Short reviews of Mr. Sammler's Planet, by Saul Bellow, and Dinner at Antoine's, by Francis Parkinson Keyes.
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Republic of War
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...
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The Naked Frontier
In order to do research for a novel, I spent January and February of this year in Chile, thereby avoiding a particularly bitter winter in Washington, D.C. My intention was to pass most of my time in Santiago and spend only a couple of weeks touring the South. After about a week in the capital,...
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It’s 2028, and All Is Well: The Diary of an Aging Counterrevolutionary
Thursday, June 1—My final American Interest was published today in Chronicles. In the aftermath of the Second Revolution, the column has outlived its purpose. Pontificating on the evils of one-worldism, empire, global hegemony, propositional nationhood, jihadist infiltration, foreign interventionism, and “nation-building” was a necessary and often frustrating task, back in the awful days of George...
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In Memoriam: Gen. Alexander Lebed, 1950-2002
When I first met General Alexander Lebed, shortly after he was forced to retire from his military career in 1995, he was a crusty soldier with great political ambitions, itching for action but visibly uncomfortable in mufti. His tie knot was too wide and his parade-ground bass sounded coarse and unmodulated. His face, with more...
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Our Alien Victims
If only Roger Barnett had known the courts would lynch him for defending himself. Or maybe he did know and still decided to stand his ground. Either way, the owner of the Cross Rail Ranch in Douglas, Arizona, on the U.S. border with Mexico, may soon be $87,000 poorer. The left-wing Ninth U.S. Circuit Court...
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Immigration Restriction Then and Now
A new book offers some important insights on the enduring and legitimate reasons for immigration restriction even as it proposes some less compelling ones.
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Repudiating the National Debt
Before the Reagan era, conservatives were clear about how they felt about deficits and the public debt: a balanced budget was good, and deficits and the public debt were bad, piled up by free-spending Keynesians and socialists, who absurdly proclaimed that there was nothing wrong or onerous about the public debt. In the famous words...
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Here, on the Other Side of the Ring of Fire
Americans read the increasingly panic-stricken reports of deepening catastrophe at Fukushima 1, speed to the pharmacy to buy iodine and ask, “It’s happened there; can it happen here?” Along much of California’s coastline runs the “ring of fire,” which stretches round the Pacific plate, from Australia, north past Japan, to Russia, round to Alaska,...
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Bring Back the Iron Duke
The United States was founded by white Anglo-Saxon Protestants and became the political, economic, and military leader of the free world under their guidance. The conscience, industry, practicality, antisensualism, and sense of civic responsibility that characterizes the classic WASP became definably American characteristics. When immigrants entered the melting pot, they were to come out looking...
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Lighting a Candle
Many Americans say they are fed up with their government, that “the time is right for a palace revolution.” President Obama’s approval rating has sunk below 40 percent, and the voters are angry not so much with the administration as with all incumbents. But why would anyone pay attention to opinion polls? All polls are...
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Nationalism, True and False
From the December 1997 issue of Chronicles. Ruling classes exercise power through combinations of coercion and manipulation—what Machiavelli called force and fraud, or the habits of the lion and the fox that he recommended to princes who wish to stay in power. Like most princes, most ruling classes tend to be better at one than...
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Guns of Delusion
Bruce Hoffman and Jacob Ware partake in academia's mass handwringing over the indigenous “right-wing terror threat”—allegedly represented by the Jan. 6 riot.
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“Trifkovic on Europe’s crisis and the threat of migration” – Nya Tider
On February 9 Sweden’s right-leaning newspaper Nya Tider (“New Times”) published an interview with Srdja Trifkovic which focused on the deepening crisis within the European Union and the ongoing migrant invasion of Europe. Here is the English translation. NT: How do you assess the problems of Europe and the impact of the migrant crisis, terrorism,...
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Old Progressives Don’t Die
Surprisingly enough, in many ways journalist and commentator John T. Flynn was a typical progressive. Long a figure of prominence on the American right, he was not politically active in the time of Woodrow Wilson, whose domestic policies he much admired. He did, however, first gain prominence as a muckraker denouncing the financial chicanery of...
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FARC Meets the Junior League
Saturday afternoon, my sister-in-law, Carolina, called from Bogotá. She asked me how we were doing—repeatedly, the way her mother does—then she asked to speak to my wife. My wife wasn’t home, so Carolina asked me to have her call, since “we have a little problem.” Carolina sounded fine, so I didn’t understand why my wife...
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I Love to Tell the Story
My old teacher, the classicist (and Scots Nationalist) Douglas Young, once interrupted a boring conversation about television by declaring loudly, “Speaking of Aeschylus . . . ” When one of his naive colleagues insisted, “But Douglas, no one was speaking about Aeschylus,” Young responded, “Yes, but I want to be speaking of Aeschylus.” This month,...
