The campaign to overturn the 2016 election and bring down President Trump shifted into high gear this week. Inspiration came Saturday morning from the altar of the National Cathedral where our establishment came to pay homage to John McCain. Gathered there were all the presidents from 1993 to 2017, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and...
Any doubts you may have had about the absurdity and falseness of American electoral politics would have been removed if you had lived through the barrage of advertising that preceded our South Carolina presidential primary. Every single one of the Republican candidates pretended to have become Horatio at the Bridge, single-handedly holding back the onslaught...
There ain’t no shame in a job well done, from driving a nail to driving a truck. As a matter of fact, I’d like to set things straight, A few more people should be pulling their weight. If you want a cram course in reality, You get yourself a working man’s Ph.D. —Aaron Tippin, “Working...
White anxiety is the single greatest driver of right-wing politics in the United States, and it is as understandable as the fear one feels while trying to avoid death by drowning.
Two thousand fifteen was the year that we Americans broke history. By “breaking history,” I do not mean something like “breaking news,” or “breaking records,” or even “breaking the Internet” (though the Internet certainly played a role). Yes, the “historic moments” of the Summer of #LoveWins and #HateLoses—the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Obergefell v....
Chilton Williamson’s study of the sources of American conservative thought presupposes certain assumptions about his subject that may not be universally shared but are defensible nonetheless. Williamson suggests that American conservatism is essentially paleoconservative, and both his choice of current conservative authors and his comments on Joe Scotchie’s Revolt From the Heartland underline this association. ...
The old cathedral town of Naumburg, where Friedrich Nietzsche spent 12 of the first 18 and seven of the last ten years of his life, is located in the southeastern corner of the Land (province) of Sachsen-Anhalt, roughly halfway between Weimar and Leipzig. In late April and early May of 1945, this part of Germany...
Most people think agrarianism is synonymous with farming. As a result, agrarian thinkers spend much of their time defending what they really mean—namely, that agrarianism is not so much about agriculture as it is an integrated life in which farming plays a central or at least respectable role. Eric Freyfogle wisely avoids this pitfall and...
Virginia Woolf once wrote that human nature suddenly changed in the year 1912. Such things tend to be at the whim of later generations of critics, but there’s no doubt that the idea of an acceptable form of public entertainment underwent a rude shock in the years just before the outbreak of World War I. ...
Almost 80 years ago, Julien Benda published his tirade against the intellectual corruption of his time, La Trahison des Clercs. The “scribes” in question are those who traffic in words and ideas. For generations before the 20th century, Benda wrote, members of the Western intellectual elite made sure that “humanity did evil, but honored good.”...
Here’s how you’ll know the conservative movement means something again: when the Conservative Political Action Conference moves its annual meeting from Washington, D.C., to Rockford. Or Dubuque. Or Peoria. Or Helena. Or San Antonio. Or Bakersfield. Or Murfreesboro. Anywhere but the District of Corruption. Conservatives flock from around the country to CPAC, expecting to advance...
“The feeling between this city and the hayseeds. . .is every hit as hitter as the feelings between the North and South before the War. . . . Why, I know a lot of men in my district who would like nothin’ better than to go out gunnin for hayseeds.” —George...
Public commentary on recent murders and acts of violence against African Americans has been universally explained as evidence of ingrained racism of American society, the racism of police, and implicit racism of the Republican Party. The result has been wholesale rejection of the display of symbols associated with the Confederate States of America. Even Sen....
Republicans routinely portray themselves as fiscal guardians. In truth, they, like the Democrats, are irresponsible wastrels. Outlays are up by one third under President George W. Bush, making him the biggest spender since Lyndon B. Johnson. As the Cato Institute’s Stephen Slivinski observes, “Even after excluding spending on defense and homeland security, Bush is still...
“W,” a.k.a. “our Commander in Chief,” is apparently even more blindly stubborn and willfully ignorant than I had thought. As of this writing (December 2006), he is still distancing himself from the Iraq Study Group’s efforts to provide him cover for a withdrawal from the Middle East morass he has drawn us into. Bush Senior,...
“Those is the niggers that was f–kin’ with my sh-t.” “I knew that nigger was one of the niggers I could rely on.” The first speaker was a twenty-something “homegirl” from the projects, the second a drunk in his late 30’s. Both were riding on New York’s A train on different days and at different...
