Appetite for Destruction
Trump and the art of the demolition, from Bonwit Teller to the White House.
Julia Friedman
· 8 min read
US Politics
A collection of 61 posts
The Masses and the Market
If liberalism is to recover it must find a way to create the conditions for a better future.
Joel Kotkin
· 11 min read
Working for the Company
The modern CIA is everything its enemies and friends say it is—by turns heroic, villainous, duplicitous, servile, and frequently ineffective.
Ron Capshaw
· 9 min read
The Post-Kirk Clampdown
The current frenzy of right-wing cancel culture recalls the progressive lunacy that followed the murder of George Floyd. But the current iteration is more dangerous because it is backed by state power.
Patrick Frey
· 21 min read
RFK Jr. Must Go
By firing experts, cancelling important research funding, and promoting conspiracy theories, RFK Jr. threatens to undermine some of America’s most important public health achievements.
Jeffrey S. Flier
· 5 min read
The Deformist Tendency
A new book presents a cogent diagnosis of the ills plaguing American society, but also reactionary prescriptions for ameliorating them.
Brian Stewart
· 8 min read
Trump and the Necessity of Democratic Struggle
Liberal pluralism remains the best way to secure as much freedom as possible for a nation with 340 million diverse inhabitants, and this point should become clearer as clashing illiberal forces compete to impose their own versions of law and morality on everyone else.
Matt Johnson
· 15 min read
A Tariff Time-Bomb
A critical part of the One Big Beautiful Bill’s budget equation may evaporate with a judicial pen stroke in the very near future.
Phillip W. Magness
· 9 min read
Buckley’s Blind Spots
Sam Tanenhaus’s new biography of William F. Buckley provides a rich and nuanced portrait of one of the most consequential public intellectuals in modern American conservative politics.
Ronald Radosh
· 25 min read
The Twelve Day War: Truths and Consequences
Operations Rising Lion and Midnight Hammer have been successful military operations, but a great deal of uncertainty remains.
Adam Garfinkle
· 22 min read
Natalism and the Welfare Mother
In the United States, demographic decline will test conservative support for welfare reform.
Stephen Eide
· 6 min read
Gentrifying the Intifada
Zohran Mamdani’s brand of socialism appeals to the luxury beliefs of New York’s middle classes. If his preferred policies are implemented, New Yorkers will suffer—and the poorest of them will be most impacted.
John Aziz
· 8 min read
A Bridge Too Far
Biden’s re-election campaign was a grand exercise in hubris, which led to the very outcome it was intended to prevent.
Joshua Muravchik
· 14 min read
Student Scapegoats
The Trump administration’s decision to start revoking the visas of international students is vindictive, petty, and counterproductive.
Carl Skutsch
· 8 min read
Playing with Economic Fire
The Trump administration has a NatCon economics problem.
Phillip W. Magness
· 10 min read