Features Archives

Thursday

February 15, 2024

What will the new Trump foreign policy look like?

A month after the election shock of 2016, CBS’s John Dickerson sat down with the ninety-three-year-old Henry Kissinger to get his assessment of the incoming president. “Donald Trump is a phenomenon that foreign countries haven’t seen,” Kissinger pronounced, noting that many nations would have to weigh “their perception that [Barack Obama] basically withdrew America from international politics, so that they had to make their own assessment of their necessities,” along with “a new president who is asking a lot of unfamiliar questions.” Given “the combination of the partial vacuum and the new questions, one could imagine that something remarkable and new emerges out of it,” Kissinger added. “I’m not saying it will. I’m saying it’s an extraordinary opportunity.

Daniel McCarthy

Donald Trump and the clash of realities

As Donald Trump marches to the Republican nomination a third time, Americans are divided into two radically opposed camps. On one side are Trump supporters who believe Democrats stole the 2020 election. On the other are Trump detractors — Democrats and homeless NeverTrumpers — who say that denying the legitimacy of the 2020 election amounts to a desire to overthrow democracy itself. The country is not on the brink of a civil war, and deep partisan divisions are nothing new. But reality itself is contested today in a way that goes beyond anything in earlier US history. The split over the 2020 election is one intensely political manifestation of a wider rift.

Teresa Mull

The magic of making maple syrup

On one of those dark-too-early winter afternoons that might as well be midnight, I assessed my Subaru’s all-wheel drive capabilities with a slick spin up a long, snow-covered driveway. My destination: the sugar shack. Scott and Kelly Kolesar live on a piece of property Kelly’s great-grandfather homesteaded. And for all I know, standing on the clear-cut hillside that’s only ever been disturbed by the planting of some potatoes and strawberries and the hooves of cattle that grazed it decades ago, I could be right back in those early days of central Pennsylvania’s settling. The sky is clear and dark, with no light pollution to speak of, and diamonds twinkle above. The Kolesar home glows as a North Star up ahead, and another beacon next door serves as Halley’s Comet.

Tuesday

January 23, 2024

Spectator Editorial

The 2024 campaign cage fight

The modern political observer has moved on from the idea that “all politics is local.” In our interconnected world, politics now comes down to sophisticated data analytics, nationwide donor networks and money that’s used to drive the narratives that take hold on 24/7 cable news or social media. “All politics is local” is the type of Rockwell-esque trope that wasn’t necessarily true even when the phrase debuted in 1932, let alone when former House speaker Tip O’Neill made it popular. But last year showed us that even old clichés are subject to a gritty reboot.

Madeleine Kearns

Newlywed dining around the world

Nick and I were married on February 4, 2023, and spent our first Valentine’s Day at Le Grand Colbert in Paris. There, we had oysters and Champagne, lobster, scallops with a side of mashed potatoes (naturally) and profiteroles for dessert. This year, we’ll be at a wedding on our anniversary, and Valentine’s Day coincides with Ash Wednesday, a day of fasting and abstinence from meat for us Catholics. So I’ll be attempting a romantic homemade meal to celebrate both occasions on the unremarkable second Saturday of the month. Looking through my phone, confronting my strange habit of taking pictures of memorable meals, I was reminded that our first year of marriage has involved a lot of hosting, dining out and dining in. In March, my in-laws visited us in New York City over the St.

Roger Kimball

The course of the American empire

In the 1830s, the English-born American artist Thomas Cole painted an ambitious sequence of five large rectangular canvases delineating “The Course of Empire.” He began with “The Savage State,” which depicts the rude life of humans before the advent of letters, domestication and permanent architecture. “The Arcadian or Pastoral State” is marked by harmony and some early accoutrements of civilization. “The Consummation of Empire,” at fifty-one inches by seventy-six inches, is a third larger than its fellows. Here we see a sun-drenched landscape transformed by a panoply of classical architecture counterpointed by bustling commerce and a triumphal, if overripe, stateliness. Next comes “Destruction.

Aidan McLaughlin

Is Courier Newsroom really fighting fake news?

