The ultimate aim of the Jacobins prosecuting and disbarring lawyers who represent high-profile Republican clients is the subordination of the rule of law and cowing into submission political opposition.
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Signs of Hope in the East
In the United States, the forces of the cultural left have been particularly aggressive in seeking to diminish the influence of our Christian heritage on American society. The Obama administration has led the campaign for the complete separation of religion from the public square. It has used executive orders, regulatory rule-making authority, and the bully...
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No One Is Buying It
The lies on display at the Democratic National Convention are too bold to believe.
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How Giorgia Meloni Became Standard-Bearer of the European Right
Once a marginal figure, Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni's success on the European stage stems partly from the rising popularity of the European right, but, above all, from what she has accomplished.
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The New Nationalism
During her short imprisonment for contempt of court, Kim Davis, the Rowan County, Kentucky, clerk who refused on religious grounds to issue marriage licenses to homosexual couples, was compared with (among others) Martin Luther King, Jr., Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, John C. Calhoun, Saint Paul, and even Jesus Christ Himself. Setting aside the propriety of...
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Sailing to Urbino
William Butler Yeats was not talking about literally sailing to a literal Byzantium in his famous poem, and I know that Urbino is a mountain fastness, not a port. Even so, sailing to Urbino is necessary, and it does not matter how you do it—only that you do. One way to approach Urbino is through...
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American Nationalism and Western Civilization
Any exploration of American nationalism must begin with the National Question: “Is there such a thing as the American people? And if so, what is it?” Most people do not ask such questions. A Frenchman does not wonder if he is French, nor the Pole if he is Polish, nor—notoriously—the Serb if he is Serbian....
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A Besieged Trump Presidency Ahead
After a week managing the transition, vice president-elect Mike Pence took his family out to the Broadway musical “Hamilton.” As Pence entered the theater, a wave of boos swept over the audience. And at the play’s end, the Aaron Burr character, speaking for the cast and the producers, read a statement directed at Pence: “(W)e...
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Getting to Know the General
The rise to political prominence of former Airborne Forces General Aleksandr Lebed, and especially his emphasis on law and order as the only real basis for proceeding with reforms, has raised the specter in the Russian mind of the proverbial Man on a White Horse, the military savior whose iron-fisted rule puts the national house...
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Can We All Get Along?
Nobody ever called the late Rodney King a model citizen of Los Angeles. But he gave the world what was likely the most plaintive, plangent query of our time. He wanted to know, in the aftermath of the LA burning, “Can we all get along?” Can we—huh—rather than wallop each other and turn the air...
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On ‘Judicial Activism’
Samuel Francis (“A Perpetual Censor,” July 1993) carefully criticizes the dubious “substantive due process” doctrine. But he errs repeatedly in his facts and analysis, not least in counting me among the doctrine’s adherents. Francis correctly criticizes judicial activism of the sort that creates constitutional rights out of thin air. But he ignores the even more...
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The Character of Stonewall Jackson
“Look, men, there is Jackson standing like a stone wall! Let us determine to die here, and we will conquer! Follow me!” —General Bernard E. Bee, C.F.A., shortly before falling, mortally wounded, in First Manassas The era of the War for Southern Independence illuminates the present time for what it is,...
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Even More Questions About the Way We Are Now
If you were a patriotic “American” of Mideast origin, wouldn’t you willingly cooperate with “ethnic profiling” since it would help to save the lives of your “fellow” citizens? Want to know how many traffic deaths in my State last year were caused by aliens, mostly drunk illegals? 807. How many Americans are aware that Osama...
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The League Against the South
York, Alabama, is a sad little Southern town. Though it is small, it lacks the typical charm of the South. Not much happens there, but what does happen happens in the typically Southern way. The wheels of justice grind not with something as tacky as money, but with the more genteel means of connections: It’s...
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The Future of the Christian Right
Like a cold front, you could feel the defeat coming; and you did not need Dan Rather or George Gallup to prepare you. You knew it in your bones as you listened to the sound bites on the evening news: Clinton saying nothing and saying it well; Dole saying nothing and saying it poorly. It...
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Living the Jacobin Dream
In 1793, the Jacobins, surfing the wave of Parisian mob violence, intimidated their less resolute colleagues into eliminating both the principle of monarchy and the existence of its politically superfluous incarnation, Louis XVI. Not content with killing a living king and pronouncing a death sentence in absentia on all the princes of the blood who...
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The Wall of Contentment
Reading all the various, though scarcely varied, opinions on the Ukraine “crisis” – after nearly 100 years of Russian misrule in Europe, one may think the word would be safely devalued, but no, they use it like St. James’s clubmen circa 1855 discussing the latest from Balaclava – one again becomes conscious of the political...
