With hindsight, Covid was a high-water mark of elite idealism: an apparently widespread belief that you could simply decide what was real, then make it so via a combination of fiat declaration and media censorship. And whatever else Trump brings, …
Joe Biden’s pardons are a moral surrender
Compartmentalised people are difficult enough to deal with. A compartmentalised culture sleepwalks toward oblivion.
Consider New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg, who wrote in December 2017, not even a year into Trump’s presidency: “As this hideous, discombobulating year comes to …
Joe Biden’s moral void
Weeks after being sworn into office, Joe Biden made a striking proclamation. With the drama of January 6 still fresh, the new President announced that his tenure would encompass the “restoration of democracy, of decency, of honour, of respect, the …
Democrats need a new Clinton
A shattered Democratic incumbent. A rambunctious Republican outsider. An election marred by economic turmoil and the usual destabilising violence in the Middle East. A campaign of contrasts, of relentlessly negative liberals, dismissing their rival as extremist, and conservatives pushing forward …
The Democrats got stuck in the Seventies
There’s a very good chance that you remember nothing at all of the Democratic 2020 primary cycle, maybe Bernie Sanders’ uncombable hair, maybe Elizabeth Warren mouthing some policy proposal that sounded smart even if no one understood it, maybe the …
The tragedy of American blues
After President Biden’s farewell debate I had a problem. It was evident that Donald Trump would win. I fantasised that he would offer me the post of Poet Laureate, and I wondered if I would accept. Washington DC is hot …
The Democrats have pulled off a miracle
Making an elephant disappear is a notoriously difficult test of the magician’s art. Turning a flower girl into a duchess might be even harder to pull off. Convincing the world’s most powerful man to agree to give up his job …
Kamala’s undemocratic convention
We are stuck with the French phrase coup d’état because nothing else describes so well the sudden removal of an old ruler by secret manoeuvrings — and their replacement with a chosen successor who happens to be endowed with every …
Is the Kamala honeymoon over?
In 2016, mainstream analysts were virtually certain that Donald Trump would not win the GOP nomination. Then, when he did, they claimed that it was nearly impossible that he would win the presidency. They were convinced they were able to …
How Biden channelled his MAGA spirit
When he walks out of the White House in six months’ time, Joe Biden will leave behind a complicated legacy. He will go down in history as the man who beat Donald Trump, the president who authorised America’s shambolic withdrawal …
Trump and Biden shouldn’t fear death
Until a couple of weeks ago, the American electorate faced a choice between a presidential candidate probably suffering from early dementia and one afflicted by advanced narcissism. Should the finger hovering over the nuclear button belong to a senile Commander-in-Chief …
Who is behind Kamala Harris?
The centre of gravity in Democratic politics quaked on Sunday — and in a flash, everything changed. Barring an act of divine intervention, Kamala Harris will become the party’s standard bearer in Chicago in less than a month’s time.
Her …
How Biden blindsided Netanyahu
There are lame duck administrations. And then there is Washington DC in July 2024. There isn’t even a term for it: what do you call an administration whose leader just exited stage left before his own party could lower the …
The case for an open convention
Joe Biden is out. For Democrats, that is welcome news. But the party will not rouse Americans by simply throwing the car keys to Vice President Kamala Harris. To stir the people, Democrats need an open convention. By grabbing the …
Kamala Harris is painfully out of her depth
Following Joe Biden’s belated withdrawal from the presidential race, the onslaught of felching flattery about his heroically sacrificial character and his administration’s astonishing, unprecedented, better-than-FDR-scale accomplishments began within minutes. From the Democratic party’s grand poohbahs and their lickspittles in the …
