It seems things don’t change much after all. Consider these recent hysterical comments. “There’s scientific consensus that the lives of children are going to be very difficult,” said Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, age 30. “And it does lead, I think, young people to have a legitimate question: Is it OK to still have children?” Gyrating chanteuse...
Just about everybody I know, especially Republicans, is planning an exit strategy from California. A Los Angeles County firefighter I met at a party said all those guys, too, are planning to leave, despite their high salaries and pensions. Many grousers no doubt will stay, in particular those whose children remain. But the calamities hitting...
For a pacific, commercial republic protected by two giant oceans and two peaceful neighbors with small militaries, America sure has fought a lot of wars. Michael Beschloss’s Presidents of War details eight American leaders beginning in 1807 who took us to war and just one, Jefferson, who didn’t. The text wraps up after the Vietnam...
There’s a lot of buncombe in Bob Woodward’s Fear: Trump in the White House. Doubtless Chronicles readers heard some of it when the book was released on September 13, as the mainstream media played and replayed on the hour reports of Chief of Staff John Kelly allegedly grousing in the author’s presence that Trump’s “an...
“You can observe a lot just by watching.” —Yogi Berra I call 2016 the Chronicles Election. The issues discussed in this magazine, often a lonely voice in the wilderness, for more than 30 years finally caught up with the national political discourse and got a president elected. They are bum trade deals, an eroding industrial...
If ever there was a democratic election in a giant modern nation-state, it was Donald J. Trump’s victory in 2016. And I’ve closely watched every presidential election since I was nine in 1964, when Lyndon Johnson lied his way to a landslide against Barry Goldwater. Trump gathered the remnants of Nixon’s Silent Majority and the...
Today, all books by liberals really are about President Trump. Such is Playing With Fire: The 1968 Election and the Transformation of American Politics, by MSNBC far-left fake-news host Lawrence O’Donnell. This book’s proxy is Richard Nixon and his 1968 victory for president against Aunt Blabby, a.k.a. Hubert Horatio Humphrey. For Nixon, Humphrey, South Vietnam,...
“Drain the swamp!” Donald Trump declared in every campaign speech of 2016. He meant, of course, the Swamp of Washington, D.C., home of the labyrinthine network of centralized bureaucracies that control our lives. It’s also called the Deep State and the Permanent Bureaucracy. Democrats Bill Clinton and Barack Obama as well as the two Republican...
Conservatives more than anyone else view with a gimlet eye the rise of the Internet and the gigantic tech companies that are taking over ever larger parts of our lives. Even the place where most of these companies dwell, Silicon Valley, is a bastardization of its real name, Santa Clara, or St. Claire of Assisi,...
Pat Buchanan’s new biography of Richard Nixon’s presidency is the first volume anyone looking at that tumultuous time should turn to. Having served as Nixon’s researcher and speechwriter starting in 1966, Buchanan, not yet 30, followed the victorious President into the White House in 1969. In Nixon’s White House Wars, Buchanan makes it clear that...
Pat Buchanan’s new biography of Richard Nixon’s presidency is the first volume anyone looking at that tumultuous time should turn to. Having served as Nixon’s researcher and speechwriter starting in 1966, Buchanan, not yet 30, followed the victorious President into the White House in 1969. In Nixon’s White House Wars, Buchanan makes it clear that Nixon’s tragic...
These days, it’s the left that’s pushing states’ rights. And for that we can thank President Trump. As is often the case with America, California is leading the way. First came Calexit, a movement eager to establish a California Utopia, although that was postponed when its organizer, Louis Marinelli, decamped to Russia, his wife’s home. ...
Roger Stone is a longtime political operative who has worked for every Republican president since Richard Nixon, and numerous presidential and other candidates as well. Stone retains great admiration for Ronald Reagan, but now has only disdain for the Bush family. The Making of the President 2016 recounts what he saw during the Trump campaign,...
Abortion politics has consumed my adult life, starting in 1972 when, at 17, I helped defeat the abortion-legalization Measure B on Michigan’s ballot. A few weeks later, on January 22, 1973—like December 7, 1941, a date that will live in infamy—the U.S. Supreme Court dive-bombed the country by erasing all state abortion laws—including in those...
On December 7, 2015—Pearl Harbor Day—candidate Donald Trump called “for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what the hell is going on.” After applause from the large crowd at a campaign rally in Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina, Trump emphasized, “We have no choice. ...
The pro-life movement today almost completely identifies with the Republican Party, despite its support by a few Democrats such as Pennsylvania Sen. Robert Casey (sometimes). It wasn’t always so. In 1972, at the age of 17, I worked against Michigan’s Measure B, which would have legalized abortion in the state. It lost, with 61 percent...