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Decline and Fall
I am very far from original in noticing similarities in the histories of Rome and America—republics that became empires. The decline and fall of the former has often been thought to foretell the fate of the latter. A Frenchman some years ago wrote a fairly convincing book called The Coming Caesars. Such analogies are interesting...
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The Fixer
This new biography of one of the great “fixers” in American political life, James F. Byrnes, creates the impression of an American Ozymandias, proclaiming by example the ephemerality of human greatness. Byrnes and his political colleagues did mold the world in which we live long after the last of them died; yet the scene of...
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Goodbye to Gold and Glory
“A crocodile has been worshipped, and its priesthood have asserted, that morality required the people to suffer themselves to be eaten by a crocodile.” —John Taylor of Caroline “The Father of Waters now flows unvexed to the sea,” Lincoln famously announced in July 1863. He was, according to a reporter, uncharacteristically “wearing a smile...
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The Evil Party Rides Again
There are many reasons to criticize the the Republicans as the Stupid Party, and I have often done so. But we need to remember that, in Sam Francis’ dichotomy, the other major party is the Evil Party. And some of what the leader of the Evil Party is doing has no real precedent in American...
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On Hard Cases
Thomas Fleming’s reflections on the Schiavo case (“New Wine in Old Bottles,” Perspective, May) disappointed but did not surprise me, since, a few years back, he defended our government when it handed over Elian Gonzalez to the tender mercies of a totalitarian government. In both cases, the crux of his argument seems to be the...
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On the Electoral Process
“The Impotent American Voter” by Richard Winger and some related essays in the November 1994 issue—such as Jeffrey Tucker’s on the third-party option—are seriously wrong. I would hate to see Chronicles get a reputation for political kookiness based on a poor understanding of American politics. Winger confuses political openness with openness to third parties. One...
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It Won’t Be Easy to Make America Great Again
Election 2024 will not end or save humanity. What’s at stake in a presidential election is something far different from the all-or-nothing outcome that the rival campaigns envision.
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Mass Migration: Mortal Threat to Red State America
Among the reasons Donald Trump is president is that his natural political instincts are superior to those of any other current figure. As campaign 2018 entered its final week, Trump seized upon and elevated the single issue that most energizes his populist base and most convulses our media elite. Warning of an “invasion,” he pointed...
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Unjust Compensation
Twenty-five years ago, the village of Machesney Park, Illinois, did not exist. Today, it is one of the fastest-growing municipalities in the state: This spring, the village will pay $143,000 for a special census to determine how far the population has risen above its 2000 Census level of 20,759. Village officials estimate that 1,400 people...
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The Ryancare Rout—Winning by Losing?
Did the Freedom Caucus just pull the Republican Party back off the ledge, before it jumped to its death? A case can be made for that. Before the American Health Care Act, aka “Ryancare,” was pulled off the House floor Friday, it enjoyed the support—of 17 percent of Americans. Had it passed, it faced an...
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Dirty, Dirty Dirt
“Dirt is dirtier than clean is clean,” observes one of John O’Hara’s characters—a history professor, I think—remarking on the human race’s observed partiality for darkness and grime in their news diet, rather than sweetness and light. Note the uproar over Brett Kavanaugh’s behavior—nice or nasty—at a high school party he attended at age 17, during...
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Polemics & Exchanges: October 2023
J. Douglas Johnson, executive editor of Touchstone Magazine, critiques Tom Piatak's column in the August issue, and Mr. Piatak replies.
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The Censored History of Internment
In March 1997, Japanese-Peruvians who had been interned in the United States during World War II called upon President Clinton to issue an executive order awarding them financial compensation similar to that awarded in 1988 to Japanese-American former internees and relocatees under Public Law 100-383. Simultaneously, these Japanese-Peruvians lobbied members of Congress to enact legislation...
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The GOP’s Clinton
During the Republican presidential debate on May 15, Ron Paul, the constitutionalist from Texas, flatly stated that the terrorist attacks on September 11 were retaliation for U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Rudy Giuliani shot back a mendacious rejoinder: “That’s an extraordinary statement, as someone who lived through the attack of September 11, that...
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New Politics in Old Virginia
It took 114 years, but by 2000, Virginia had become a Republican state. What brought about such a great change in the Old Dominion? Let’s take a look back. Reconstruction was the low point of Virginia history. In 1865, a defeated and gutted state lost not only its cities, towns, farms, and one third of...
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Loving the Bitch-Goddess
Paul Johnson’s book Intellectuals, published last year, chronicles the transgressions of modern avatars of wisdom (among them Rousseau, Marx, and Sartre) who, while professing a fervent devotion to humanity, behaved inhumanly toward those most meriting their compassion—spouses, lovers, family, friends, and associates. Although the targets of Johnson’s caustic pen all were idols of the left,...
