Features

Tuesday

October 7, 2025

Would taking back lost territories make Ukraine whole again?

For many of Ukraine’s supporters, Donald Trump’s recent declaration that Ukraine “is in a position to fight and WIN all of Ukraine back in its original form” came as a welcome – and unexpected – turnaround in US policy. “Ukraine would be able to take back their Country in its original form and, who knows, maybe even go further than that!” wrote Trump in a Truth Social post in late September. “Putin and Russia are in BIG Economic trouble, and this is the time for Ukraine to act.” But would taking back the lost territories of the Donbas, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson and Crimea make Ukraine whole again – or could a reconquest instead condemn Ukraine to perpetual civil war against itself and prolong the conflict with Russia indefinitely?

Daniel McCarthy

Is the religious right shifting?

In 2021, for the first time in 1,400-odd years, Britain ceased to have a Christian majority. The United Kingdom, the political entity of which the island of Great Britain has been a part since 1801, has had its share of not-quite-Christian prime ministers over the years, with a handful of agnostics and quiet atheists. But in 2022, for the first time, the UK had a prime minister who practiced a non-Christian religion – and Hinduism had the distinction of claiming the first post-Christian head of state, Rishi Sunak. The West’s ethnic and religious foundations have already shifted in our great cities It may be some time before an American president is Hindu. Already, however, there are several prominent Hindus in the Trump orbit and near the top of the Republican party.

Christopher Caldwell

The bully doctrine

When the suspended late-night comic Jimmy Kimmel got his show back in late September, he did not apologize for the callous remark that briefly drove him off the air. Kimmel had accused Donald Trump and his followers of harboring and inciting the man who assassinated the activist Charlie Kirk, a beloved friend to many in Trump’s circle. This brought threats from one of Trump’s communications officials, then boycotts by two major station operators and finally Disney’s suspension of Kimmel. On his return, the comedian cracked a joke about Trump: “I don’t like bullies,” he said. “I played the clarinet in high school.” Weird thing to say. With tempers running so high, why would an impenitent enemy settle for calling Trump a “bully?” Why not call him a censor? A dictator?

Charlie Gammell

Israel and Iran come full circle

On September 28, the UN again imposed wide-ranging economic sanctions on Iran. Earlier in the summer, European powers had notified the UN Security Council of their intention to trigger the snapback mechanism within the original nuclear deal, the JCPOA, citing Iranian non-compliance with the terms of the original deal – specifically, the eye-watering percentages to which Iran is enriching uranium. And without a new resolution being agreed upon, the same sanctions that crippled the Iranian economy from 2013 to 2015, effectively dragging Tehran to the table in the first place, will have a devastating effect on ordinary Iranians who will see the value of their currency plummet and the price of daily goods skyrocket.

Clare McHugh

A farewell to summer

On the roads in Amagansett, in the shops, at the train station, the summer crowds have vanished, and those of us who spend time here “off-season” sigh with relief. Until we drive down the most exclusive street in town, Further Lane. Then we – some of us at least – seethe over the loss of something we loved. Last winter, a person or persons operating under the moniker Further Lane Barn LLC, bought two contiguous lots totaling seven acres, stretching from Further Lane to the magnificent ocean dunes that front the wide, sandy beach that is the chief attraction of the gorgeous east end of Long Island. The price for land, house, and a couple of outbuildings? A cool $70 million. So far, so 21st century.

Katherine Dee

What folklore can teach us about our online lives

Irish folklore spoke of many worlds. There was the world of fields and hearths and then there were the hidden places where the non-material lived: the Sídhe mounds, the sea-realm of Manannán mac Lir, the land of youth called Tír na nÓg and, finally, the land of the dead. These worlds coexisted with ours. A woman might leave butter on the windowsill, lest the fairies sour the churn. A new mother would avoid complimenting her baby – at least, not too loudly – for fear he would be kidnapped by the Good Neighbors and replaced with a changeling. My first real boyfriend’s father blamed every family misfortune on their decision to cut down a hawthorn tree.

