Political observers are understandably focused on November 6, 2018—Election Day. What happens then will be important for the next couple of years: a Democratic wave, carrying that party to control of the House for the first time since 2010, and perhaps even to a majority in the Senate? A strong…
With our politics in 2018 transformed into a cartoonish version of Caesarism, one wonders: Could this experience lead to a revival of a healthy and robust republicanism in America? Given certain aspects of the Obama presidency as well, we're now closing in on a decade of vaguely authoritarian,…
The other day I signed an online petition sponsored by Republicans for the Rule of Law. It’s addressed to Donald Trump: “Mr. President: Firing Robert Mueller would gravely damage the Presidency, the GOP and the country. Please don’t do it.” Since this is an effort to rally Republicans behind…
Speaking at a Republican fundraiser Wednesday in Missouri, President Donald Trump criticized Japan for unfair trade practices, and offered this example:
Next year will be the centenary of one of the most famous poems of the 20th century, W. B. Yeats’s “The Second Coming.” I presume there’ll be suitable acknowledgment of this in literary circles, and even an occasional nod from those of us who labor in less rarefied intellectual climes. But if…
In a short, powerful piece in National Review, Rick Brookhiser concludes that "the conservative movement is no more. Its destroyers are Donald Trump and his admirers."
It is a conceit of the Trump administration that its foreign policy is entirely different from that of Barack Obama. Even in an otherwise conciliatory State of the Union address, Trump strove to set himself apart from Obama, touting his own policy of “maximum pressure” on North Korea as an example…
Back when Donald Trump was merely a small dark cloud on the horizon of American politics, many of us were already worried about the state of American conservatism. Five years ago, I suggested in these pages that Eric Hoffer’s famous observation of decades ago applied to the conservative movement.…
Immigration policy is a complicated issue. Or perhaps one should say immigration policies are complicated, since we have many different immigration laws and practices which interact in complex ways. I'm no expert on those policies, and in fact have adjusted my thinking about elements of them over…
Federalist 68, by Alexander Hamilton, is not much read today. It consists of a defense of the original Electoral College in which the electors, chosen by the people, would assemble in each state and deliberate on their choice for president. This version of the Electoral College never really took…
Federalist 68, by Alexander Hamilton, is not much read today. It consists of a defense of the original Electoral College in which the electors, chosen by the people, would assemble in each state and deliberate on their choice for president. This version of the Electoral College never really took…
On Wednesday, January 3, Donald Trump tweeted:
Let's not kid ourselves: It’s a weird time in our nation’s capital.
You think you're getting my 2018 predictions? Dream on. I've been wrong enough the last couple of years, no way I'm sticking my neck out again. I'm upgrading. I'm asking instead for your predictions. So, dear reader, here are ten questions with multiple-choice answers provided. At the end of the…
For better or worse (mostly worse), Donald Trump was 2016’s person of the year. For better or worse (almost entirely for the better), 2017’s person of the year has to be Publius.
For better and worse (mostly worse), Donald Trump was undoubtedly 2016’s person of the year. For better or worse (almost entirely for the better), 2017’s person of the year has to be Publius.
"The great question that has never been answered, and which I have not yet been able to answer, despite my thirty years of research into the feminine soul, is ‘What does a woman want?’ ” This was Sigmund Freud’s famous lament to Marie Bonaparte almost a century ago. It’s not clear that decades’…
If cleverness has often been a sign of decadence throughout history, the attempt to be too clever by half is an even more reliable marker of cultural decline. And a fondness for complicated rationalization, a proclivity for sophisticated excuse-making, and a tendency toward rushed and forced…
I remember as a kid hearing John, Robert, and Teddy Kennedy all using in speeches various paraphrases of these lines from a play by George Bernard Shaw: “You see things; and you say ‘Why?’ But I dream things that never were; and I say ‘Why not?’ ”
On October 3, Vice President Mike Pence’s chief of staff, Nick Ayers, spoke to a group of Republican donors at the St. Regis Hotel in Washington. Unbeknownst to Ayers, his remarks were recorded, and the audio was subsequently obtained by Politico.
On October 3, Vice President Mike Pence’s chief of staff, Nick Ayers, spoke to a group of Republican donors at the St. Regis Hotel in Washington. Unbeknownst to Ayers, his remarks were recorded, and the audio was subsequently obtained by Politico.
