If Donald Trump’s legion of enemies had the same grace they decry him for lacking, they would have had to admit that his re-election campaign was a bravura performance. Facing the combined opposition of the media, academy, entertainment industry, permanent bureaucracy, tech monopolists, and big money generally, Donald Trump crisscrossed the country in the final few...
From the August 2001 issue of Chronicles. All societies regulate personal behavior: That is part of what makes them societies, instead of mere aggregations of isolated individuals. Societies differ enormously, though, in just how they perform this regulation, how much they rely on law and the state, rather than informal or private means. If I...
“Because I was born in the South, I am a Southerner. If I had been born in the North, the West, or the Central Plains, I would be just a human being.” —Clyde Edgerton OK, let us admit that Mr. Edgerton exaggerates. Yet throughout the better part of the 20th century...
Nigel Biggar's sophisticated history of British colonialism does not ignore the many benefits reaped by the recipients. His work is relevant to all Western nations, now threatened by faux radicals.
Once a social ideal for many Americans—progressive reformers, labor leaders, enlightened businessmen like Henry Ford, and some New Dealers—”the family wage” has fallen into disrepute in recent decades. Under the spell of egalitarian feminists, America’s political and cultural leaders now reject as hopelessly “sexist” the notion that a man should earn enough to support his...
From the September 1994 issue of Chronicles. “The corruption of man,” Emerson wrote, “is followed by X the corruption of language.” The reverse is true, and a century later Georges Bernanos had it right: “The worst, the most corrupting lies are problems wrongly stated.” How pertinent this is about so many matters present, including the...
I had sworn I would not buy any carpets, and, in the end, I did keep that promise, but then one scorching hot day my friends finally came to pry me loose of the snug little corner of the hotel bar. Before I knew it, I was in the market, buying a preternaturally heavy wrought-iron...
In one of Douglas Adams’ very silly books, Zaphod Beeblebrox, the egocentric two-headed president of the universe, is condemned to undergo the ordeal of the Total Perspective Vortex. It is an excruciating form of torture that exposes the criminal to a sense of the infinite size of the universe and his own small place in...
The Golden Year of the Golden Age of Hollywood was, perhaps, 1939. Amongst its many films that have since become classics—including Gone With the Wind, The Wizard of Oz, Wuthering Heights, Stagecoach, and The Hunchback of Notre Dame—was the first (and best) version of James Hilton’s novel Goodbye, Mr. Chips. The film (like the book)...
An associate and I were waiting for a flight to Washington, D.C., flying out of Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport, in the fall of 1996. I spotted another waiting passenger in the lounge and made a bet with my partner, a native New Yorker, that the man was a fellow Texan. My partner took the bet, and...
Nearing the third anniversary of their crime, the remaining members of the Jena Six at long last admitted what anyone with any sense knew: They are guilty as charged. The leader of the pack, Mychal Bell, had already confessed to second-degree battery on December 4, 2007, one year to the day after the attack, and...
The recent passing of Mary Travers—who, with Peter and Paul, was years ago always intoning that the answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind—brought back some quaint memories of kumbaya moments, and the consoling thought that at least Mary Travers lived long enough to see her political vision fulfilled in the person of Barack...
Remembering the significant contributions of former Chronicles executive editor Aaron Wolf on the fifth anniversary of his passing.
High among the blunders of history was the “blank cheque” Kaiser Wilhelm gave Vienna, after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, to deal with the Serbs as they saw fit. Five weeks later, Vienna cashed the check and declared war, after Belgrade refused to submit to all 10 demands of an ultimatum. Russia mobilized; Germany...
Since there are no pressing global issues that cannot wait until next week, I’ll devote my column to a book I’ve just finished reading. Its title, Sea Power: The History and Geopolitics of the World’s Oceans (Penguin, 2017), and the reputation of its author—retired admiral James George Stavridis, who ended his career as NATO Supreme...
When you get intimately familiar with any artist’s work, you become delightedly aware of the development of his style. I was reminded of this lately while working on a book about Shakespeare; more than ever, I was impressed by the vast difference between the “middle” Shakespearean style and the later style (or styles). The pithy...
At 6:07 A.M. on May 29, 2003, in a BBC Radio broadcast, reporter Andrew Gilligan commented on mounting criticism of the Blair government’s rationale for going to war against Iraq. Citing an anonymous “official” involved in the preparation of the Joint Intelligence Committee dossier used to justify the military campaign, Gilligan said that [The dossier]...
