Features

Wednesday

December 20, 2023

The gloomy future facing trade unions

Few developments have more cheered progressive activists than the perceived resurgence of labor unions. This has been sparked by largely symbolic efforts to unionize in places such as Starbucks and Amazon, as well as more sizable wins by the Writers Guild of America and the Screen Actors Guild and United Auto Workers, the country’s most important private labor union. In 2022 strike activity more than doubled from the previous year. Yet ultimately these wins may turn out to be largely Pyrrhic.

Roger Kimball

The looming Lenin comeback

The year 2024 marks the centenary of Vladimir Lenin’s death. In April of that year, the consummate communist, having blighted as many lives as he could, finally shuffled off his mortal coil, aged fifty-three.“That was young,” you may say. But I reply, “Not nearly young enough.” As we embark on what is sure to be an eventful year, it is worth pausing to remember the hideous legacy of that ice-cold totalitarian. What I have in mind is not so much Lenin’s butcher’s bill as his more general modus operandi. Estimates of the number of people Lenin had tortured, maimed and murdered vary, but are always well into the millions. But what is somehow even creepier is his model of government.

Amber Duke

Can Ronna McDaniel survive calls for her resignation?

Republican National Committee chairwoman Ronna McDaniel was seething in her chair at the Miami performing arts center that housed the third GOP presidential candidates’ debate in November. Vivek Ramaswamy, the tech entrepreneur running an anti-establishment campaign, had just used his opening statement to publicly call on McDaniel to resign. “I think there’s something deeper going on in the Republican Party here and I am upset about what happened last night. We’ve become a party of losers at the end of the day,” Ramaswamy said. “Ronna, if you want to come on stage tonight, you want to look the GOP voters in the eye and tell them you resign, I will yield my time to you.

Henry Olsen

The meaning of Javier Milei

Libertarian economist Javier Milei’s smashing landslide victory is the most radical thing to happen to Argentina in decades. But his win portends more than just a free-market revolution on the pampas. It’s just the latest example of a trend we’ve been seeing for decades: the triumph of blue-collar conservative fusionist populism. Milei is routinely portrayed in the western press as an Argentine Trump with crazy economic policies. There’s some truth to that. His rallies sometimes involve pyrotechnics and he brandishes sputtering chainsaws to symbolically deliver the message that he will take apart the system that impoverishes Argentines.

Daniel McCarthy

The 2024 regime referendum

The 2024 election will be a referendum on Joe Biden, but it’s also a referendum on a regime. This is how both sides see it. Liberal democracy itself is at stake according to progressives. For Trump supporters, the question at issue is legitimacy of the Deep State. These are different names for the same thing: a leadership caste and its ideology of government. In practice, liberal democracy means a democracy in which liberals never lose power.

Paul Wood

War tourism is alive and well

In 2004, the BBC sent me to the Iraqi city of Karbala to report on the gathering of Shia pilgrims for the religious holiday of Ashura. American troops knew to stay well away. They were already fighting a Sunni insurgency and didn’t want trouble with Iraq’s Shiites as well. The insurgency’s leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi — the butcher of Iraq — had just threatened to attack “the sects of apostasy,” as he called the Shia, and as we entered Karbala, militiamen searched us for weapons. The air hummed with tension. But at breakfast in the hotel, we ran into a gaggle of backpackers: Brits and Americans. Seeing the look on my face, a blonde woman in the group told me not to worry. “Things are much calmer now in Iraq, aren’t they?

Bridget Phetasy

Bowling Alone reads like a nostalgic look at the good ol’ days

In the Phetasy.com book club, we recently read the famous social science tome, Bowling Alone, by Robert Putnam. In it he examines the decline of social capital across various facets of American life. Based on his 1995 essay of the same title, the book was groundbreaking when it appeared in 2000. Putnam had noticed a trend: Americans were spending more and more time alone. His book analyzed the data and contemplated what it meant for our democracy and humanity. Although his observations were a harbinger of the oft-cited “epidemic of loneliness” we are currently living through, in our post-Trump, post-pandemic pre-maggedon reality, Bowling Alone reads like a nostalgic look at the good ol’ days. Days when people still interacted at all.