To many of those commenting on Donald Trump’s maiden address to the United Nations, especially if otherwise disturbed by the president’s character, his emphasis on state sovereignty was a welcome dose of diplomatic normalcy. For example, David Ignatius of the Washington Post found this theme…
To many of those commenting on Donald Trump’s maiden address to the United Nations, especially if otherwise disturbed by the president’s character, his emphasis on state sovereignty was a welcome dose of diplomatic normalcy. For example, David Ignatius of the Washington Post found this theme…
We're back from a memorable TWS cruise. Not memorable just—or even mainly!—because the first night at sea was the roughest we've encountered in any of our 15 cruises. In fact, we've dispatched that experience down the memory hole of historical events that need not be recalled or spoken of again. We…
It would be nice, in a way, to be a progressive. You’d be confident you know the direction History is moving. And you’d have faith that the direction in which History is moving is the direction in which History should be moving.
It would be nice, in a way, to be a progressive. You’d be confident you know the direction History is moving. And you’d have faith that the direction in which History is moving is the direction in which History should be moving.
What a week! Newly minted White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci goes nuts; White House chief of staff Reince Priebus gets fired and is replaced by retired Marine general John Kelly; General Kelly fires Scaramucci; Kelly then reassures Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who had…
What a week! Newly minted White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci goes nuts; White House chief of staff Reince Priebus gets fired and is replaced by retired Marine general John Kelly; General Kelly fires Scaramucci; Kelly then reassures Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who had…
What a week! Newly minted White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci goes nuts; White House chief of staff Reince Priebus gets fired and is replaced by retired Marine general John Kelly; General Kelly fires Scaramucci; Kelly then reassures Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who had…
What is one to think as one watches the clown show in the White House, the train wreck in Congress, and the multi-vehicle accident that is conservatism today? We’re inclined (as we so often are) simply to quote Winston Churchill, in this case speaking in 1931 about Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald:
What is one to think as one watches the clown show in the White House, the train wreck in Congress, and the multi-vehicle accident that is conservatism today? We’re inclined (as we so often are) simply to quote Winston Churchill, in this case speaking in 1931 about Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald:
On Friday, July 17, 2015, Donald Trump called me at the offices of THE WEEKLY STANDARD. He wanted to tell me that even though I’d been critical of him, and indeed though I had said I couldn’t imagine supporting him for president, he thought I’d been fairer and more open-minded about him than some…
On Friday, July 17, 2015, Donald Trump called me at the offices of THE WEEKLY STANDARD. He wanted to tell me that even though I’d been critical of him, and indeed though I had said I couldn’t imagine supporting him for president, he thought I’d been fairer and more open-minded about him than some…
As we go to press, Donald Trump is visiting Paris. His visit can’t help but remind us of a famous trip to Paris by an American over three-quarters of a century ago. That American businessman, Rick Blaine, had little in common with Donald Trump—except perhaps a propensity to brand businesses with…
As we go to press, Donald Trump is visiting Paris. His visit can’t help but remind us of a famous trip to Paris by an American over three-quarters of a century ago. That American businessman, Rick Blaine, had little in common with Donald Trump—except perhaps a propensity to brand businesses with…
It did not take the attack on Charlie Hebdo to reveal that the Islamic world has a terrible problem. For quite some time, that’s been clearer than day. This is not an assertion made from outside Islam or against Islam. On New Year’s Day, the president of Egypt, in a major speech, called for a…
Many Trump critics relished a recent Quinnipiac poll showing that President Trump's job approval had fallen to a new low, at a net -23 percent (34 percent approve, 57 percent disapprove).
Many Trump critics relished a recent Quinnipiac poll showing that President Trump's job approval had fallen to a new low, at a net -23 percent (34 percent approve, 57 percent disapprove).
Occasionally you take a moment to look up from the day-to-day or hour-to-hour or tweet-to-tweet turmoil of the Trump presidency. You want a reprieve from the constant and enervating melodrama of the Trump era. You try to take a longer view.
In a cover story in this magazine almost a decade ago, the late Dean Barnett hailed "the 9/11 generation" and held out the hope—nay, the expectation—that they would contribute more to the nation than their parents, the baby boomers:
In a cover story in this magazine almost a decade ago, the late Dean Barnett hailed "the 9/11 generation" and held out the hope—nay, the expectation—that they would contribute more to the nation than their parents, the baby boomers:
The fish, as they say, rots from the head first. And Donald J. Trump is the head of the executive branch. It's not that the U.S. government isn't beset by innumerable problems and systemic dysfunction. But in the here and now, Donald Trump is the problem. The president is the dysfunction.
The fish, as they say, rots from the head first. And Donald J. Trump is the head of the executive branch. It's not that the U.S. government isn't beset by innumerable problems and systemic dysfunction. But in the here and now, Donald Trump is the problem. The president is the dysfunction.