Sam Holman by James T. Farrell Prometheus Books; Buffalo, NY. Achieving self-definition through self-division is a truly impossible mission, but the cordless ego of contemporary liberalism continues to try to repopulate the world with its own image. That the result would be a universe of images reflecting a totalitarian state does not disturb the liberal...
Saturday, in Pittsburgh, a Sabbath celebration at the Tree of Life synagogue became the site of the largest mass murder of Jews in U.S. history. Eleven worshippers were killed by a racist gunman. Friday, we learned the identity of the crazed criminal who mailed pipe bombs to a dozen leaders of the Democratic Party, including...
“Accuse not nature, she hath done her part; Do thou but thine!” —John Milton Slow learners that we humans are, only recently have great numbers of us become aware of the tremendous, seemingly insurmountable ecological crises facing us. Some environmentalists date the earliest stirrings of this now-widespread awareness of the natural world and of our...
It is probably fair to say that John Lukacs, the Hungarian-American historian and historical philosopher, author of 13 books, remains after more than forty years an enigma to American historians in particular and to American political intellectuals in general. The historical profession, which persists in refusing to accept him fully into the sodality, has been...
Bertolt Brecht, the cultural left’s most astute perceiver of poignant ironies embedded in social injustices, never commanded our rapt allegiance, yet we wouldn’t mind listening to what he might have said about the Memorial Day spectacle. Watching it, we thought we could have appreciated, at that particular moment, some of his biting existential sarcasm, always...
By now, we should all be familiar with the antitraditionalist left’s attempt to erase all traces of opposition to the liberal world order. Over the past decade or so, for example, the antitraditionalists have succeeded brilliantly in demolishing the understanding of marriage that has persisted in every civilized society since the dawn of recorded history. ...
“The fiction of Mr. Simms gave indication, we repeat, of genius, and that of no common order. Had he been even a Yankee, this genius would have been rendered immediately manifest to his countrymen, but unhappily (perhaps) he was a Southerner. . . . His book, therefore, depended entirely upon its own intrinsic value and...
According to a recent front-page story in the New York Times, the latest innovation of a particularly ambitious segment of the upwardly mobile American middle class is the replacement of the old-fashioned summer camp with getting-into-college camp. In proportion as the Times is ignorant of One Big Thing, its editors are highly knowledgeable about many...
I live in New York and London, and among the gruesome sights I’ve had to endure these last few years has been the sight of a vainglorious James Rubin, of Madeleine Albright fame, prancing about the hot spots of these multicultural havens for the rich and infamous. Rubin is married to Christiane Amanpour, the...
A brief article in The Spectator (May 19) by Fredrik Erixon speculates that President Emmanuel Macron of France, generally considered a liberal centrist énarque, seems to be reconsidering his position following the anniversary of his first year in office. Faced with the continuing rise of the right in Europe, the rebellion of Chancellor Merkel’s conservatives...
As both Drutman and Katz emphasize, before the 1970’s lobbying in America was a paltry enterprise. In the immediate postwar era, under the pro-business Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations, few companies hired in-house lobbyists; instead, they worked through trade associations or independent lobbying firms. Under Lyndon Johnson regulatory legislation addressed a host of social and economic...
There is little excuse for Schumer’s shock, and his speech on anti-Semitism, delivered in his usual sanctimonious style, was unimpressive. It may have satisfied him. There is no reason it should satisfy anybody else.
Right off, let me say that I agree with 85 percent of what you say, and that I for one applaud your willingness to shoot from the hip: the so-called 11th Commandment of conservatism, “Thou shalt speak no ill of a fellow conservative,” has done nothing but retard the intellectual and moral maturity of the...
Early in December of last year, while President-elect Clinton was trying to come up with a Cabinet that would “look more like America,” the U.S. Census Bureau published a report that told us what America really looks like and what it will probably look like 60 years from now. Presumably, Mr. Clinton will have departed...
As an orthodox Bible-believing Christian, I find that much of what is said by the so-called “religious right” and “religious left”—to put it charitably—leaves a lot to be desired and is, ironically, un-Christian. This summer, on NBC’s Today program, the head of the Christian Coalition, Ralph Reed, said: “What we’re trying to do is not...
There is no MAGA without immigration sanity—including limited H1-B visas.
