Throughout his presidential campaign, Donald Trump declared that he and his supporters were “the party of common sense.” In his Inaugural Address on January 20, Trump returned to this theme. With his flurry of executive orders, he said, “We will begin the complete restoration of America and the revolution of common sense. It’s all about common sense.”

I agree. But what is “common sense”? At the beginning of his Discourse on Method, René Descartes said that common sense was “the most widely distributed thing in the world.” Is it? Much as I admire Descartes, I have to note that he was imperfectly acquainted with the realities of 21st century America. If he were with us today, I am sure he would emend his opinion.

After all, is it common sense to pretend that men can be women? Or to pretend that you do not know what a woman is? During her confirmation hearings, a sitting member of the Supreme Court professed to be baffled by that question.

Is it common sense to open the borders of your country and then to spend truckloads of taxpayer dollars to feed, house, and nurture the millions of illegal migrants who have poured in? Is it common sense to sacrifice competence on the altar of so-called diversity? To allow politicians to bankrupt the country by incontinent overspending? That’s the start of a list one could easily enlarge.

In the cultural realm, is it common sense to celebrate art that is indistinguishable from pornography or some other form of psychopathology? Is it common sense to rewrite history in an effort to soothe the wounded feelings of people who crave victimhood? Is it common sense to transform higher education from an institution dedicated to the preservation and transmission of the highest values of our civilization into a wrecking ball aimed at destroying that civilization?

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This article is adapted from a talk delivered on January 29, 2025, at Hillsdale College’s Blake Center for Faith and Freedom in Somers, Connecticut.

Roger Kimball is editor and publisher of The New Criterionand publisher of Encounter Books. He earned his B.A. from Bennington College and his M.A. and M.Phil. in philosophy from Yale University. He has written for numerous publications, including The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times Book Review, and is a columnist for The Spectator World, American Greatness, and The Telegraph. He is author or editor of several books, including The Long March: How the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s Changed America, The Rape of the Masters: How Political Correctness Sabotages Art, and Vox Populi: The Perils and Promises of Populism.