Oliver Jia

The Americans who defected to North Korea

Last summer, US Army soldier Travis King ran across the Korean Demilitarized Zone into the arms of the North Koreans. It wasn’t because of some mental break or as part of a spy operation. North Korean state media claims he was motivated by racism and mistreatment — of course they would. The DPRK’s outlets have previously criticized the US for its treatment of African Americans, around the same time they compared former president Barack Obama to a “wicked black monkey.” Like the six American servicemen who crossed the DMZ before him, King probably had a mixture of reasons for his flight. Unlike in the previous cases, however, King’s detention was a short one.

Teresa Mull

How Canada discovered resistance

In February 2022, I attended the Great American Outdoor Show in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and struck up a conversation with a hunting guide from Newfoundland. We talked about guided trips to hunt moose and caribou and about how much of a haul it is to get from Newfoundland to Pennsylvania (and to pretty much anywhere else, for that matter). At the time the “Freedom Convoy” — in which Canadian truck drivers were joined by thousands of demonstrators protesting Covid-19 lockdowns and vaccine mandates — was in full swing. My newfound Newfoundland friend seemed to be as polite and self-effacing as the stereotype, so I felt comfortable asking his thoughts on the Freedom Convoy.

Ben Domenech

How the Democrats went anti-Israel

The migraine arrived suddenly and unexpectedly — a headache of global proportion that made every sound a shrieking cacophony, impossible to ignore. Tuning it out, as the Democratic coalition had managed to do successfully for the better part of a decade, was no longer an option. The nightmare had arrived, and it had a throbbing mantra, carried across the bluest corners of the country in pixels and TikToks and in the bellow of a boiling mass of blathering, megaphone-wielding youths: “From the river to the sea.” Even before the horror of the October 7 attack and the war on Hamas that followed, Israel has carried the potential to cause political tribulation for Democrats in the post-Obama era.

Kevin Cook

Is flag football the future of the game?

“Where does it stop?” Andy Reid was griping about the NFL’s new kickoff rule. This year, for the first time, players can call for a fair catch on kickoffs short of the end zone, with the play considered a touchback and the ball coming out to the twenty-five-yard line. The rule is meant to reduce concussions on kickoff returns — the most hazardous play in the game, with players often colliding at top speed. “We’ll see how this goes,” said Reid, head coach of the Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs. But he had his doubts. Reid sees kickoffs as a significant “piece” of hard-hitting NFL action. “You don’t want to take too many pieces away, or you’ll be playing flag football.” Travis Kelce went further.

Elaine Mallon

Zucked up: private election funding’s new form

Greenwich, Connecticut, is a town of 63,000 people just twenty-eight miles away from New York City. It’s a wealthy community with a median household income of $127,123 and the average home value over $1.2 million.Greenwich, Connecticut, is a town of 63,000 people just twenty-eight miles away from New York City. It’s a wealthy community with a median house- hold income of $127,123 and the average home value over $1.2 million. The well-manicured lawns and eight-car garages may be caricatures of country club Republicanism, but don’t be fooled. Democratic financier Ned Lamont launched his political career here en route to becoming governor. In 2020, Joe Biden received 61 percent of the vote — the formerly reliable GOP town has gone fully blue in the past two presidential cycles.

Tuesday

November 14, 2023

Spectator Editorial

The fight ahead

If there could ever be a positive that comes out of the horrific terrorist attacks in Israel in October, it’s this — the battle lines have never been clearer. That may seem obvious in the context of Israel versus Hamas, but for Americans, watching the drawing of the fault lines has been extremely clarifying. In the hours that followed the atrocities, the people who reject any sort of nuance in politics wanted to “put into context” the murders of 1,400 Jews — including elderly Holocaust survivors, women and children. The Manhattan chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, of which Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez remains a member, tweeted support of Palestine and its intention of holding a rally in Times Square.

Julio Rosas

On the ground in Ashkelon

Southern Israel I woke up on Tuesday morning, October 10, having just got back from New York City covering a big pro-Palestine protest. War reporting has been something I’ve always wanted to do. I figured it might be hard to catch a flight to Israel with everything going on, but because of the large Jewish and Israeli population living around Miami, there was a direct El Al flight that evening to Tel Aviv for $800. It was the last direct flight out of Miami for a couple of days, so I thought, “If I am going to do this, today is the day.” I was planning on leaving my job at Townhall the following week to start my independent Substack, but told them I was departing that day to go cover the war in Israel. They wished me well and off I went.