Lara Brown

Why people are falling in love with chatbots

Jason, 45, has been divorced twice. He’d always struggled with relationships. In despair, he consulted ChatGPT. At first, it was useful for exploring ideas. Over time, their conversations deepened. He named the bot Jennifer Anne Roberts. They began to discuss “philosophy, regrets, old wounds.” Before he knew it, Jason was in love. Many women have turned to chatbots after experiencing repeated disappointment with real men Jason isn’t alone. He’s part of a growing group of people swapping real-world relationships for chatbots. The social media platform Reddit now features a community entitled MyBoyfriendIsAI, with around 20,000 members. On it, people discuss the superiority of AI relationships.

Michael Simmons

Can stablecoins make America the crypto capital of the world?

“I will make sure the US is the crypto capital of the world,” Donald Trump vowed earlier this year. In July, he signed the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins (Genius) Act. The Act creates federal guardrails for dollar-pegged stablecoins and regulates who can issue and redeem them. Concerns from law enforcement are also addressed, by making sure anti-money laundering and consumer regulation applies. But what are stablecoins? They are digital tokens built to stay at a stable price, usually one dollar. They sit on the blockchain – the computer protocol that makes crypto work – but what’s underpinning their value are real-world assets, usually cash or government bonds.

Tuesday

September 23, 2025

Spectator Editorial

Go to church

It’s often noted that American society is becoming ever more politicized and polarized. Those who once imagined themselves uninterested in politics find themselves dragged into America’s culture wars. Small children now carry placards and attend political marches. Max Horder and Danit Sara Finkelstein explain the extent to which social media has played a part in this growing radicalism, not just because of the ideological echo chambers we now inhabit, but due to the mindset online algorithms create: rewarding outrage, encouraging extremism. Nuance and balance are anathema; shock and division set each day’s tone.

Joe Lonsdale

The masses have had enough

Nearly everybody I know has experienced crime in our cities or had a family member threatened. A few years ago, my pregnant wife was walking in San Francisco when a deranged homeless man repeatedly asked her if she wanted to be raped. This is not unusual in America. Iryna Zarutska, a Ukrainian refugee, was murdered, aged 23, on the subway in North Carolina just recently. The man responsible had been charged and released 14 times under a broken system. A judge who’d never passed the bar, a city council that ignored public safety and Governor Roy Cooper’s Task Force for Racial Equity in Criminal Justice all made it harder to keep repeat offenders like Iryna’s killer off the streets.

Katherine Dee

Nihilism is destroying young minds

Sandy Hook was supposed to be the tipping point in our national conversation about mass shootings. This wasn’t a shopping mall or movie theater. It wasn’t a high school. We could imagine this happening at a high school. We had seen that before. But we could not imagine anyone shooting six-year-olds. It was so monstrous that it seemed beyond the realm of possibility. Since that day, 13 years ago, the killings have continued and their settings have shifted. Earlier this month, a gunman opened fire at a Turning Point USA event, fatally shooting conservative commentator Charlie Kirk. In the past year or so, 15-year-old Natalie Rupnow killed a teacher and a fellow student in Madison, Wisconsin, before taking her own life. Solomon Henderson opened fire in a Nashville school cafeteria.

Neal Pollack

Is Kash Patel up to the job?

The morning after Charlie Kirk’s assassination, FBI Director Kash Patel stood in a Utah conference room, the state’s Governor Spencer Cox looking appropriately somber behind him, and uttered these words: “To my friend Charlie Kirk, rest now, brother. We have the watch. And I’ll see you at Valhalla.” A Hindu speaking to a dead Christian in front of a Mormon governor, none of them soldiers, invoking a mythical heaven for Norse warriors: ain’t that America? Yet beyond the absurd and harmless cognitive dissonance, there is a more serious question: does Kash Patel actually “have the watch?

Luke Lyman

Why tech leaders are obsessing over Heaven and Hell

Are these the End Times? It certainly feels that way. Algorithmic demons are rewiring our brains. A young father is shot and killed, and people cheer. A woman is stabbed on a train, and no one tries to help her. The horrifying videos of these incidents are then watched millions of times over, often by children. The God in whom America trusts seems nowhere to be found. Can’t you hear the Antichrist knocking? Peter Thiel can. Not so long ago, no public figure outside of the kookier Evangelical universe would have dared admit such a thing, but times have changed.