Donald Trump is an embarrassment. It would be better for the country if he were president for at most one term. It would be desirable that his manner of governing go down in history as an aberration; that his form of conservatism be judged a detour from the broad path of a mostly praiseworthy…
"It is safer to try to understand the low in the light of the high than the high in the light of the low. In doing the latter one necessarily distorts the high, whereas in doing the former one does not deprive the low of the freedom to reveal itself as fully as what it is." —Leo Strauss
"It is safer to try to understand the low in the light of the high than the high in the light of the low. In doing the latter one necessarily distorts the high, whereas in doing the former one does not deprive the low of the freedom to reveal itself as fully as what it is." —Leo Strauss
I highly recommend the lovely tributes to Kate O'Beirne, who died Sunday after a very private battle with cancer, from her colleagues at National Review, Ramesh Ponnuru and Jonah Goldberg.
As we approach the 100-day mark of the Donald Trump presidency, it is instructive to recall the almost 100 months during which Barack Obama discharged the responsibilities of that high office. While there are reasons to be concerned about President Trump (and reasons to be encouraged, such as the…
The year's at the spring, And day's at the morn; Morning's at seven; The hillside's dew-pearled; The lark's on the wing; The snail's on the thorn: God's in His heaven— All's right with the world! —"Pippa's Song," Robert Browning, 1841 As momentous events like the NCAA basketball finals and Major…
"Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid.” So Abraham Lincoln wrote on August 24, 1855, to his friend Joshua Speed. Is it melodramatic to worry that the statement appears apt today?
Conservatives are generally interested in conserving. Defenders of liberal democracy are busy defending. Guardians of the postwar liberal world order spend their time guarding. As they all should.
ON THURSDAY EVENING, August 9, George W. Bush delivered the first prime-time special presidential address of the twenty-first century. No one would have predicted a few months ago—way back in the twentieth century—that a decision on federal funding of embryonic stem cell research would have been…
Who can forget watching in one’s youth the great sitcom Car 54, Where Are You? It aired for just two glorious seasons, from 1961 to 1963, on NBC on Sunday nights from 8:30 to 9:00 p.m. It was a memorable touch of wry reality, sandwiched between the fantasies of Walt Disney's Wonderful World of…
Near the end of World War I, there was an alleged (almost surely apocryphal) exchange of telegrams between German and Austrian officers whose units were fighting side by side, in difficult circumstances, against the Allies. The German cabled: “Our situation is serious, but not critical." The…
When your mind runs over the history of the Grand Old Party, you think of the presidents first. You think of Abraham Lincoln and are proud to be in some way associated with a political party whose first president was our greatest. You recall Ulysses S. Grant and Theodore Roosevelt and Calvin…
George Kennan concluded his famous 1947 article, “The Sources of Soviet Conduct," which laid the groundwork for the doctrine of containment at the beginning of the Cold War, with this peroration:
George Kennan concluded his famous 1947 article, “The Sources of Soviet Conduct," which laid the groundwork for the doctrine of containment at the beginning of the Cold War, with this peroration:
Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer isn’t a happy warrior. He loves the spotlight, but everyone's paying more attention to his colleagues Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders. He hoped to be majority leader, but Republicans surprised most observers by holding the Senate on Election Day. He…
The United States has had, prior to Donald Trump, 44 presidents. (Arguably we’ve had 43, but the guardians of historical pedantry long ago decreed that Grover Cleveland, who served nonconsecutive terms, would be counted as two.) There's no reason our descendants shouldn't enjoy at least another…
Eight years ago, reflecting on the inauguration of President Barack Obama, I wrote a piece that made two arguments, which may be worth briefly revisiting.
At a dinner Wednesday night in Washington, Donald Trump compared his victory—and his forthcoming presidency—to that of Andrew Jackson almost two centuries ago. "'There hasn't been anything like this since Andrew Jackson,' Mr. Trump quoted his admirers saying."
Just weeks after 9/11, Charles Krauthammer declared in these pages that our holiday from history—the 1990s—had come "to an abrupt end." And the United States did get back to work—briefly. But it turns out that President George W. Bush's exhortation in the aftermath of 9/11 that we should keep on…
The following is an excerpt from the Kristol Clear newsletter. Sign up for the weekly newsletter here.
The following is an excerpt from the Kristol Clear newsletter. Sign up for the weekly newsletter here.