Are you sick of winning yet? I’m not! And one of the biggest winners is Chronicles Magazine. While one of the biggest losers is National Review, a shadow of its former self, the great magazine I grew up with in the 1960s to the 1980s. NR besmirched itself by attacking Trump all along, especially its February...
Among those surprised by Donald Trump’s resounding victory was my old nemesis at National Review, Kevin Williamson. “Well, that was unexpected,” wrote the rag’s “roving correspondent,” whose roving didn’t uncover the obvious and overwhelming groundswell of support out there in the Real America for the real estate baron. You might recall my Chronicles blog post...
Donald Trump has been rebutting the media for its relentless attacks on him. The “conservative” Wall Street Journal editorial page, which always has disliked his candidacy, responded, “Donald Trump lashed out at the media on Sunday after more stories describing dysfunction inside his presidential campaign. ‘If the disgusting and corrupt media covered me honestly and...
While what’s said before the TV cameras at a political convention is important, just as important is what goes on behind the scenes in the meeting rooms. That’s where policymakers of all stripes meet and hammer out a political party’s future. That’s what’s going on this week in Cleveland at the Republican National Convention and...
The neocons are gloating that Donald Trump’s poll numbers have slumped. “Donald Trump is in the midst of a fairly dramatic collapse in public opinion polls,” enthuses Peter Wehner in Commentary. “What seems to be happening isn’t that Hillary Clinton is on the rise. Rather, Trump’s popularity is dangerously low for a presumptive presidential nominee...
Gerald Celente likes to mock “The Brilliant” Larry Summers, top economic guru to the Clinton and Obama administrations, and therefore a primary architect of America’s economic decay, especially of its middle class. Greg Palast detailed Summers’ long and close ties to Goldman Sachs, the primary beneficiary of the 2008 TARP bank bailout of Wall St....
Donald Trump already is the presumptive Republican nominee for president and easily will win Tuesday’s California primary. Yet he has continued to campaign in the state, which has revealed the top issue of this campaign: Trump vs. tyranny. Every rally he has held in the Golden State has been met with protesters trying to shut...
I’ve written several stories and blogs for Chronicles on the gold standard, in particular how leaving it in 1971 started an especially vicious boom-boost cycle for the American auto industry. When the dollar inflates, so do oil and gas prices; that tanks sales for trucks and SUVS and increases sales for small cars (as in...
Two neocons have put up inadvertently hilarious potted histories of the conservative movement, in particular National Review. They are “The Voice of Principled, Thinking Conservatism Needs Your Support,” by NR roving (around his laptop) correspondent Kevin Williamson, whose vicious attack on the American people themselves I dissected two weeks ago. And “The Coming Conservative Dark...
Our country’s name, the United States of America, is plural. Yet a more accurate description at this late date would be the Unitary State of America—singular, not plural. Consider some recent events: • “The Obama administration released a warning Monday telling the nation’s landlords that it may be discriminatory for them to refuse to rent...
National Review’s jihad against Donald Trump turned against Americans themselves with Kevin Williamson’s screed, “Chaos in the Family, Chaos in the State: The White Working Class’s Dysfunction.” He writes about such working-class cities as Wayne, Mich., where I grew up after I was born in 1955. To this day, one-sixth of the city is the...
The December 2, 2015, killings of 14 people in San Bernardino, California, by Syed Rizwan Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, is the sort of story that garners the label “only in America,” with plot twists that include arranged marriage, Facebook jihad, and irrelevant gun laws. It also includes Enrique Marquez, Jr., an Hispanic-American. Farook...
It’s Jan. 22, 2016, the 43rd anniversary of the Roe v. Wade abortion decision by the U.S. Supreme Court that has killed more than 60 million babies here. But this year, let’s turn to Japan. Fortune magazine ran an article titled, “Why Japan’s Economic Troubles Should Worry the U.S.” It warned that the world’s third...
The news keeps getting better for Donald Trump’s campaign for president. The latest: Karl Rove is coordinating attack ads. “The mastermind of George W. Bush’s presidential victories in 2000 and 2004, Rove has not signed on with any of the presidential candidates this year, though he says he has dispensed advice to a number who...
Until the late 1950’s and early 60’s, the deal for government employees was that they were paid less than similar private-sector workers but got excellent benefits, especially strong pensions and almost absolute job security. And although some government workers belonged to associations, they did not have collective-bargaining rights. The deal was a fairly good one. ...
No wonder the Obama regime kept the Trans-Pacific Partnership secret as long as it could. It’s far worse than even its greatest critics imagined: 5,544 pages of bureaucratese that will help only international lawyers and big companies, while slamming small companies and middle-class workers in America. Here’s a sampling of what you’ll need to know...
If you’re an old pro-lifer like me, you remember the many battles over China’s one-child policy. Mao actually encouraged large families. He thought population problems would be solved by communist economic planning, a large population would make China stronger—and the 60 million he murdered needed to be replaced. After he died in 1976, his successor,...
