A perceptive journalist once said that Donald Trump should be taken “seriously but not literally”. The same could have been said about Charles de Gaulle. On the opening page of his memoirs, he wrote that his “certain idea of France” …
The myth of Trump and pro wrestling
America is witnessing two notable comebacks. The first, covered incessantly by the media, concerns Donald Trump’s quest to regain the presidency — recently complicated by his indictment in New York. The second, though subject to less scrutiny, is no less …
How to get ripped and alienate people
For roughly a year, an “ancestral fitness” personality named Brian “Liver King” Johnson ran a successful lifestyle hustle. His pitch to potential true believers was simple: eat raw organ meats, walk around shirtless outdoors, carry kettlebells, and follow his “nine …
How Turbo-Wokism broke America
American history can best be understood not as a single continuum but as a series of Republics, each arising from the ashes of its predecessor. The First Republic, born of the American Revolution, ended with Andrew Jackson’s Trumpian assault on …
There is no “Biden Doctrine”
I keep thinking of the people falling from the sky. The images are seared into my mind: Our Afghan allies, the people we were callously leaving to their fates after 20 years, clinging to an American plane taking off from …
America needs to calm down
Wherever you look someone is sounding the alarm about how America has been taken over by evil extremists and is going to hell in a handbasket. This sort of talk used to be confined to the fringes: you’d actually have …
The dangers of gender-affirmative care
The Biden administration recently announced a plan to ban “conversion therapy” and dismantle barriers to “gender-affirming care” for transgender-identifying children and adolescents. A few days later, Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal introduced the “Transgender Bill of Rights” on Capitol Hill which sought …
How the elites lost the Twitter war
Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter is a litmus test of where you stand in the online ecosystem. To some, it means a dawn of “free speech” on a platform that has increasingly cracked down on unwanted views. To others, it …
California’s progressives are in retreat
“I’m asking myself, ‘What the hell is going on?’” said Gavin Newsom to the assembled cameras, “It looked like a third-world country.” California’s progressive governor was in his state’s largest city because of a piece of viral content: images of …
Escaping American tribalism
One summer afternoon when I was 23 — this was in 1987 — I was twiddling the dial on the radio in the apartment I was subletting on 114th St. when I stumbled on a station that was unlike anything …