"We are not the Fox News of the left,” says Tara McGowan. “We are legitimate journalism.” We are sitting in the lobby bar of the Edition Hotel in Manhattan as McGowan tells me about Courier, the network of local-news outlets she founded in 2019 after a successful career in Democratic politics. Courier, in McGowan’s telling, “is a network of pro-democracy newsrooms across the country that reach passive news consumers where they are with good factual local news and reporting.” McGowan rejects allegations that Courier is a partisan political operation masquerading as a news outlet. Courier isn’t pro-Democratic Party, she says. It’s “pro-democracy.

Bridget Phetasy

America is too fat for another civil war

Pundits and YouTubers these days love to warn of the inevitable civil war, as they sit in their comfortable, air-conditioned home studios, sowing division and unrest. And it is true: in recent years, America has faced a growing epidemic that threatens not only the health of its citizens but also the stability of society. But it’s not right versus left: it’s Dunkin’ versus Krispy Kreme, battling for the soul of America. Our nation’s obesity crisis has reached alarming levels, with a significant portion of the population struggling with weight-related issues. However, I’d argue the physical limitations of an overweight nation could be the very thing that saves us from ourselves.

Ben Domenech

The fall of Nikki Haley’s comet

In the waning days of 2023, the last weeks of the before-time — the moments before the Republican Party would inevitably crown the once and future king who rules upon high from Mar-a-Lago — the billionaire donor class of the Republican Party decided en masse that it would endorse a candidate in a final desperate attempt to block Donald Trump. They settled on Nikki Haley, the erstwhile South Carolina governor turned United Nations ambassador, whose star had risen oh-so-very slightly in early state polling, if you squinted hard enough. She would be their choice for a last stand against The Donald Redux, whose return they publicly claimed to fear and loathe as a threat to democracy while privately admitting they would unanimously support him. The question is: why?

Neal Pollack

How to jail a president

Of all the strange political things that may occur in what will be one of the stranger political years in history, one possibility stands out as the strangest. Donald Trump, who will almost certainly be the Republican presidential nominee, is also facing the possibility of a racketeering conviction that could send him to prison. So, how exactly do you jail a president? Trump’s most fervent opponents may find themselves disappointed. No one’s going to toss the Donald into some American equivalent of the Black Hole of Calcutta. And as much as people might want to shut him up, no one is going to hold him captive in a bare, dark cell with a Hannibal Lecter mask over his face. On the other hand, Trump’s most fervent supporters could find themselves disappointed as well.

Henry Olsen

How California’s new trucking regulations threaten standards of living

It’s chic to look down on big trucks and their drivers. Former president Donald Trump’s photo op with truckers in 2017 was immediately lampooned on social media and by liberal journalists. It would be fitting, then, if the trucking industry provides the example that kills the push to rapidly move developed economies to “net zero” greenhouse gas emissions. The fact is that any serious attempt to make Western economies “net zero” will be costly, technologically difficult and extremely disruptive to our way of life. Nothing captures these inconvenient truths better than the effort to force the electrification of the trucking industry. Trucks are to the modern economy what the circulatory system is to the body.

Daniel McCarthy

The populism of Machiavelli and Jefferson

A few years ago a Marine turned novelist, G. Michael Hopf, captured a classic truth in a pithy formula. Inspired by cyclical theories of history — in particular the generational “turnings” of William Strauss and Neil Howe — Hopf wrote in his novel Those Who Remain, “Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times.” One need not put much stock in Strauss and Howe to appreciate the maxim. It could just as well be derived from Sallust or other classical sources. Or from Machiavelli: in his Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livy, the Florentine philosopher considers where best to build a city.

Bill McMorris

Will Covid voting rules stay in place in 2024?

Wisconsin was the Democratic establishment’s Waterloo in 2020. Even with the field consolidated behind Joe Biden, liberal operatives couldn’t shake the memory of Senator Bernie Sanders’s trouncing of Hillary Clinton. They needn’t have worried. On April 7, Biden cruised to victory with two-thirds of the vote; Sanders exited the race the next day. But beating back one worst-case scenario revealed a second. Primary turnout plummeted from 1 million in 2016 to a mere 875,000 in 2020 with the steepest drops coming in the voting blocs Democrats would need come November.