Last week in this space we sketched the case for a party of liberty. We noted that “one lesson of 2016 is that it's time to worry about liberty again." We asked whether partisans of liberty might be able to come together—"more likely informally than formally"—in its defense. We claimed the answer…
The Foundation for Constitutional Government has released a new conversation with Harvey Mansfield, in which the Harvard professor discusses Donald Trump's election and, in a way, how political philosophy can inform our understanding of Trump and what Trump's victory reveals about American politics…
"At all times sincere friends of freedom have been rare, and its triumphs have been due to minorities, that have prevailed by associating themselves with auxiliaries whose objects often differed from their own; and this association, which is always dangerous, has sometimes been disastrous, by…
"At all times sincere friends of freedom have been rare, and its triumphs have been due to minorities, that have prevailed by associating themselves with auxiliaries whose objects often differed from their own; and this association, which is always dangerous, has sometimes been disastrous, by…
Dear colleagues, contributors, readers, and friends:
We shall not shock anyone, we shall merely expose ourselves to good-natured or at any rate harmless ridicule, if we acknowledge that we were startled, in our callow youth, by a suggestion from a professor. The comment came from Adam Ulam, the distinguished scholar of Soviet foreign policy. In…
We shall not shock anyone, we shall merely expose ourselves to good-natured or at any rate harmless ridicule, if we acknowledge that we were startled, in our callow youth, by a suggestion from a professor. The comment came from Adam Ulam, the distinguished scholar of Soviet foreign policy. In…
"I have no worries" about Donald Trump's presidency, the Dalai Lama said this week. Lacking the Dalai Lama's spiritual serenity and cosmic confidence, we do have some worries. But we also have some hopes.
"I have no worries” about Donald Trump's presidency, the Dalai Lama said this week. Lacking the Dalai Lama's spiritual serenity and cosmic confidence, we do have some worries. But we also have some hopes.
Who now gives much thought to the presidency of Warren G. Harding? Who ever did? Not us.
Who now gives much thought to the presidency of Warren G. Harding? Who ever did? Not us.
The late great Donald Westlake signed letters (and emails) “Onward." This wonderfully opaque valediction leaves altogether unclear the writer's own sentiments toward the addressee or the character of his relationship to the correspondent. What does "Onward" really mean? Presumably we all go onward…
Lots of interesting reflections today from email correspondents on the election, America in 2016 and life in general. Here's one, from a teacher:
If you'll permit me a personal note on Election Eve (and if you won't permit it, feel free to stop reading now!):
A savvy (if somewhat sadistic) friend writes:
A savvy friend, a lawyer with political and government experience, writes:
Patrick J. Buchanan, a fervent Donald Trump supporter, wrote recently and approvingly that Trump’s campaign embodies "the populist-nationalist right that is moving beyond the niceties of liberal democracy."
The two major party conventions, the three presidential debates, and various scandals large and small—all these features of the 2016 presidential general election have come and gone. Now the campaign draws to a close. And one outcome seems increasingly likely: Donald J. Trump will lose.
While serious foreign policy debate, like any kind of serious policy debate, has been virtually absent in this election, not talking about problems doesn't make them go away. In fact, the world has gotten much more dangerous under President Obama, and dealing with it will be a key challenge of the…
It's been a heck of postseason so far, with the highlight of course the Dodgers' Clayton Kershaw coming out of the bullpen on one day's rest after a 100-pitch-plus start to save the deciding game in the division playoff against the Washington Nationals. (Then, two days after that, Kershaw pitched…
So the November 24 deadline for reaching a comprehensive agreement with Iran over its nuclear program—itself an extension of an earlier deadline—has come and gone with a whimper, and with another extension. The frenetic, feverish, and foolish pursuit of a deal by the Obama administration, marked by…
The 2016 winner of the Nobel Prize for literature has posed the question for Republicans, whose party has nominated Donald J. Trump for president:
Feel free to forward the tweet storm reproduced below, by Twitter user @MBGlenn, to any Republican men you know who continue to support Donald Trump.
The emergence Friday of the disgusting Trump tape was a gift to the Republican party. It provided an occasion, at the very last minute, for the party to dump a fundamentally unworthy and radically unfit nominee. At the very least it provided an occasion for the party to separate itself radically…
"We have to think of the future and not of the past. This also applies in a small way to our own affairs at home. There are many who would hold an inquest in the House of Commons on the conduct of the Governments—and of Parliaments, for they are in it, too—during the years which led up to this…
Stephen Hayes analyzed the problem correctly back in a piece in late July headlined, "Donald Trump Is Crazy, and So Is the GOP for Embracing Him." And he also prescribed the solution (short of persuading or forcing Trump to relinquish the nomination, which should also be explored):
Vice presidential debates don’t matter. Lloyd Bentsen was widely thought to have clobbered Dan Quayle in 1988; the Bush-Quayle ticket won easily. Vice President Quayle did well against Al Gore in 1992; the Bush-Quayle ticket lost.
