Politics

Read about the latest political news, views and analysis

Thursday

Freddy Gray

Steve Bannon: Tech oligarchs hid the AI extinction threat

23 min listen

In this episode of Americano, Freddy speaks with Steve Bannon – former White House chief strategist for Donald Trump – about the ideological convergence between national populists and progressive leftists as they confront the existential risks of unbridled AI, the suppression of internal whistleblower warnings by Silicon Valley elites, and the urgent necessity of cutting off Chinese access to Western microchips and capital. https://www.youtube.com/watch?

Freddy Gray

Peter Thiel, the Antichrist and the battle to control AI

Freddy is joined by Michael P. Gibson, co-founder of the 1517 Fund, to discuss the weekend's warnings about AI catastrophe from Anthropic's Dario Amodei, Elon Musk and others, and the Trump administration's insistence on a light touch. Freddy and Michael discuss why Michael thinks the warnings should be read alongside Anthropic and OpenAI's plans to go public in the next six to nine months; how the role of Silicon Valley villain passes to whichever lab has the strongest model; why data centers, and now AI safety, have become Democratic talking points ahead of the midterms; why Michael believes existing product liability law already does the job; and why Peter Thiel suspects a one world body to regulate AI, sold in the name of peace and safety, could be the project of the Antichrist.

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Brendan O’Neill

Ed Sheeran has done nothing wrong

So now we know what happens if you refuse to prostrate yourself before the Gaza cult. If you politely decline wearing the keffiyeh like a holy shroud and chanting “Free Palestine” on a mindless loop. They will destroy you. They will hound you like an infidel and seek your excommunication from polite society. Just look at what is happening to Ed Sheeran. The anti-Ed hysteria really is spinning out of control Pop’s Mr. Nice Guy, penner of bloodless ballads, is being ripped to shreds online. He’s damned as a “coward,” a “lowlife,” even as “complicit” in one of the great crimes of the 21st century. “Call off the rest of your American tour!” cry the frothing Ed-hunters. What sin did he commit to warrant such venom?

Tom Switzer

In Iran, America is being sucked deeper into an unwinnable war

Tehran knows it does not need to defeat the United States in a conventional war. It can instead exploit the vulnerabilities of America and its Sunni Gulf allies by opening up new fronts. With shipping in the Strait of Hormuz disrupted, Saudi Arabia has been transporting oil via the Red Sea and keeping global energy markets just about under control. But that alternative Red Sea route is now being threatened and the economic consequences are becoming considerably more serious. Iran’s mullahs are widening their war with the US not only through direct attacks, but through their Shia allies and proxies across the Middle East. Earlier this month, the Iran-backed Houthis seized strategically important territory across Yemen’s Red Sea coast.

Daniel McCarthy

The strange death of libertarianism

Socialism is more fashionable today than at any time since the Soviet Union collapsed. It’s back, and its major rival isn’t an ideology of unfettered free markets but right-wing populism. Theodore Roosevelt is a greater inspiration than Ronald Reagan to today’s young Republicans. The man most likely to be the next GOP presidential nominee, J.D. Vance, is more enthusiastic about Huey Long than Milton Friedman. Even the alternative “NeverVance” candidate insiders in Washington prefer – Secretary of State Marco Rubio – has made a point of saying capitalism must be “common-good capitalism.” Libertarians have disappeared, just as the national debt has blown past $40 trillion.

Roger Kimball

Who’s afraid of AI?

It’s not often that we get a ringside seat to the Birth of a Narrative. Usually, those overseeing the parturition are careful to manage the event offstage, away from the prying eyes of skeptics, spoilsports, and counternarrativists. There are walls of silence and moats of obfuscation to accompany the rollout. That helps keep everyone on message. There are media firemen assembled to extinguish the flames and wash away the reputations of questioners. That helps neutralize pests and quash doubts.  But with the sudden onslaught of the “AI will end humanity” narrative, the impresarios orchestrating the debut got sloppy. They knew their own lines. Artificial intelligence was the biggest threat to humanity since, well, since ever.

Wednesday

Gareth Roberts

Piddington and the idiocy of British middle-class progressivism

The Piddington result is in. Ninety-two percent of the voters in the tiny Oxfordshire village have voted to secede from the United Kingdom – 285 yes, 26 no. Why? Because the British government plans to dump hundreds and hundreds of small boat “asylum seekers” in a military base slap bang next to the Piddingtonians.  Of course, this is a symbolic gesture. There is no legal mechanism to actually achieve secession, which is perhaps just as well. As we know, it’s hard enough to get British politicians to acknowledge the results of an official national referendum, let alone a wildcat local one.