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The New Yorker Under the Glass
The first issue of The New Yorker (February 21, 1925) showed on its cover a dandy in top hat, high collar, and morning suit gazing through his monocle at a butterfly. The drawing is reproduced yearly, and butterflies became a cover motif. Whatever tastes, affectations, or snobbery the artist, Rea Irvin, wanted to suggest, it...
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Chronicling the Fall
“Folly is often more cruel in the consequences than malice can be in the intent.” —Halifax The correspondence of Edmund Burke, whose letters help to illuminate his published works, was not available in a complete edition until 1978. Today, however, it seems that every aspiring journalist begins saving his correspondence even...
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Obama’s West Point Address
President Barack Obama’s commencement address at West Point on May 28 managed to displease pretty much everyone in the nation’s commentariat. Before making an overall assessment of its significance, it is necessary to examine the validity and implications of Obama’s individual statements. “[B]y most measures America has rarely been stronger relative to the rest of...
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Election Explained
Reasons for voting Democrat: More freebies, welfare, government jobs, grants; satisfaction of leftist ideological malice; if you are a minority, the pleasure of sticking it to Whitey. Reasons for voting Republican: Unless you are a big capitalist, a defense contractor, an employer of illegal immigrants, or a politician hoping for the perks of office,...
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The Chastity Amendment
The appearance of an article about American church life on the front page of the Washington Post is a rare occurrence. But the approval by the Presbyterian Church (United States) of a church law requiring celibacy of its non-married clergy gained front-page attention in the Post not just once but twice this year. Treatment of...
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A Desert Idyll
For Héctor, Las Vegas was the American city. The Strip at night suggested, Héctor thought, an explosion in a fireworks factory—all the flashing, soaring, running, bursting lights in every color of the universe; the gaudy hotels, like upended cruise ships; the fancy stores, luxurious casinos, and romantic cocktail lounges; his compatriots crowding everywhere and jabbering...
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The New Bulwark of Christendom
During the centuries of struggle between European Christianity and Islam, various countries were referred to as “Antemurale Christianitatis,” the bulwark of Christendom. Today, with the torrent of mostly Islamic “migrants” heading toward Europe only increasing, that title belongs to Hungary. Hungary was roundly condemned in the international press for seeking to enforce EU rules, which...
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The President’s Painted Corner
A prudent power will always seek to keep open as many options as possible in its foreign-policy making. An increasingly rigid system of alliances, coupled with mobilization blueprints and railway timetables, reduced the European powers’ scope for maneuver in the summer of 1914 and contributed to the ensuing catastrophe. The United States, by contrast, entered...
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The Tragedy of Mexico
Twenty-eight years ago, in the summer of 1980, I moved to Guadalajara, Mexico, to take a job teaching English and journalism at a university there. The job ended just as soon as it began: On the first day of classes, the university, a private institution with connections to the country’s thriving neofascist movement and, thence,...
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Surveying America: A Plan for Growth
Latin America has repeatedly failed to achieve the kind of settled distribution of property that could support a middle-class society. This is a disjunction of subtle but increasing cultural importance as the United States becomes more of a Latin country. With Jeb Bush running for the 2016 Republican nomination based in part on his ties...
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Kamala Harris is a Bad Bet for Democrats
Harris has no excuses, no substance, and nothing recommending her other than convenience and enthusiasm for her race and gender among people who insisted until only a short time ago that Biden was perfectly fine. He wasn’t, and neither is she.
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Requiescat In Pace Domini
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...
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Merle Haggard and the Culture War
Hank Williams died on New Year’s Day, 1953. He was not yet 30 when he passed away in the back of a Cadillac. The circumstances of his life and death created the legendary aura that surrounds Williams and virtually guaranteed that he would be the subject of many songs as well as a writer and...
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The Mark of the Beast
One aspect of America that most impressed Alexis de Tocqueville was how individuals could often accomplish what the most “energetic centralized administration” could not. This ability was well demonstrated, according to Tocqueville, in how efficiently America dealt with crime and criminals: A state police does not exist, and passports are unknown. The criminal police of...
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Not Our Fathers’ Auto Industry
The U.S. automotive industry operates in a highly regulated environment, a fact largely overlooked in recent congressional hearings over federal loan guarantees to domestic firms. These regulations affect more than three million American blue- and white-collar workers employed in the industry, along with shareholders and other investors, including retirees (and ...
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Hungary: Steady as She Goes…
Upon his return from a week-long stay in Budapest, Srdja Trifkovic provides an assessment of Hungary’s current political scene in his weekly roundup of world affairs for Serbia’s top-rated Happy TV network. He also looks at the central European country’s role in EU politics, which occasionally may appear disproportionate to its modest size and resources....
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Iran: The Score, the Options
In recent weeks the proponents of an American war against Iran have been getting impatient with President Obama’s apparent unwillingness to get with the program. Joe Lieberman, Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Chairman, and Howard Berman, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, now press the President to impose a short time limit on the...