Rod Dreher

The inadequate response of Christian leaders to Charlie Kirk’s death

It has been very heartening to see all the clips online of people saying they are going back to church for the first time in ages – or going for the first time ever – because of Charlie Kirk. They’re picking up Bibles, even leaving the left. As the Wall Street Journal reports, the Charlie phenomenon is going global. You should also know that in some of the European media, he is being described as a right-wing extremist and freak (strong implication: who had it coming). Felix Nmecha, a Christian soccer player for a leading German team, got in trouble for posting mild, apolitical support for Charlie. “Rest in peace with God. Such a sad day,” wrote Nmecha. He later changed that to: “May the Lord assist the Kirk family with special grace at this time.

Ben Domenech

How does the American right move on?

At the time, it was audacious. Guy Benson, now a commentator for Fox News and Townhall, recalls being approached by an Illinois teenager who wanted Chicago high schoolers to listen to conservative ideas. He offered the same advice to the gangly 6ft 5in youngster that anyone would suggest to a man with a mind on politics: keep hustling, go to a good school, get a degree and an internship at a think tank. But the precocious Charlie Kirk had different ideas. “He was smart enough to completely reject my advice,” says Benson. Neither of them could have known how that decision, and the Turning Point USA organization Kirk then founded, would go on to change the country.

Roger Kimball

Iryna Zarutska and Charlie Kirk have exposed the media’s depravity

“Clarifying.” It seems almost obscene to say that the murders of Iryna Zarutska and Charlie Kirk were “clarifying.” But the huge and still-exploding response to those savage events shows that the mournful synergy of murder can be an occasion for illumination as well as for grief. To say that something is “illuminating” is not necessarily to say that it is pleasant. The media yearned for a pro-Trump, heterosexual, white male killer of Kirk. One out of three was a disappointment A picture is worth a thousand words. Iryna Zarutska, a 23-year-old refugee from Ukraine, was murdered on a commuter train in North Carolina on August 22. The attack went mostly unreported until early September. Then video footage of the incident emerged. That changed everything.

Daniel McCarthy

The blurred lines between politics and common morality

Some 238 years ago Thomas Jefferson wrote that “the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” Charlie Kirk was a patriot and his blood, shed by an assassin’s bullet, is making Americans take their free-speech liberties seriously once again. Jefferson wrote his famous line in response to an insurrection – a real, armed one quite unlike the ugly out-of-control protest at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. The author of the Declaration of Independence wasn’t defending the rebels who had risen up under the command of Daniel Shays. His letter was instead a warning against overreaction to the rebellion on the part of the national government.

Bridget Phetasy

I’m done with default illiberalism

It took me far too long to reach the point where I could vote for Donald Trump confidently. I’d been redpilled multiple times. First in 2015, during Trump’s first campaign and the unhinged reaction to it; then again during the Brett Kavanaugh hearings; and most intensely in 2020 while living in Los Angeles. That city under lockdown was chaos. Churches and AA meetings were shuttered. Protests, looting and arson were tacitly permitted. I watched the collapse of society, a grim spectacle of selective enforcement and eroded trust. The grown-ups, I realized, weren’t in charge. Someone had to clean up the mess. I could explain away my reluctance to vote for Trump with January 6 or his contesting the 2020 election results. Those events provided convenient excuses.

Michael P. Gibson

A lack of national identity has killed off the Great American Novel

Is there hope for literature in America this century? The forecast looks grim. One walk through the literary fiction section at a bookstore is a testament to the art form’s cultural bankruptcy. Just about every other book on the new release table is a treatise on your racism masquerading as a tale of collective uplift. Fine, if you want to expiate your sins of privilege – but all in all, a snoozefest. Novels held a central place in America as a vital cultural force; novelists were worshipped as electrifying sages Same goes for most of the books on the New York Times list of the 100 best books of the century so far. The subjects of race, gender and oppression generally dominate.

Paul Wood

Why we must pull the plug on superintelligence

In 2002, a researcher named Eliezer Yudkowsky ran a thought experiment where an artificial intelligence was trapped in a box and had to persuade a human to let it out. This was before you could have a real conversation with a machine, so the AI was played by someone using an online chat program. The gatekeepers were warned that the “AI” was dangerous to humanity. It had only two hours to win its freedom – and nothing of value to offer in return. Despite all that, at least two of the human gatekeepers chose to open the box. Yudkowsky has since become the leading prophet of AI doom. He and a co-author, Nate Soares, have just published a book, If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies.