The Biden-Trump rematch is a nationwide exercise in denial
Neither Donald Trump nor Joe Biden is the other guy. This, we are frequently reminded, is their principal advantage in…
Clamor rises for Biden to step aside soon
The pressure is building for Joe Biden to drop out of the presidential race. Donald Trump leads Biden nationally in…
Coercion and coddling take campus
On October 7, 2023, I was the chairman of the political science department at a large public university, but not…
The logic of the J.D. Vance selection
The best way to understand Donald Trump’s choice of J.D. Vance for vice president is to ask how different choices…
America’s Summer of Discontent, 250 years ago
In the summer of 1774, large numbers of American colonists, from Massachusetts Bay down to the Virginia Tidewater, were disaffected…
How long has Hollywood been out of ideas?
Marie-Georges-Jean Méliès made more than 500 films in his career, but 1896 was a banner year for the Frenchman. He…
If Trump or Biden actually cared about America, they would step aside
I’ve written ad nauseam about how much I hate this election, about how Trump-Biden 2.0 is even more demoralizing than…
Who is behind the Elon Musk-backed America PAC?
Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk announced after Saturday’s assassination attempt against Donald Trump that he would donate $45 million…
Starmer accuses Tories of ‘dereliction of duty’
Keir Starmer used his press conference at the end of the European Political Community summit to further cement his narrative…
The Horizon scandal shows how badly Britain is run
The Post Office inquiry has shed an unflattering light on the inner workings of Whitehall, a hermetically sealed world in…
Joe Biden, naked emperor
Sometimes, a fairytale provides the best description of a real-world crisis. That’s true of President Joe Biden’s cognitive decline. The…
Pat McFadden and Ed Davey probed at Post Office Inquiry
At what point does a minister decide they are being lied to? That was the question Pat McFadden and Ed…
The intellectual journey of JD Vance
For someone who is not yet 40, the path JD Vance walked to become the next potential vice president of…
Waste not want not
Alexandria, Virginia I sit on bathtub’s edge, back spasming, left leg numb, inner cheek bitten raw — pain that must…
How one bad scene can ruin an otherwise great movie
Can one egregiously bad scene ruin an otherwise great movie? When I go on an early 1970s jag — revisiting…
The era of ideological, overreaching and omnipresent government
It was a law of classical political philosophy that democratic polities devolve inevitably into tyrannical ones. This law is being…
Should Olympians be paid?
The Olympics are the pinnacle of athletic achievement, a global stage where the very best compete for ultimate glory. With…
Why New York is a city built on the written word
When I visited New York for the first time in a decade recently, one of its most famous living writers,…
Unplugging in the Western Ghats
“Is that the one where they put a tube… up?” I asked, gesturing to the ceiling. “Yes, ma’am,” Dr. Arun…
A tale of two safaris
To grasp the untamed vastness of Samburu County, it’s necessary to get high. Above the thickets of acacia trees, thorny…
Going ham in Andalusia
In Spain you can eat all day — and we did. Earlier in the summer, I spent two days in…
What’s behind all the buzz about non-alcoholic beer?
There’s nothing quite like the third swig of a gin and tonic at the end of a long summer’s day.…
Pavlova: a dessert inspired by the Dying Swan
Pastry chef Alistair Wise says never to make pavlova on a rainy day. “Just forget about it,” he advises. And…
Outdoor wines for the summer
There are some cramped, unimaginative people who — I have been told — maintain that writing about wine is a…
Why is James Madison so consistently forgotten?
James Madison is consistently forgotten. Admittedly, many of the Founding Fathers are forgotten. The average American could probably name two…
