America
Make America boring again
I just spent £2.50 in postage to bring about one of the last things I want. Specifically, the next-to-last thing…
Portrait of the week
Home Wales, entering a 17-day ‘firebreak’, closed most shops by law but then tried to stop supermarkets selling ‘non-essential’ items…
What America needs
It is remarkably uncommon for a US president to fail to be re-elected. It has happened just twice in the…
Election notebook
Earlier this summer left-wing activists announced a ‘semi-autonomous zone’ in the Capitol Hill area of Seattle. Denuded of law enforcement…
‘I lied for Trump, but that doesn’t make me a liar’
Michael Cohen on the cult of The Donald
The transatlantic mask divide
Should we wear our masks? The question has been on my mind as I have been battered that way and…
Election notebook
Americans are, in my experience, the warmest, most kind-hearted and open-minded people in the world. I have found this to…
What was missing from the vice presidential debate
Democratic vice-presidential nominee Kamala Harris is a former prosecutor. Vice President Mike Pence is a career politician. The debate between…
The US election is Joe Biden’s to lose
Donald Trump is back at the White House after a scary three-day stay at the Walter Reed medical complex. For…
Barometer
Word for word US presidential debates are often traced back to the first televised debate, between Richard Nixon and John…
Letters
Lessons for the government Sir: James Forsyth suggests that the Prime Minister wishes to avoid sounding as if he is…
America in meltdown
What if no one accepts the election result?
The boys are back in town
There’s a delicious scene in the new season of Amazon’s superheroes-gone-bad series The Boys. The chief superhero Homelander (Antony Starr)…
Zinger ping pong
Aaron Sorkin’s The Trial of the Chicago 7 — don’t worry, you haven’t missed six earlier films — is a…
Who rules supreme?
Within hours of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death, Democrats and Republicans began fighting over how to fill her…
New World order
The myth of the ‘stolen country’
Diary
It’s never a good sign when you’re watching a scene of street terror in yet another gut-churning YouTube video and…
Bad apple
As New Yorkers flee, the suburbs are under siege
Portrait of the week
Home Simon Case, aged 41, the private secretary to the Duke of Cambridge 2018-20, was appointed Cabinet Secretary and Head…
The best leader we never had
I spent Monday afternoon with The Wake Up Call, a new book by John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge that lambasts…
US protestors are clearing the way for Trump
‘This city is not going to stop burning itself down until they [the protestors] know that this officer has been…
The greatest showman
Is Trump about to pull off his most spectacular trick yet?
We-ness rising
Back in March, I made a long-odds bet that Michelle Obama would be the Democratic party’s vice-presidential nominee. I knew…
A taste of the continent
Is it safe to visit the continent? On the one hand, abroad is likely to be less crowded this August…
Double trouble
American Pickle is a comedy based on a short story by Simon Rich, originally published in the New Yorker, and…