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Tuesday

Freddy Gray

Randy Fine: ‘I support a four-state solution for Britain!’

Freddy is joined by Representative Randy Fine, the Republican congressman for Florida's 6th district, to speak about his viral post, calling for a four-state solution for the United Kingdom. The post which parodies a popular pro-Palestinian chant, “From the river to the sea,” targeted the British government's fresh sanctions on Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Freddy and Representative Fine discuss his claim that 38 states are ready to boycott British companies that comply with the sanctions, why he blames European allies for a war with Iran he insists is being won, whether the Falklanders' votes to remain British count for anything, and why he says Britain's Israel policy is a play for voters who “never should have been in the country in the first place.

Monday

Simon Diggins

Al-Qaeda haven’t gone away, you know

“They haven’t gone away, you know.” Gerry Adams’s chilling words, uttered during the peace process, to remind everyone that the IRA still existed, would do as well for al-Qaeda, the architects of the 9/11 outrage, the 25th anniversary of which fell on Friday. Osama bin Laden’s killing in May 2011 may have removed the titular head of al-Qaeda but, neither that well-deserved death, nor the subsequent splintering of al-Qaeda from ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) in 2014, has diminished either the virulence or potential danger that al-Qaeda presents.

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Sam Leith

The real reason AI is so frightening

In Joseph Heller's Catch-22, the anxious Colonel Cathcart is in the habit of compiling little lists of recent events. He draws these lists up under two headings: “Black Eyes” and “Feathers In My Cap.” Into the former, he puts everything that seems to damage his chances of preferment – bombing his own runway again, and so forth – and in the latter, everything that will redound to his credit. I like to imagine Sam Altman, the boss of OpenAI, and his fellow AI overlords doing something similar. In the “Black Eyes” column, we might find near the top of the list the original sin of generative AI.

Sean Thomas

Dario Amodei and the AI apocalypse alchemists

Such is the pace of change in AI that it has been, yet again, quite a weekend. On Saturday, Dario Amodei, boss of Anthropic, published an essay, "We Must Pace the Frontier," urging his industry to slow down. Within the hour Elon Musk replied: “Dario is right.” Sam Altman, the boss of OpenAI, followed. By Sunday, Amodei was on Face the Nation, again asking everyone to apply the brakes on the grand and momentous technology of our time. None of it proves imminent superintelligence. But it is the sound of something ominous The cynical explanation is obvious. OpenAI has just shelved this year's IPO; Altman suddenly believes it unwise.

Saturday

Sahil Mahtani

The Bayeux Tapestry must never be returned to France

The Norman Conquest is a crime against humanity that remains, over a millennium on, entirely unsettled. The French still refuse to pay reparations for the 1066 genocide. And the rapacious Norman invader class remains firmly at the pinnacle of every aspect of public life in Britain. Indeed, the economist Gregory Clark has shown that, in some ways, the Conquest never truly ended because Norman last names remain overrepresented at Oxbridge some 30 generations on. Some of the nation's most glittering buildings still wear their Norman Caen stone shamelessly; walk past many great ecclesiastical facades and the conspiracy is right there in plain sight, yet no one mentions it. France owes us money and the math is fairly simple So France owes us money and the math is fairly simple.

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Friday

Matt McDonald

What exactly was the Republican midterm convention?

At the opening night of the first ever “midterm” Republican convention in Dallas, Donald Trump roasted the local Democratic candidate for US Senate, whom he calls James “Talafreako.” “He was also somebody that hated eating meat, but he ran a campaign to beat meat. He called it ‘beat meat,’” said Trump, to cackles of laughter from the MAGA faithful. “I don’t know what the hell he meant by that. These people are going to tell me ‘what the hell… he wants to beat meat?’ But it was bad for his image, so he started eating meat, and he recently – it’s getting worse. I’m getting myself in trouble.” That was the highlight of the President’s almost two-hour-long remarks.

