Roger Kimball

I know that the world is focused on Iran but here’s what President Trump wrote on Truth Social Sunday about the so-called “SAVE Act” (Safeguard American Voter Eligibility): "It supersedes everything else. MUST GO TO THE FRONT OF THE LINE. I, as President, will not sign other Bills until this is passed, AND NOT THE WATERED DOWN VERSION – GO FOR THE GOLD: MUST SHOW VOTER I.D. & PROOF OF CITIZENSHIP: NO MAIL-IN BALLOTS EXCEPT FOR MILITARY – ILLNESS, DISABILITY, TRAVEL."The original bill, introduced by Senator Mike Lee way back in January 2025, has undergone a few enhancements at the hands of Senator Lee's colleagues, but the core desideratum is simple: that American elections must be secure, i.e., only those entitled to vote should be allowed to vote.

Remember the old quip about economists? “That’s all very in practice,” they say, “but how does it work out in theory?” Nobel laureate Paul Krugman of the New York Times is a splendid example of that sort of folly. On the evening of November 9, 2016, Krugman skirled that the election of Donald Trump would precipitate economic Armageddon. “If the question is when markets will recover,” he said, “a first-pass answer is never.” How could they recover since the nation had just elected an “irresponsible, ignorant man who takes his advice from all the wrong people,” that is to say, he didn’t take advice from people like Paul Krugman.Reality check: the day Krugman wrote that, the market closed at 18,589. In the last few days the Dow broke 50,000.

Where is it that the chickens go to roost? If you said “home,” you don’t quite get it. The correct answer is “Fulton County, Georgia.” At least, that’s where the chickens were congregating at the end of January when the FBI raided a Fulton County election office and made off with some 700 boxes of ballots and other election materials. Seven hundred, kemo sabe. According to the official search warrant, the G-Men were there to seize “all records relating to violations of Title 52, United States Code, 20701 and 20511.” It’s always scary when people start talking about “United States Code this and that” because at the end of the day you know that it’s all so much foreplay culminating in the word “felony.” In this case, the FBI was hoovering up: a.

To get a preliminary sense of how deep and how entrenched the deep state is, consider the State of Virginia. Glenn Youngkin, a Republican, did not control either house of the state legislature. Nevertheless, he managed to get immense reforms accomplished in his four years as governor. But the Dems didn’t mind, not really. Why? Because they knew they could instantly roll back Youngkin’s initiatives as soon as they retook the governorship. That just happened. And it took Abigail Spanberger, the new Governor, about 15 minutes to return Virginia to la-la land. She had campaigned on “affordability” but rejoined the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a climate-change scam that will raise everyone’s utility bills. She introduced a 3.

One of the things I admire about Zohran Mamdani is his candor. You know where you stand with him. Mamdani, who was sworn in a few days ago by Senator Bernie Sanders as New York’s first Muslim mayor and also its first avowedly socialist mayor, makes no bones about his ambitions. He was elected as a “democratic socialist,” he said, and he intends to govern as one. “We will,” he said in the most commented upon phrase from his inauguration speech, “replace the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism.” “The warmth of collectivism.” If you are not a political simpleton or a conniving totalitarian (or, as often happens, both), that phrase should send a shiver down your spine.

I suspect that Somalis around the country – especially, but not exclusively, in Minneapolis – wish about now that they had spent more time studying the wit and wisdom of Gertrude Stein.  Stein, had she lived in our own day, might well have become commissioner of New York City’s Fire Department. She had the one qualification that Zohran Mamdani seems to deem essential to the post.  Sadly, that was not to be. But there is no denying that, on certain matters, Stein was a font of practical wisdom that remains as pertinent today as it was when she was pontificating in Paris a century ago. It is important, Stein warned those aspiring to be part of the avant garde, “to know how far to go when going too far.” This is true of all the arts.