Politics Archives

Wednesday

October 15, 2025

Is Marjorie Taylor Greene a Democrat?

Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene has spent the last week gnawing on the hand that feeds her, showing that no one in American politics is worse at reading the tea leaves. Taylor Greene entered Congress in 2021 wearing a face mask that read “Trump Won.” She was so fervently a supporter of January 6 pardons that Georgians invoked an "insurrectionist disqualification clause" to try to remove her from Congress. But now that MAGA is riding high on a wave of world peace and prosperity, Taylor Greene has changed her tune and, though she says she’s still conservative, is sounding more like an unholy fusion of Liz Cheney and Nancy Pelosi. Over the weekend, MTG appeared on comedian Tim Dillon’s podcast, claiming that she is still “MAGA through and through.

Tuesday

October 14, 2025

Cockburn

You want a peace of me?

President Trump prevented World War Three yesterday, or so he claimed multiple times. “No one wants World War Three,” he said. Fact check: true. Trump and many of the world’s finest leaders gathered behind a large, tacky but also touching sign that read “Peace 2025.” Italy’s Giorgia Meloni also attended the summit. Trump called her “beautiful,” saying that in the US calling a woman beautiful could mean the “end of your political career.” Fact check: true. “I’ll take my chances,” Trump said. Cockburn enjoyed the day’s festivities, which featured enough comic moments to fill a season of The Office.

Chris Mondics

Is conversion therapy free speech?

Kaley Chiles is a Christian therapist who places the Bible at the center of her practice. To many of her patients, religious faith is often more important than Freud. They see Bible readings, prayer and a focus on spirituality along with traditional principles of psychotherapy as essential elements of any treatment plan. While outside the mainstream of psychoanalytic practice, Chiles’s technique combining traditional psychotherapy with Biblical precepts for years had been deemed non-controversial, if confined to more conservative regions of the country. But that all began to change in 2019 when the state of Colorado enacted legislation banning so-called conversion therapy for minors, a technique that aims to help gays change their sexual orientation.

Monday

October 13, 2025

Jacob Heilbrunn

Donald Trump’s finest hour

This is Donald Trump’s finest hour. Speaking in the Knesset on Monday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called him Israel’s “greatest friend” and nominated him for the Israel Prize,” the nation’s “highest award.” Trump himself was greeted rapturously by the parliamentarians for securing a breakthrough peace deal in Gaza. Trump basked in the applause for his months-long diplomatic effort, declaring that “this is the historic dawn of a new Middle East.” But can one truly emerge? Or is this simply a temporary truce between the warring parties? Trump’s immediate accomplishment was to arrange for the release of the remaining 20 living Israeli hostages held by Hamas since its attack on October 7, 2023, when more than 1,200 Israelis were murdered.

Rachel K. Paulose

Why did the FBI spy on Republican Senators?

The United States Senate Judiciary Committee this week revealed that Joe Biden’s FBI spied on eight Republican Senators and a Republican House of Representative Member in 2023. The underlying FBI record reveals the agency sought telephone tolling data as part of the Arctic Frost investigation that Special Counsel Jack Smith used to concoct an election fraud case against President Donald J. Trump. Although the indictment was ultimately dismissed when the President was re-elected in 2024, Smith expended the resources of the federal government for two years investigating the President in search of a federal crime.

Saturday

October 11, 2025

Gavin Mortimer

Macron’s story has become a Shakespearean tragedy

This week has been a tale of two presidents. On the one hand there is Donald Trump, who has masterminded a peace deal between Israel and Hamas which, the world hopes, will end the conflict in Gaza. Even Trump’s long-standing detractors acknowledge his role in bringing the warring parties to the negotiating table. "Trump's unique style and crucial relationships with Israel and the Arab world appear to have contributed to this breakthrough," explained the BBC. It hasn’t been such a good week for Emmanuel Macron. On the contrary it’s been the most humiliating few days of his eight and a half years in office. On Monday his Prime Minister, Sébastien Lecornu, tendered his resignation after 27 days in office. It was the shortest premiership in the 67 years of the Fifth Republic.

Jennifer Harrison

Let ‘Iryna’s Law’ be her legacy

We’ve seen it again and again – Laken Riley, Rachel Morin, Christina Yuna Lee, Michelle Go, Jocelyn Nungaray, Kristal Bayron-Nieves and now Iryna Zurutska – all young women brutally murdered by repeat offenders who never should have been on the street in the first place.Mental health failures. Bail reform. Parole abuse. Open borders. Progressive DAs. Every layer of this system protects offenders and creates more victims. To most Americans, that seems unthinkable.To those of us who live it, it’s another day in a system that treats criminals better than victims. That’s why the passage of Iryna’s Law in North Carolina matters.