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Freddy Gray

Inside Jared Kushner’s Albanian adventure

19 min listen

What is behind Albania’s so-called “Flamingo Revolution,” and why has Jared Kushner found himself at the center of it? Freddy is joined by Ian Thomson to discuss Kushner’s controversial plans to build luxury resorts on Albania’s coastline, the protests they have sparked, and the country’s long-running battles over land and property. They also explore Albania’s turbulent history, the legacy of communism, and why the country’s ancient traditions and rapid growth as a tourist destination are colliding with Trump-era ambitions for real estate development. Learn how to earn yield on gold, paid in gold, at Monetary-Metals.com/Americano Produced by Abigail Brierley. https://www.youtube.com/watch?

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Freddy Gray

Vance is back in the box seat

“We gotta take care of business this November,” said Vice President J.D. Vance, demurely, at the Republican convention last night, “then we’ll worry about what comes next.” He was referring to the chants of “28! 28!” that emanated from the exuberant MAGA crowd – an appeal for him to be the next Republican presidential nominee. The message of the night was clear, though. Following something of a wobble in the early months of 2026, Vance has re-emerged as the clear favorite to succeed Donald Trump. For now, the MAGA inheritance, and all its problems, seems to be his.  Trump has reportedly stopped doing his private “Marco or J.D.?” polls among house guests, friends and Rupert Murdoch.

Roger Kimball

Lonnie Bunch’s long march through the Smithsonian

Lonnie G. Bunch III, the first black head of the Smithsonian Institution, is stepping down after a tenure of some seven years. NPR had the news: “In 2019, Bunch was named secretary of the Smithsonian, becoming the first historian and the first African American to hold the position.” The Wall Street Journal also got the memo: “The first Black historian to lead the world’s largest museum and research complex says he’s retiring and will leave by year’s end.” NBC looked behind the headline. “Bunch, the first Black person and first historian to lead the institution, has said he would have retired a year ago but felt he had to stay to defend the institution from the White House attacks, the person said.

Chris Mondics

Twenty-five years after 9/11, is America growing complacent?

The ghostly silence and calm that settled over Washington, DC is what many in the city remember most about the aftermath of the 9/11 plane hijackings and ensuing destruction of the Twin Towers and a portion of the Pentagon.  City streets were emptied of traffic. The airports closed and most public transit came to a halt. Not since British troops burned the Capitol and the White House during the War of 1812 had there been an attack of that magnitude on mainland America. The threat has not gone away. It has since morphed into smaller-scale events carried out by lone actors  Virtually all of the nation’s elected leaders and much of its bureaucratic workforce were evacuated.

Steven Edginton

Why did the British government label Charlie Kirk supporters ‘extremists?’

One year ago, Charlie Kirk was shot dead; the British government immediately got to work. Following Kirk’s murder, the Research, Information and Communications Unit (RICU), a UK government counter-extremism and anti-terrorism unit, began monitoring thousands of social media channels, gauging the reaction of what they describe as “Extreme Right-Wing” (ERW) activists. RICU has stirred controversy over its role in coordinating ‘controlled spontaneity’ campaigns in the aftermath of terrorist attacks Published here for the first time, a memo written by RICU reveals that officials assessed that “Extreme Right-Wing” activists, including Tommy Robinson, would use Kirk’s assassination to “push pro-free speech narratives.

Alex Alfirraz Scheers

‘A failure of imagination’ did not cause 9/11

On a balmy autumnal evening in October 2001, a secret task force assembled by the CIA and the Pentagon met in a nondescript concrete-and-glass corporate building at the end of Fiji Way, a run-of-the-mill thoroughfare 20 miles west of Los Angeles. That task force, however, was anything but run-of-the-mill. Dubbed the Entertainment Industry Task Force, it comprised 30 of Hollywood’s most renowned filmmakers and creatives, including household names such as Oliver Stone (Platoon), David Fincher (Fight Club), and Randal Kleiser (Grease). Their mission was to imagine the next devastating terrorist attack, mere weeks after the 11 September 2001, attacks set fire to the Manhattan skyline and shook the world.

Thursday

David Loyn

We risk another 9/11 by ignoring Afghanistan

Twenty-five years after 9/11, and five years after the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan, armed resistance against their rule is growing. The new militias are finding support in a population weary of Taliban rule. The latest group to join the fight, the Afghanistan United Front (AUF), have had their campaign blessed in a fatwa by a large group of Afghan Islamic clerics and scholars, who question the religious legitimacy of the Taliban. “It is our duty,” they write, “to destroy the lying and deceptive narrative of the Taliban to save our religion and our people from this extremist and heretical group.

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