Roger Kimball

What’s the one thing that every pundit and certified member of the Fourth Estate knows? Why, it’s that MAGA is finished.  How many stories have we been treated to about “the fracturing of MAGA?” NPR knows it, Politico intuited it, Salon bet on it and the New Republic salivated over it. “Trump’s MAGA Base Splits Dramatically,” that anti-Trump orifice recently crowed, “New Poll Shows Donald Trump’s support continues to drop.” Then of course there is the New York Times, which has predicted and rejoiced in the death of MAGA again and again. That is – that was – the narrative. What is the reality? Yesterday’s primaries tell a very different, in fact a contradictory story.

This column is about the relation between rhetoric and reality, with special reference to political violence and security. Everyone reading this knows that the White House Correspondents’ Dinner was rudely interrupted by a crazed gunman. The marksman in question was Cole Tomas Allen, a 31-year-old Cal Tech grad from Torrance, California. I say that he was “crazed” because, shirtless but armed with a shotgun, a handgun, and knives, he charged the entrance to the ballroom of the Hilton Hotel in Washington, DC. Inside were some 2,600 people, including President Donald Trump, Vice President J.D. Vance and several cabinet members. Outside were who-knows-how-many armed Secret Service agents and local police officers. Not great odds for Allen.

Donald and Melania Trump entered the hall at 8:16 to cheers and applause. “Hail to the Chief” was followed by presentation of the colors and the National Anthem.  We had a brief introduction from Weijia Jiang, this year’s president of the White House Correspondents Association, followed by dinner. Two questions hovered in the background. One, how would President Trump treat the press? And two, would he, as had many presidents in the past at this event, treat the audience to a little self-deprecating humor? “Donald Trump” and  “self-deprecation” are not words you often hear together, but who knows?  The President is also a master communicator who reads his audience well.   We never found out.

“Negotiations.” Are you heartened or dismayed by that word? Those who remember or who have read up on the seemingly interminable Paris Peace Talks designed to bring an end to the Vietnam War have reason to be dubious. A negotiation, if it is to be successful, requires that both sides be candid and in earnest. The Vietnamese were not candid participants. They stalled. They prevaricated. They acted out. It seems that the Iranians are hoping to reprise that melodrama. They will be profoundly disappointed. On the second weekend in April, Vice President J.D. Vance, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner met some 70 Iranian representatives in Islamabad to hammer out a peace deal.

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.