The shooting of Sikhs at a temple in Milwaukee is generating the usual blather about senseless violence, the paranoid racialist right, and the patriotism of Sikh immigrants. I finally heard, this morning, the inevitable, “Today, we are all Sikhs.” Excuse me, but no, I am not now and shall never be a Sikh. Sikhs,...
Correspondence on "More Hand-Wringing About the Radical Right," by Paul Gottfried and "A Fork in Europe's Road," by Srdja Trifkovic.
[I]n populous Egypt they fatten up many bookish pedants who quarrel unceasingly in the Muses’ birdcage.” —Timon of Phlius, 230 B.C. For almost as long as there have been literary works, there have been literary canons, largely established by bookish pedants who do, indeed, “quarrel unceasingly.” The quarreling began early in the third century B.C....
Russia’s recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia makes it imperative to analyze the situation in the Caucasus dispassionately and comprehensively. The mainstream media (MSM) treatment of the crisis has been predictably monolithic, however -- almost as biased (“bad ...
Twenty years have come and gone since Congress passed, and President Reagan signed into law, a bill creating a federal holiday for Martin Luther King, Jr., and, in those years, the holiday has become little more than yet another session in the perennial ritual of mass production and consumption that American public festivals generally celebrate. ...
“I worry greatly that the rhetoric coming from the Republicans, particularly Donald Trump, is sending a message to Muslims here . . . and . . . around the world, that there is a ‘clash of civilizations.'” So said Hillary Clinton in Saturday night’s New Hampshire debate. Yet, that phrase was not popularized by Donald...
In the closing days of 1993 two familiar specters, recently absent from our nightmares, returned to haunt the global consciousness: the Russian bear, in the person of Vladimir Zhirinovsky, and the Yellow Peril, in the form of North Korea. There were, of course, other bugbears to frighten the children of democracy—the parade of new Hitlers...
Harding was a consummate conservative governed by humility, kindness, and charity for all: principles that guided him in both his personal life and his political career.
There was only an en passant reference to Syria at the end of my analysis of Erdogan’s defeat three days ago. This subject deserves closer scrutiny. His controversial policy vis-à-vis Damascus now appears to have been a major factor in his defeat, and Turkey’s likely fine-tuning of her posture in the months ahead may have...
Christian distributism celebrates the small and the human. It rests on strong home economies and demands the widest possible distribution and ownership of productive property. It favors worker ownership through cooperatives of necessarily larger machines and enterprises. It seeks and reinforces local communities, bound together by ties of kinship, faith, and trade. It welcomes lifelong,...
Attorney General Merrick Garland recently set his sights on what the federal government considers one of the gravest threats to the political order: parents angry with the promotion of transgender ideology and critical race theory in public schools. “In recent months, there has been a disturbing spike in harassment, intimidation, and threats of violence...
On the American frontier of previous centuries, the possession of a firearm was often a key to survival. In this regard, the frontier of 20th-century America, although different geographically, is very much like earlier frontiers. As different waves of Europeans arrived in North America, each took a distinct approach to trading guns with the Indians....
10 USC § 2808 gives the President authority to use the military to undertake construction in the event the President declares a national emergency. It has been used, without controversy, to build military facilities in Iraq and Afghanistan. 33 USC § 2293 is an even clearer grant of statutory authority to the President to order construction, “without...
If radical Afrocentrists have their way, soon all schoolchildren will learn—as some are now learning—a version of ancient Mediterranean history that gives credit for the Greek achievement to the ancient Egyptians. The Afrocentrists contend that what most people have learned about the origins of Western civilization is untrue. According to them, the ancient history we...
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.
In the November 1986 Encounter, the Princeton University economist Harold James sets out to tell us “Why We Should Learn to Love a Crisis.” His explanation is not quite what we would expect from a champion of a market economy. In that economy, he says, crises serve a necessary function; states should not try to...
In mid-February, U.S. District Judge Andrew S. Hanen issued an injunction enjoining the Obama administration from implementing the Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents program (DAPA). Under DAPA, over four million illegal aliens present in the United States would be shielded from deportation and would be eligible to receive work permits,...
When President Joe Biden announced he would withdraw all U.S. troops from Afghanistan by the 20th anniversary of 9/11, GOP hawks like Sens. Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham responded predictably. “Grave mistake,” muttered McConnell. “Insane,” said Graham, “dumber than dirt and… dangerous.” Of more interest were the responses of conservative Republicans who commended the president....