Juan P. Villasmil

Machado deserves the Nobel

I was fourteen when I clambered onto a boulder along Caracas’s Francisco Fajardo highway – what people called Piedra de la Libertad, the Liberty Rock – and spoke out about a government that had just ignored a referendum. “Tyranny” was more than a buzzword. To my astonishment, a woman I didn’t yet know – María Corina – helped me climb it. With her megaphone, I spoke of unifying, as a sea of flags from rival parties fluttered before me.Many dismissed her then. A woman who once called Chávez a “thief” to his face – too brash, too ideological, too direct for the choreography of Venezuelan politics. The old hands said she could never reach the people; she lacked the soothing tones, the feigned humility, the convenient ambiguity that defined our politicians.

Friday

October 10, 2025

Marc Siegel

Why weed is the most dangerous drug in America

Weed is the most dangerous drug in America. The main reason for this is the fact that most people don’t think it is. In fact, they typically think just the opposite. They believe not only that pot is safe, but also that it has true medicinal qualities. Little do they know that those benefits are barely worth the paper you wrap your joint in. Marijuana is most commonly touted as a balm for anxiety. But it may actually increase anxiety to the point of psychosis – especially for those with underlying psychiatric conditions. Combine it with a diet of daily intake of violent video games and social media – as did Joshua Jahn, the man who shot three victims at a Dallas ICE facility – and you’ve got all the makings of an unstable American.

Cockburn

Shutdown siestas

Nothing beats a Jet2 holiday Washington is ten days into the government shutdown, and the Republicans and Democrats remain at loggerheads. Members are accosting each other in the corridors of power – in front of a gawking media, naturally – and challenging their adversaries to debate on TV shows. The impression our leaders are trying to give us is that they are working hard to reach a solution to the impasse. The same can’t be said for admin officials: Cockburn understands a large swathe have taken the opportunity to head off on vacation – and are doing their best to ensure they don’t post any pictures. (As ever, if you’ve spotted a secretary soaking in the sunshine, let Cockburn know at cockburn@thespectator.com.

Neal Pollack

By order of the non-doctor

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. did not say, in yesterday’s cabinet meeting, that circumcision causes autism. But the fact that we’d even consider that a real statement shows just how far down the rabbit hole into the MAHA Wonderland of his mind RFK has dragged us. In fact, RFK said that after doctors circumcise boys, they give them too much Tylenol, and that causes autism. President “Don’t Take Tylenol” responded, “there's a tremendous amount of proof or evidence. I would say as a non-doctor, but I've studied this a long time.” A non-doctor is right, and I say this as someone who’s not a fan of male circumcision, a practice based on dated religious superstition.

Thursday

October 9, 2025

Neal Pollack

Give the Nobel to Jared

On a season eight episode of The Simpsons, newscaster Kent Brockman interviews a man who’s woken up from a 23-year-long coma, and lets him know that Sonny Bono is now a Congressman and Cher has won an Oscar. The man dies soon after. If someone were to wake up from a coma today to find out that Donald Trump, who 23 years ago was hosting The Apprentice, is now the leading candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize, it would have a similar result. But who else deserves the award? If you can give Peace Prizes to Al Gore and Barack Obama for basically being Cool Liberal Guys Who Aren’t Dick Cheney, you can give one to Donald Trump. Look at who’s nominated him: Benjamin Netanyahu, the government of Pakistan, The Israeli Hostages Family Forum.

Katherine Dee

Life in Chicago with ICE and the National Guard

Every day, Chicagoans outside the immediate areas where federal forces are deploying pick up fragments of what feels like an unfolding drama. Here’s a representative example: on the app NextDoor, the Chicago subreddit and in neighborhood Facebook groups, we watch cell-phone footage from Logan Square of smoke spreading through an intersection as a federal vehicle pulls away. Eventually, local outlets verify that a masked federal agent dropped canisters outside the Rico Fresh supermarket near Funston Elementary. It appears the air was filled with a chemical irritant, causing people to panic, and the vehicle departed.

Jacob Heilbrunn

Has Trump won peace – or a pause?

