, and released before—and it revealed some things about Mr. Trump (and other presidents) that was seldom if ever discussed. This post got lots of readers and way more shares than usual. In this way it was similar to a post I did about the progressive bias of public-policy schools: It turns out readers like new data.
6. “Transition to Governing, 4: The Day the Wheels Came Off”: 11/14/24
I knew I would want to write about the Trump transition. I also knew I would want to write about what it meant for governing—not for politics, palace intrigue, etc. Back in August, I wrote two columns forecasting what a second Trump term would look like. Both posts (“On Project 2025” and “Staffing a Trump II”) had lots of readers and shares. So after Trump was elected, I created a new series for paid subscribers called “Transition to Governing.”
Over the last six weeks, I’ve written 11 posts in that series. The one with the most reads, most subscribers generated, and most shares is #4. From the start, I tried to be even-handed. I was even cautiously optimistic in the first three posts. But #4, titled “The Day the Wheels Came Off,” was in response to the 24-hour period during which Hegseth, Gaetz, Gabbard, and Musk/Ramaswamy were named.
Here’s how it begins:
Collectively, these choices are irresponsible. Governing is serious business, It comes with enormous power—power that can do a lot of damage if used poorly. Governing well at the highest levels requires experience. It also demands judgment and character. Officials have to be trusted to make terribly difficult decisions—decisions involving police powers, state secrets, weapons, billions of dollars. Leaders need to have prudence and wisdom when faced with crises and unexpected developments. Presidents need to understand all of this when they are hiring.
America’s system of governing is a gift that’s been handed down generation after generation for nearly 250 years. We have a stewardship responsibility. This column is about the importance of governing, of our democratic-republican tradition, of the people handed public authority. As I’ve said many times here, this is not a place for politics, campaigns, polling, or messaging. It’s a place for governing. And these choices, taken together, undermine American governing.
Stay tuned for #5 - #1.
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