Morphine puts you to sleep, explains a pompous savant in Moliere, because it is a soporific. By this tautology is the great dead void at the core of Western civilization exposed, finally and, I dare say, mercilessly. What vitality, what resistivity, what transcendent stubbornness our spiritual truth once possessed (“Even if it were proven me...
In any age, Samuel Francis would have been a remarkable man for the penetration of his mind, his unflinching pursuit of truth—regardless of current cant or personal consequences—and the gravity of his style. In our age, he is peerless, and his death represents an irreplaceable loss. Sam and I were friends and allies for over...
“‘Aren’t there any grown-ups at all?’ ‘I don’t think so.’” William Golding, Lord of the Flies In an inner-city school beset by truancy, the presence of a 13-year-old pupil an hour before the first lesson suggests something is amiss. “Good morning, Kim,” I said. “What brings you in so early?” Kim didn’t answer immediately. ...
A reporter once asked Tyrone Power if he thought his next movie would be a hit. “That depends,” Power replied, pointing to his face, “on how many close-ups of this make the final cut.” Another case of celebrity vanity? Perhaps, but I prefer to think Power was on to something essential about the nature of film. ...
Michael Oakeshott warned that rationalism in politics leads to rigid, rule-bound governance, and to the imposition of the state's enterprise over and against the free association of individuals.
On June 5, we lost not only one of our finest writers but a true American storyteller and one of the last of the book people. For Ray Bradbury, who passed away at the age of 91, was, like the remnant that Montag joins at the end of Fahrenheit 451, a book person, a walking...
No sooner did Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell issue his proclamation declaring April Confederate History Month than the ideological canister fire began. The proclamation is “incendiary,” huffed the Washington Post. “Obnoxious,” sniffed historian James McPherson. “Mind-boggling,” griped former governor Douglas Wilder, the grandson of slaves and the first black governor in America. And it was all...
The confusions of our day are so many and so inherent that we have no time or attention to spare for empty issues or nonproblems. The remarkable situation of President Barack Obama is one that deserves some restraint in judgment, for we may soon find that certain difficulties are part of the deal, not individual...
Christine Blasey Ford, the accuser in the infamous 2018 confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, has written an unrepentant and incoherent book while showing no remorse for the ordeal she caused others and the nation.
In 1994, the Republicans, for the first time in 40 years, took control of both Houses of Congress. In 2000, after some controversy, the GOP secured the presidency. Now, they have lost both houses and look to be well on their way to losing the presidency in 2008. Parties lose when they don’t give their...
The Beltway Right is a comical farce. But like the blind squirrel that occasionally finds an acorn, it is right about one thing: Liberal Democrats simply cannot be trusted on national security. That truth was no more apparent than in early April, when an A-list of Virginia Democrats ...
Until March 22, when the White House announced that John Bolton would replace H.R. McMaster as national security advisor, it was still possible to imagine that President Donald Trump’s many compromises with the globalist-hegemonist establishment had been made under duress. This may have been true once, but it is not true now. Bolton’s appointment indicates...
“The results of political changes are hardly ever those which their friends hope or their foes fear.” —T.H. Huxley Media commentators covering David Cameron’s incumbency as Tory leader have remarked—often gleefully—on how unpopular Cameron’s Labour-like policies are with the “traditional right.” By this, they mean the Thatcherite rump of the party (probably still the numerical...
Much as I hate to admit it, AIDS czarina Kristine Gebbie got it right. The message to youngsters these days does indeed give the impression that sex is ugly, dirty, and a more perverse than pleasurable experience. Ms. Gebbie bungled only when she took on the role of anti-Victorian-morality crusader. In the space of a...
The recent Supreme Court decision striking down a Silent Prayer Law in Alabama came as a shock to many people. What harm could be done by a moment of silence that the students were free to dedicate—or not dedicate—to a Supreme Being? Religion, it now seems, is to be treated like the daughter who disgraces...
During an Iowa town hall last week, “Beto” O’Rourke, who had pledged to raise the level of national discourse, depicted President Donald Trump’s rhetoric as right out of Nazi Germany. Trump “describes immigrants as ‘rapists’ and ‘criminals'” and as “‘animals’ and ‘an infestation,'” said Beto. “Now, I might expect someone to describe another human being...
Over the last three decades Fred Chappell has been steadily accumulating both an enviable publishing record—he has some twenty novels and collections of poems and stories to his credit—and a well-deserved reputation as one of the South’s foremost men of letters. His latest book of short fictions, the aptly tided More Shapes Than One, may...