Donald Trump is on a roll. He not only wrangled Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu into submission, but also the terrorist organization Hamas, which has apparently agreed to release all remaining hostages. The war in Gaza, which has claimed the lives of at least 67,000 Palestinians, looks to be coming to an end. On Thursday evening, Trump took a victory lap as Israel and Hamas, who have been negotiating in Egypt, assented to the first phase of his 20-point peace plan. “I am very proud to announce that Israel and Hamas have both signed off on the first Phase of our Peace Plan.

Wednesday

October 8, 2025

David Sypher Jr.

The Democrat who fantasized about killing a Republican

When it was revealed that Jay Jones, Virginia’s Democratic nominee for attorney general, joked in text messages about shooting a Republican lawmaker, Democrats didn’t rush to condemn him. They scolded the comments, sure. But they didn’t demand he drop out. That hesitation tells you everything about the new Democratic mindset: they don’t see this as hypocrisy. They see it as adaptation.For years, Democrats have insisted that Donald Trump changed American politics – that he shattered the old civility and made rage fashionable. Now they’re quietly admitting that rage works. They’re not abandoning their moral high ground; they’re repaving it with something harder and sharper. In their eyes, the game changed – and if the only way to win is to play by Trump’s rules, so be it.

Cockburn

Has Katie Porter just tanked her chances of becoming California governor?

How do you give an interview so bad that it tanks your chances of winning an election by nearly 40 points? Ask former California congresswoman Katie Porter, who until yesterday was the presumptive favorite to become the state’s next governor. In a sit-down with Porter that resembles an old-school satirical Daily Show segment – before TDS turned that show into another partisan screed-fest – CBS News California Investigates correspondent Julie Watts asks Porter, simply, how she plans on winning Republican votes. “How would I need them in order to win, ma’am?” Porter sneers. "I have stood on my own two feet and won Republican votes before.

Matthew Lynn

Why gold is at an all-time high

Gold is in the middle of what looks like an unstoppable bull run. It has already punched through $4,000 an ounce. At the rate the price is rising, it may well go to $5,000 within a few weeks, and perhaps even $6,000 as the next year unfolds. There have been lots of different explanations for this, from the looming collapse of the dollar, to secret Chinese buying, to the conspiracy theories circulating on the wilder fringes of the internet, such a secret plot to re-establish the gold standard, or attempts to replace all the metal that is meant to be stored at Fort Knox, America’s official gold reserve, which apparently went missing decades ago. But the real explanation is very simple: it is the only way to hedge against soaring government debt.

Jane Stannus

The Freedom Convoy trial has disgraced Canada’s justice system

In a disgraceful conclusion to a disgraceful trial, Freedom Convoy organizers Tamara Lich and Chris Barber have been sentenced to 12 months of house arrest and 6 months of curfew (with credit for the 49 days Lich has already spent in jail) – plus 100 hours of community service. An ironic addendum. For in the packed courtroom on October 7, there was likely not one person who has served the community with greater generosity than the two defendants. Tamara Lich and Chris Barber, organizers of the most successful protest in Canadian history, kept their cool, kept the peace and brought national unity, patriotism and common sense back to Canada after the pandemic – this, despite the sustained efforts of the most aggressively controlling, divisive government the nation has ever had.

Tuesday

October 7, 2025

Neal Pollack

Trump cuddles Carney

“Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments,” William Shakespeare wrote in Sonnet 116, and he appears to have been prophetically talking about the very special relationship between President Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney. The first meeting between the two leaders a few months ago was friendly. But today’s press conference, before a tariff negotiation lunch, was essentially a cuddlefest. Carney called Trump a “transformative president.” Trump joked about the upcoming “US/Canada merger,” and said the two countries had “natural conflict and natural love,” like in any marriage. The problem, Trump said, “is that they want a car company, and we want a car company. It’s a natural business conflict… nothing wrong with it.

Lance Christensen

The folly of Newsom’s redistricting plans

"Vanity of vanities, saith the preacher; all is vanity" may very well be the epitaph of Gavin Newsom's political career when he leaves office in January 2027. Driven by his presidential ambitions, California's governor is torching a quarter-billion taxpayer dollars on a redistricting scheme that would make Elbridge Gerry himself blush. What Newsom calls "fighting Trump," voters increasingly recognize as #GavinMandering, a transparent attempt to override the independent redistricting commission they approved to end exactly this kind of political manipulation. The political implications are staggering, not just for California but for the future of Democratic Party credibility nationwide.