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And Pastures New
Suppose you had to choose the single motion picture that dealt most seriously and challengingly with religious matters. What might it be? Offhand, I can think of a dozen or so possible answers from various countries, and probably most cinema-literate people would agree on at least a common short list. It’s a reasonable bet, though,...
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Marching on Rome: The Mortal Struggle for Western Culture
Mussolini may be a deeply flawed national hero, but he also stands for something necessary in this age: resistance to a socially and culturally destructive left.
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The Case for Laissez-Faire Capitalism
Under laissez-faire capitalism, government is limited to armies, which keep foreign bad guys from attacking us; police, to quell local criminals; and courts, to determine guilt and innocence. This is roughly the position of minimal-government libertarians, or minarchists. The foundation of law in this system is the non-aggression principle (NAP). The NAP provides that anyone...
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The Better Way
The- Missouri Ozarks are the western outpost of Appalachia. The hills are not as high as their elder brothers to the east, but they plunge down into narrow, labyrinthine valleys, where streams of cool, green water run. The surrounding soil is mostly shallow and full of rocks, with open spaces so small that vegetable gardens...
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An Appeal from Thomas Fleming
Your mind is a terrible thing to waste—which is what will happen if Chronicles and its web go under because of lack of support. The election is over, and the Republicans have won their much predicted victory. It was only a matter of days before GOP legislators began to run away from the big issues:...
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Land of Obama
“A corrupt society has many laws,” observed the Roman historian Tacitus. The Founding Fathers knew this aphorism, and their work reflects it, from the Articles of Confederation to the Federalist to the Tenth Amendment. They designed these documents to save this country from the plague of “many laws.” And the inaugural addresses of nearly all...
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Texas Gov. Abbott Fumbles on Border Security
Two Texas National Guardsmen sat in a “non-tactical” vehicle near the Mexican border and south of Laredo, Texas on the morning of Jan. 18. The Army Times reported that the men got out to assist Border Patrol in stopping a Chrysler 300 after it was seen picking up six migrants. As they approached, the driver, a suspected smuggler,...
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Ashley Wilkes for Real
For those who know it, the Huguenot-derived name “Pettigrew” immediately evokes the associated word, “Gettysburg.” Brig. Gen. Johnston Pettigrew was prominent on the first day of that battle, as the commander of Pettigrew’s Brigade, and on the third day, as the commander of Heth’s Division, which included his brigade. Pickett’s Charge might as well have...
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As We Go Marching
” . . . Your tragic quality Required the huge delusion of some major purpose to produce it. What, that the God of the stars needed your help?” —Robinson Jeffers, “Woodrow Wilson” “When a term has become so universally sanctified as ‘democracy’ now is,” wrote T.S. Eliot in 1939, “I begin to wonder whether it...
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Antifa: Nazis Without a Plan
Although I have spent much of my scholarly life warning against inappropriate comparisons between Nazis or fascists and the pet peeves of academics and journalists, I myself am now using the F-word (as in fascist) or really the N-word (as in Nazi) with growing regularity. The antifascist left, about which I have just finished writing a...
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Crescent Moon Over Europe
Jean Raspail, the French novelist and explorer, now 90 and living in a suburb of Paris, must be experiencing the eerie feeling of living inside The Camp of the Saints, his most famous work, as he follows the contemporary news reports from across the Continent. The tens of thousands of Third World migrants are arriving...
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Living in a Glass House
In January of last year, Chilean actress Danielle Tobar made international news by moving into a glass house in downtown Santiago. During the short course of “Project Nautilus,” the intimate details of her daily life were open to the (largely prurient) curiosity of onlookers. After only six days, Tobar abandoned the house, claiming security concerns....
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Questions About the Way We Are Now
“American culture is an infinite regression to moronic vulgarity.” —Thomas Fleming Napoleon famously called the English “a nation of shopkeepers.” Can we say that Americans are a non-nation of shoppers? Are you ready for our first Luo-American president? Are you ready for C-H-A-A-A-N-G-E!? Are you ready for a President who got his start in politics...
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Reason’s Enemy
Copperhead Produced by Swordspoint Productions Directed by Ronald F. Maxwell Screenplay by Bill Kauffman Distributed by Brainstorm Media What makes a good war story? Cannons, bombs, bloody bodies, and bounding heroes? Stephen Crane’s short story “An Episode of War” demonstrates it can be achieved by other means. It fully registers the madness, horror, and folly...
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Transatlantic Rifts
In the immediate aftermath of September 11, Europe was closer to America, politically and emotionally, than at any time since World War II. For a moment, the threat of Islamic terrorism had rekindled a dormant awareness on both sides of the Atlantic of just how much the Old Continent and the New World have in...
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SCOTUS v. U.S.
By the time you read this, nine Americans may well have declared the United States a nonentity. In April, the U.S. Supreme Court was supposed to decide on the constitutionality of Arizona’s SB 1070, the now-famous law that sought to stem the tide of illegal immigration into the state. The Obama administration struck quickly after...