“He watched the play with great intensity,” wrote Cormac McCarthy in All the Pretty Horses. “He’d the notion that there would be something in the story itself to tell him about the way the world was or was becoming but …
Trumpism won’t save Middle America
Grey squirrels don’t command much love, here in the 51st state. When Brits make memes about them, it’s usually a visual shorthand for strong views on immigration. But in their native North America they’re firmly associated with Disney princesses, and …
The US Constitution is anti-democratic
However Americans just voted, they can be in absolutely no doubt that the 2024 election was the most important ever. That, after all, is what both candidates have ceaselessly been telling them. For Kamala Harris, this is “one of the …
JD Vance: prince of the MAGA movement
The nomination of J.D. Vance as Donald Trump’s running mate has already proved controversial. With Trump leading in the polls, it means the 39-year-old is likely to become the next vice president of the United States. Perhaps more importantly, it …
Will soccer moms win it for Kamala?
Journalists have now spent nearly a decade haunting the farms and taverns of rural America, trying to understand why millions of decent heartlanders voted for Trump. It’s a romantic story, casting the underdogs against elites, and explaining how America’s forgotten …
America is tortured by demons
The United States is the land of conspiracy theories, not least when it’s busy electing a president. Such theories are a secular version of the idea of a malevolent God, for which the world is a sinister place but at …
Only the Republicans can stop Jew hatred
Given some basic wisdom, directing for the stage is rather simple. The wisdom is that: “The audience don’t care.” They don’t care where the characters “went to school”, or what memory the actor is dredging up to influence his performance; …
How Gen Z fell for Poland’s memes
If I say “Poland” — what do you think of? Marie Curie? Copernicus? Pierogi? All lovely in their own way, but not exactly cool. Now, however, everything is changing. From dank memes online to unintentionally patriotic rap songs, the …
Who verifies BBC Verify?
BBC Verify, the new fact-checking service inside the BBC, was launched last year with much fanfare and at great expense. Its verdicts are pushed across all the corporation’s channels. So why is it getting so many things wrong? And where …
A murder in Pennsylvania’s swing county
It was just before 2.30am, on a crisp Tuesday morning, when Tyrell Holmes was set on fire. Few were awake to hear his shrieks. By the time the police arrived, Holmes had collapsed dead, his corpse smouldering next to a …
The godless US election
Rallies. Insults. Slightly awkward baby-holding. In most ways, this year’s election is just as crass and theatrical as ever. Yet as the American public heads to the polls, the 2024 cycle is strikingly different for one key reason: its godlessness. …
What the AfD gets wrong about Bauhaus
What a sorry mess we are in. The other week, plans to celebrate the centenary of the Bauhaus’ arrival in Dessau were met with opposition. Proposing a motion called “The Aberration of Modernity” — which was rejected — in the …
Kemi Badenoch’s New Toryism
There is something strikingly different about Kemi Badenoch, the newly anointed Conservative Party leader. For a while I thought it might be that she is peculiarly old fashioned — a throwback to an age before the end of history and …
The West is goading Georgia
Food. Churches. Chacha. This is what Georgia has long been known for. But now this ancient country, flanked by the mountains and the sea in the heart of the Caucasus, is the battleground in a new Not-So-Cold War. Due to …
American industry must rise again
Austerity is rarely popular during election season, and already this campaign has featured a variety of budget-straining proposals. Donald Trump has called for exempting tips from taxation, which Kamala Harris subsequently endorsed. J.D. Vance has suggested increasing the child tax …