Things are pretty dismal all over the country, but some places are worse than others. Usually, published rankings of American states are compiled by liberals who value such things as high-school and college graduation rates, personal income, internet speed, and the availability of abortion clinics. That’s why Massachusetts and Minnesota commonly come out on top. ...
The revolt against the Establishment continues. The three leading contenders for the Republican nomination for president – Donald Trump, Ben Carson and Carly Fiorina – never have held political office. Now House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, has been pushed out for a lack of accomplishment. Consider: In 2010, Republicans stormed back into majority status in...
Fourth Generation War theory provides a useful tool to understand the migrant invasion of Europe. 4GW basically is non-state warfare. The people invading Europe are not doing so inside T-34 tanks or Stukas. They’re walking. No government is leading their march, although some governments, such as that of Turkey, are encouraging it. An classic 4GW...
Reflecting on the immigrant invasion of Europe, Tom Piatak wrote on the loss of Western man’s will to survive. Here’s my gloss. Europe lost its will to survive and is being invaded by immigrants: It discarded its Christian faith, which plunged its birth rate to half the replacement level, meaning rapid extinction no matter what....
Donald Trump is right to blame our government for its many bad trade deals with China. But he makes a mistake when attacking China’s recent devaluation of the yuan. “They’re just destroying us,” he said in a CNN interview. “They keep devaluing their currency until they get it right. They’re doing a big cut in...
“We blew it.” —Wyatt (Peter Fonda) in “Easy Rider” I thought Rand Paul was positioned to do well at the beginning of his campaign. But his poor performance in last Thursday’s debate underlined that his campaign long ago blew it. Further evidence is several Tweets by him Monday attacking Donald Trump for not pledging to...
In some ways—even more than Japan and the People’s Republic of China—South Korea is dominating key U.S. markets. I’ve noticed this for years in Orange County, where Hyundai North America just built its new $200 million U.S. headquarters in Fountain Valley, the city next to where I live in Huntington Beach. It’s double the size...
Back in 1965, I was ten and an avid coin collector. I inserted silver dimes and quarters, and other coins, into the slots in the blue collection books. Then in 1965, I remember President Johnson asking Americans to start circulating silver coins again, along with the new, non-silver coins. I was a patriotic kid—the same...
Every mid-July, I think back to the Apollo 11 landing on the moon back in 1969. I was a kid back then and followed everything about the space program. I still love all the documentaries about early space exploration and such dramatizations as “Apollo 13.” The moon landing was the apogee of American civilization, when...
On June 11, 2014, more than a year ago, I wrote here on the Chronicles blog, “Right now the immigration issue is lying in the street for whatever Republican presidential candidate, if any, is willing to pick it up – and not just toy with it, but make another 40-year ban the centerpiece of his...
“Let the Yankees Freeze in the Dark” read the bumper stickers in Texas in February 1982, the month I flew back from West Germany, mustered out of the U.S. Army at Fort Dix, New Jersey, and returned to my hometown of Wayne, Michigan. Oil had soared from $3.60 per barrel in 1972 to $37.42 in...
People don’t like it when you mess with their heritage. The Bolsheviks tried to destroy Russian nationalism, in particular massacring Russian Orthodox bishops, priests and nuns. But when Hitler invaded, not enough Russians fought for Marx, Lenin and dialectical materialism. So Stalin allowed Metropolitan Bishop Sergius to be elected patriarch, brought some of the surviving...
Sometimes a bellwether issue isn’t the most important issue. Abortion is more important than this week’s U.S. Senate vote on Trade Promotion Authority. But abortion is a decades-old issue that has involved many battles, and still does. The TPA vote, which affirmed the House vote, is a clear issue that shows who’s really in power....
Although defeated for now – and, one hopes, permanently – details are leaking out about the Obamatrade deal. Sen. Rand Paul revealed that it would increase taxes on small businesses. So much for the promises of House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell that it would create jobs for Americans. No wonder...
President Obama continues to keep secret the documents on the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal. Congressmen can see the documents only if they pledge not to reveal the contents. Then why doesn’t Congress just subpoena the entire contents of the documents and publish them on the website of the Library of Congress? In 2003 the Congressional...
Two weeks before Apple began selling its new Apple Watch, Shinola Detroit took out a full-page ad in the Wall Street Journal. Above a large photo of its analog watch, The Runwell, was the tag, “The Watch That’s Too Smart to Try and Be a Phone.” The Runwell starts at $550, the same price as...
After 9/11, co-President Bush, co-President Dick Cheney and the others in their repulsive regime panicked. The first thing they did was destroy our liberties with the misnamed, really traitorous USA “PATRIOT” Act. It actually stands for the “Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001.” The...