It's difficult for me to come up with a charitable reason why Sowell, an arch-conservative, is somehow interesting to HN (and, to be fair, I'd say the same thing about a sudden surge in interest in Brad DeLong or Matt Bruenig), or why we'd vote City-Journal, the house organ of the Manhattan Institute, to the front page. I think it's especially dicey given the climate.

If you're curious about Sowell, some policy positions worth noting: opposition to marriage equality on the basis of heterosexual marriage protecting women from the impact of their declining physical appearance as they age, full-throated support for the Iraq war, repeated comparisons of Barack Obama to Adolph Hitler, a spicy "Brown v. Board of Education was decided wrongly" take, opposition to criminal justice reform and particularly decarceration, support for Donald Trump in 2016 (and after), and opposition to the building of mosques.

It's not that these positions are beyond the pale (well: the mosque thing is), but rather that they're cut directly out of the coupon book of 1990s conservative think-tankism. Many dozens of public intellectuals held (and still hold) this same revanchist culture war portfolio of positions. Why is Sowell, long retired, so enthusiastically trotted out?