Current US policy is setting Washington up for a major crisis with its allies, especially in Europe. This is odd because everyone seems to be getting on. But here’s the rub: what happens if China attacks Taiwan and a major …
What Christopher Lasch got wrong
Christopher Lasch’s posthumous comeback began around the same time Donald Trump was elected. In the years since, his inter-connected critiques of contemporary humanity’s narcissism and our globalised elite have turned him into a prophet of the populist Right’s anti-elite politics. …
Cormac McCarthy’s irrational apocalypse
“When the onset of universal night is finally acknowledged as irreversible”, warns a character in The Passenger, “even the coldest cynic will be astonished at the celerity with which every rule and stricture shoring up this creaking edifice is abandoned …
How Big Pharma monetised depression
We are, if you believe the headlines, living in the midst of an unprecedented mental health crisis, exacerbated by the stress and isolation of the pandemic. According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, at the end of …
Did America cause Europe’s energy war?
All of Europe is suffering as a result of the energy crisis, but for the continent’s largest economy, this is more than just an economic crisis — it’s an existential one. Once hailed as Europe’s economic powerhouse, Germany is now …
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 …
How to treat gender dysphoria
Annie’s parents had spent so much time tending to her autistic brother that they hadn’t realised their daughter developed similar traits: a high IQ, a tendency to obsess, discomfort with her body.
Annie was diagnosed with epilepsy aged five. After …
America has an Oedipus complex
As in Sophocles’s tragedy Oedipus Rex, we are witnessing a generational drama in which inheritors kill their proverbial father to marry their mother, in this case Mother Earth. The psychology behind this pattern is above my pay grade, but many …
Clowns have captured the GOP
Only a few short months ago, the Democratic Party looked to be doomed. Joe Biden’s approval rating was scraping historic lows in the mid-30s, Republicans were building a solid lead on the Generic Congressional Ballot, and story after story detailed …
Capitalism killed the American West
I spent a long time being told to read Bernard DeVoto before I got around to it. People who loved him often seemed surprised I hadn’t already read his histories. There’s a very specific type of person who tends to …
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 …
The cruelty of Biden’s border policy
When it comes to “open borders”, Joe Biden has gone as far as a President can go without actually abolishing them. This June alone, US Customs and Border Protection apprehended more than 200,000 people at the southern border, leading Republican …
America has lost its purpose
With Ayman al-Zawahiri dead, now is time for Washington to abandon the failed counterterrorism policies of the last two decades. Rather than vindicating that approach, as supporters of the Biden administration claim, the al-Qaeda leader’s assassination shows how little it …
Has Joe Manchin saved the planet?
The stakes associated with any particular climate policy are almost always less than claimed. This rule of thumb, which I’ve learned after more than 30 years working on the climate issue, is worth keeping in mind in the wake of …
Remote learning was built to fail
Imagine that it’s September 2020 and you’re teaching at a middle school that has gone online. Miraculously, all of your students have functioning laptops and can join class remotely. You’ve checked your equipment with a colleague, who assures you that …