Jesse Singal

Against LOLflation

Between the deranged cancellations still roiling online life the Muskification of Twitter, and the undead nature of the Donald Trump-attention economy, there is no shortage of legitimate matters to depress someone like me who cohosts a podcast about internet bullshit. And yet for some reason, I’m fixated on an insignificant issue: LOLflation. The majority of you know what “LOL” stands for: “laughing out loud.” What it’s supposed to mean, when communicated via text or direct message or (less often) email, is: you just wrote something funny enough that I physically laughed. This is touching not just because it’s flattering to make someone laugh, but because it temporarily breaks the spell of the online world.

Christopher Bedford

Inside the 2024 campaign consultant calamity

In the salad days of early 2023, when Ron DeSantis was the clear insurgent candidate to wrest the GOP nomination from Donald Trump, the Florida governor boasted of his ability to rise above the chaos and office politics that had derailed the populist agenda under Trump’s watch. “In terms of my approach to leadership, I get personnel in the government who have the agenda of the people and share our agenda. You bring your own agenda in, you’re gone,” DeSantis said. “The way we run the government, I think, is no daily drama, focus on the big picture and put points on the board.” He has since dropped that line; it’s been too obviously overtaken by actual events.

Amber Duke

How Ray Tierney brought law and order back to Suffolk County

On the day I arrive at the Suffolk County District Attorney’s office, DA Ray Tierney is off meeting with an unnamed witness in the Gilgo Beach serial killer case. In February 2022, more than a decade after police first recovered the remains of eleven victims, then-Suffolk County police commissioner Rodney Harrison announced the creation of a joint task force dedicated to solving the case. The task force, which included investigators from the DA’s office, quickly zeroed in on a suspect as they chased down a tip from a witness that hadn’t been properly investigated the first time around. Fifty-nine-year-old Rex Heuermann was arrested in July on murder charges and police have linked his DNA to several of the bodies.

Elaine Mallon

Inside Oberlin College’s failed auto-da-fé

The end of Kim Russell’s career coaching lacrosse at Oberlin College can be traced back to a few words posted to her private Instagram on March 20, 2022. Russell reshared a post congratulating Emma Weyant as the real winner of that year’s NCAA women’s 500-yard freestyle event, though the NCAA record books say Lia Thomas, whose feminine quality seems to be shoulder-length hair, finished 1.75 seconds faster. “What do you believe? I can’t be quiet on this,” Kim wrote in her post. “I’ve spent my life playing sports, starting & coaching sports programs for girls and women.” Russell believes in many things. She believes in practicing mindfulness, intuitive coaching and the use of coconut oil as body lotion.

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Daniel DePetris

How will the 2024 election impact US-China relations?

There was a time when the relationship between the United States and China had a bright future. While bilateral relations have never been particularly rosy since the two countries formally established diplomatic ties on January 1, 1979, US and Chinese leaders have long worked on the assumption that they had much to gain by deepening their cooperation and, if possible, expanding it to new heights. This was a widespread sentiment in Washington, reflected in speeches given by presidents from both parties. “I know there are those in China and the United States who question whether closer relations between our countries is a good thing,” President Bill Clinton told students at Beijing University in June 1998.

Wednesday

December 20, 2023

Spectator Editorial

The fight ahead in 2024

Are you desperate for a deal? Usually the start of a new year provides the patient ones among us the chance to snag a bargain in the January sales. Good things come to those who wait, the old adage goes. Yet 2024 seems set to offer us more of the same. The usual stalls are at the market — all of them trying to hawk shoddy wares to Americans. Take the primary process for our presidential elections, which kicks off in Iowa and New Hampshire this month. If the prognosticators are to be trusted, we are set for a rematch between President Biden and former President Trump. Biden’s approval rating doesn’t seem to be improving and the cries for him to drop out and let a younger candidate step in are still sounding — and they come from more and more prominent people every day.

Adam 'Lectern Guy' Johnson

Remembering January 6

Washington, DC I just finished wrapping the Christmas presents. Every year I consider just putting the boxes under the tree and leaving the papercuts to my five children. To date, I have not won this battle with Mrs. Lectern Guy. The onslaught of holidays late in the year used to end with Champagne and a kiss. All the indulgences of overeating, overspending and overworking would be forgiven on January 1, and I could rest until chocolate and flowers day. But my calendar now holds an additional holiday with new traditions to keep. Just days after New Year’s, I will be forced to relive the darkest day — well, four hours — in American history. January 6 was the end of our country as we know it.