Frank Meyer’s attempt to codify a conservative consensus must be understood in the context of his day, when remnants of the Old Right were marginalized and conservatism was dominated by anti-Communism.
PERSPECTIVE Heroes in the Age of the Antiheroby Thomas Fleming Unbreaking glass. VIEWS Guys of the Golden Westby Chilton Williamson, Jr.A glorious sunset. A Place to Standby Wayne AllensworthTexas and the making of men and heroes. Cowboy Heroesby Roger D. McGrathLearning the Code of the West. Effeminate Gospel, Effeminate Christiansby Aaron D. WolfFrom authority to...
Thomas Fleming’s “Love the One You’re With” (Perspective, January) is the kind of writing that first attracted me to Chronicles and The Rockford Institute. It is for this caliber of discussion that I return every year to the Summer School. When I read Dr. Fleming, I can be sure that English is being properly used,...
Election ’88 has been so far a political flea circus in which the issues are as microscopic as the candidates. The one interesting candidate has been the Rev. Jesse Jackson. If you have seen his very effective commercials, you will remember the pictures of Jackson meeting with President Assad of Syria, and the voice-over reminding...
The presidency must be destroyed. It is the primary evil we face, and the cause of nearly all our woes. It squanders the national wealth and starts unjust wars against foreign peoples that have never done us am harm. It wrecks our families, tramples on our rights, invades our communities, and spies on our bank...
In reading through the works of popular historian Victor Davis Hanson, I was reminded of a parody in an episode of The Simpsons. Bart and Homer watch a clip of Rainier Wolfcastle—the show’s Arnold Schwarzenegger-esque action hero—fly a UNICEF cargo plane full of pennies to impoverished children. A villainous cadre calling themselves the “CommieNazis” chase Wolfcastle in their...
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...
France’s ambassador to Poland Pierre Levy has said he was “surprised, even shocked,” by the Polish foreign minister, Jacek Czaputowicz, declaring that “something’s not right” with France, and that was “sad because France is the sick man of Europe, dragging Europe down.” M. Levy went on to make an astonishing statement which only confirmed that...
The Chechen War, as the Russian leadership discovered in early March, is far from over. On the night of March 2, a convoy of nine trucks, carrying about 100 Internal Ministry special forces troops from Grozny to the strategically important crossroads village of Pervomayskava, was ambushed by an estimated 40 Chechen boyevikiy (“fighters” or “warriors”)....
Here it is 2008, and everything else is old news. The provisional and absentee ballots, recounts, scores, and statistics of 2000-2007 are all in the history books, along with Afghan and Iraqi elections and constitutions, insurgencies, hurricanes, disgraced mayors and governors, and Supreme Court, lobbying, earmark, wiretapping, and energy and cartoon ruckuses. Since Barack Obama...
Braveheart Produced by Mel Gibson Directed by Mel Gibson Screenplay by Randall Wallace Released by Paramount Pictures In recent films, “angry white males” are generally portrayed as psychopaths, and it is, therefore, almost astonishing that even a good conservative like Mel Gibson should have chosen to make a movie on the life of William Wallace....
The struggles of the Middle East cannot be summarized or dismissed in chalking it all up to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. There’s much more at play in the region.
Country music has never been shirked in the pages of Chronicles, as any faithful reader knows. John Reed’s June column concerning the Far East’s fascination with country music, however, left out one pertinent mention: the story of Torn Mitsui. Mr. Mitsui is a fifty-year-old professor of English at Kanazawa University; he is also Japan’s foremost...
“Poetry is the language of a state of crisis.” —Stephane Mallarme One of the most important things to say about George Garrett is that his is a generous talent, not limited or confined by a narrow point of view. It is as though he has been searching for the meaning of...
“Taliban Are Winning: U.S. Commander in Afghanistan Warns of Rising Casualties.” Thus ran the startling headline on the front-page of the Wall Street Journal. The lead paragraph ran thus: “The Taliban have gained the upper hand in Afghanistan, the top American commander there said, forcing the U.S. to change its strategy in the eight-year-old conflict...
My maternal grandfather was a very practical man, an entrepreneur with a self-made fortune, a local mayor, philo-Dixiecrat, devoted to his wife and three daughters. His habitual reading was the Raleigh paper and the local small-town daily (which, by some miracle, still exists). He died when I was very small, and so I never had...