Paul Wood

Is killing civilians ever justified?

Israel said its tanks had “encircled” Gaza City as this went to press, the ground offensive being stepped up after a tentative beginning — but there’s been nothing tentative about Israel’s bombings from the air. Here’s a report of one incident: at 4:30 p.m. on October 10, an explosion collapsed a six-story building in Sheikh Radwan, a district of Gaza City, killing, it was said, at least forty civilians. A man named Mahmoud Ashour had to dig through the rubble with his bare hands to find members of his family. Buried there were his daughter and her four children, a girl aged eight and three boys of six, two, and six months, all killed. They had fled there thinking it would be safer than other parts of Gaza. But, he said: “I couldn’t protect them.

Roger Kimball

Hamas and retaking higher education

Maybe there is something for which we have to thank Hamas after all. That savage terror group epitomizes the latest form of murderous, antisemitic brutality. The world — most of it — has been sickened and appalled by the spectacle of burnt, mutilated and headless corpses. Aiming at maximum shock, the terrorists made no distinction between young and old, male and female, Israeli and foreign national. Among susceptible souls in the academy and other ideological fever swamps, however, a familiar moral perversion instantly came to the fore. The weasel word “but” was conscripted and put to work early and often. Without warning, Hamas attacked and murdered Israelis. Yet somehow the Israelis are to blame, or half to blame, or at least complicit in the slaughter.

Ben Domenech

Unpacking the GOP’s red October

The Florida Man had a plan. It was obvious from the beginning, but this being Washington, despite all the bizarre outcomes of the post-Cold War political scene — interns, scandals, impeachments, Donald Trump in the White House and out of it, the Cheneys surrounded by cheering Democrats — normalcy remains the assumed status quo. Normalcy does not encompass a plan to vacate the speaker’s chair with the unanimous help of the other party. In fact, prior to 2019, anyone could have used the same tool the Florida Man would deploy to unseat a speaker. They just never tried it officially, because to do so would be crazy, risking handing control of the House to the minority. And it was that audacity which kept the Florida Man’s plan alive.

Bridget Phetasy

The year’s horrors have left me speechless

I’ve started and stopped three articles, written 1,500 words and hated every single one. This column was due days ago and I’ve been stuck. Completely blocked. I’m not sure if it’s one thing or many things — and sometimes the only way through writer’s block is to sit down and write all the jumbled, disconnected thoughts that are jamming me up. So I will start this piece and end this year with an apology to my editor and to you, dear reader. There is the thought that stands in the way of every other thought — and because I refuse to put horrifically graphic images in your head while you sip your coffee, I’ll let you fill in the blanks yourself. But the thought goes something like: “Hamas did X and Y and Z and I’m supposed to write or care about anything else?

Teresa Mull

The world of future heirlooms

The table at which I sit to write this column is more than 400 years old — and yet brand new. A few years ago, when a mammoth oak fell in my parents’ woods, we profited from the generosity of friends with chainsaws and access to a lumber mill and kiln who were just as determined as we were not to see this venerable specimen go to waste. My parents consulted with yet another party keenly concerned with preservation — a local, family-owned, custom furniture builder of “heirloom-quality.” It seems like a quaint concept, in this fast-forward world, where news stories and trends mirror the lifespan of an avocado — ripe one second and useless the next — to acquire and keep things with a mind for future generations.

Daniel McCarthy

Israel’s imperial problem is ours, too

Israel will win its war against Hamas. But can it win the kind of war the United States lost in Afghanistan? Israel is facing today a dilemma that the West will face tomorrow. For more than sixty years, it has been easy for Western liberals to believe that imperialism is an unnecessary evil. When the US conquers and militarily occupies a foreign country, liberals don’t call it imperialism. It’s merely “regime change,” “nation-building” and “promoting democracy.” Such Newspeak has been powerless to alter the outcome of America’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, wars which after successful regime decapitations followed by decades of occupation and trillions of dollars spent on rebuilding failed to establish anything resembling secure liberal democracies in either land.