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Books in Brief
In 1935, as president of France, Pierre Laval banned “weapons of war” and decreed that all firearms should be registered with the government. In 1945 he was tried and found guilty of treason for his collaboration with the German occupation. Between those two years, Hitler built his strong war machine, and in 1940 he invaded...
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Bill Clinton and the Ground Zero Mosque: A Perfect Fit
Former President Bill Clinton declared his strong support for the Ground Zero mosque in an interview broadcast on September 12. He also suggested a clever new spin to the promoters of the project. Much or even most of the controversy, he said, “could have been avoided, and perhaps still can be, if the people who want...
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Dead Weight
“A conservative government is an organized hypocrisy.” —Benjamin Disraeli It may speak volumes about American conservatives that David Frum’s critique of “big government conservatism” permitted William Buckley—or so Buckley claims on the dust jacket—to enjoy “the most refreshing ideological experience in a generation.” To a conservative movement led by advocates of national uplift allied with...
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Storming the Castle Doctrine
Americans have been captivated by the February incident in Sanford, Florida, that resulted in the death of Trayvon Martin and the eventual arrest and charging of George Zimmerman. If the case could be resolved today, Trayvon Martin’s family would still be without a son, George Zimmerman—even if exonerated—will never live a normal life, Sanford Police...
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Books in Brief: May 2023
Short reviews of Dollars for Life, by Mary Ziegler, and The Encyclopedia of Confederate Generals, by Samuel W. Mitcham, Jr.
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The War on Blight
If you live in an older section of town, this may already have happened to you. You wake up in a cold sweat. For the past 15 years, you and your husband have lovingly restored an old Victorian house. It was pretty decrepit when you started; now, it is an object of pride and beauty. ...
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Moderate Islam?
“Teachers who teach Western education? We will kill them! We will kill them in front of their students and tell the students to henceforth [sic] study the Koran,” declared Abubakar Shekau, leader of the Nigerian Islamist group Boko Haram, which killed 46 students in a boarding school on July 6 (Time, July 19). Willingly or...
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Government of the People
The doctrine of states’ rights has returned to the American political scene. Leftist and liberal governors have been dusting off the arguments of John C. Calhoun and echoing the speeches of Strom Thurmond in preparation for their defiance of the national government. The battle is being fought on several grounds. In Massachusetts, the fight is...
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God, Man, and Family
The first chapter of the Bible forms the basis of the Christian understanding of the nature and dignity of man—and woman: “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him, male and female created he them” (Genesis 1:27). The next verse contains the first command given to the...
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Why Americans Shouldn’t Vote
Everyone is sure the American political system is broken, but no one wants to blame the people in charge. James Fallows has his nifty little book blaming the press; Howard Kurtz blames our talk show culture; Frontline and The Center for Public Integrity point to our corrupt campaign finance system; conservatives tout their all-purpose reform,...
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First Things Last
If the election of 1996 turned out to be an even bigger snore than most citizens anticipated, the fall of the year was nevertheless enlivened by a dangerous outbreak of something resembling actual cogitation on the American right. Given the mentally paralytic cast of the Dole-Kemp campaign and much of the party that nominated it,...
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Society Precedes Government: Two Counterrevolutions
A successful War of Independence established 13 free and independent states in North America in 1783. This was followed, unfortunately for us, by the French Revolution and then by the 19th century, preeminently a time of violent government centralization. Subsequent events, as well as nationalist emotion and propaganda, have seriously damaged our ability to see...
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The Democrats’ Bait and Switch
Former Ohio Governor Ted Strickland told the Democratic convention that Barack Obama was an “economic patriot” and blasted Mitt Romney for being an “outsourcing pioneer.” That is certainly the theme of the Obama campaign in the industrial Midwest. Any television left on in Ohio for more than 15 minutes is likely to broadcast an attack...
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Bill Clinton and the Ground Zero Mosque: A Perfect Fit
Former President Bill Clinton declared his strong support for the Ground Zero mosque in an interview broadcast on September 12. He also suggested a clever new spin to the promoters of the project. Much or even most of the controversy, he said, “could have been avoided, and perhaps still can be, if the people who...
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Against the Black Pill
We suffer an oligarchic, feminizing regime that is hostile to most of the defining elements of traditional American identity. But, we also enjoy a golden age of dissent. Now is not the time for despair.
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Sexual Politics
The 1980’s witnessed one of the greatest miracles in the history of American politics and the climactic triumph of one of the most effective political leaders ever to emerge in America. That leader was a woman, and however well-known she is today, she has never achieved the honor and celebrity of her many inferiors. The...
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Decency Through Strength
“Ideas rule the world and its events. A revolution is a passage of an idea from theory to practice. Whatever men say, material interests never have caused and never will cause a revolution.” —Mazzini My grandmother, the daughter of a Confederate “high private,” always said that if someone had done something particularly good, you could...