"No one has any other way left but—upward." (Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, address at Harvard, June 8, 1978) After this ghastly campaign, whose ghastliness reached new heights with the performance of the Republican nominee in the first presidential debate, conservatives will have no other way left…
At the beginning of the baseball season, we announced in the Kristol Clear newsletter a contest in which you had a chance to pick the teams that would make the World Series, and the winner. We've got the entries, are dutifully keeping track as promised, and the payoff will be YUUGE.
I recently received a long email from an old friend, someone whose judgment I very much respect, making the case for Trump. I can't say I'm convinced, but I thought his argument interesting and eloquent enough to ask him for permission to share it. Here are substantial excerpts from his missive.
"No one has any other way left but—upward." (Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, address at Harvard, June 8, 1978) After this ghastly campaign, whose ghastliness reached new heights with the performance of the Republican nominee in the first presidential debate, conservatives will have no other way left…
In the first segment of the debate, Hillary Clinton started out on the defensive on trade, while Donald Trump did a pretty good job of making his case against free trade deals, NAFTA and the like (unsupported by most of the facts though that case may be). Trump also was able to tie that case to an…
"You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump's supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right? The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic—you name it. And unfortunately there are people like that. And he has lifted them up. He has given voice…
One of many unfortunate effects of watching these two appalling candidates every day is that their awfulness can obscure the fact that our current president has done so much damage in his two terms in office. Digging out of that hole would be tough enough; digging out of a 12-year Obama-Clinton or…
"You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump's supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right? The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic—you name it. And unfortunately there are people like that. And he has lifted them up. He has given voice…
The New York Times editorial board took a break this past week from its usual practice of blaming Israel for being the cause of assaults against her. On Wednesday, after the terror attack on Jews praying in a synagogue in Jerusalem, the Times editors ruminated:
"We have to get back to the place we were, where terrorists are not the focus of our lives, but they're a nuisance." —John Kerry, New York Times Magazine, October 10, 2004 "What American would not trade the economy we had in the 1990s, the fact that we were not at war and young Americans were not…
“I can hear you. The rest of the world hears you. And the people—and the people who knocked these buildings down—will hear all of us soon."
It's been two weeks since I wrote in the Kristol Clear newsletter:
I'm back from a day and a half at the American Political Science Association's annual meeting in Philadelphia, and here are the highlights: breakfast with an old friend at the Down Home Diner in Reading Terminal Market; dinner with several political scientists/TWS contributors at the 117-year old…
I was exchanging emails the other day with a comrade-in-arms, and, the discussion of the matter at hand having been completed, she commented: "Thanks. We are all caught in the seventh circle of hell. I walk to the edge of my cliff here every morning and scream out over the river. The neighbors…
In the past week, Donald Trump has pivoted, as they say, to try to appeal to African-American voters. He’s convinced he can win them over. Indeed, he claims his policies as president will be so transformative that, "At the end of four years, I guarantee you that I will get over 95 percent of the…
In his most recent newsletter, Jonah Goldberg has a very interesting discussion of "corruption" and the ways in which we're confused about the meaning of that term. (By the way, Jonah's newsletter, "G-File," is spectacularly good. He's a born newsletterist (is that a word?). And you should…
Susan was out of town this weekend, so I did what everyone does when his wife's away—scheduled dinners with friends Friday and Saturday nights, and got lunch Saturday at our local Chinese restaurant. And I was glad I did, because here's the fortune that came in my (complimentary!) fortune cookie…
I received an email this morning from Michael Lieber, the former GOP city captain for Bay Village, Ohio, who resigned that post last month to protest Donald Trump's nomination as the presidential candidate for the Republican party. Because Lieber says concisely and eloquently what so many others…
A correspondent calls to my attention a remarkable op-ed in the Plain Dealer in Cleveland by Phil Van Treuren, a Republican member of the Amherst City Council in Lorain County, Ohio.
Conservatives, temperamentally respectful of the past, uncertain about the present, and doubtful of the future, are often inclined to embrace the notion that their age is one of decadence. We at The Weekly Standard have tended to resist this temptation. While we might admire works like Jacques…
‘GOP at 'new level of panic' over Trump," ran the banner Washington Post headline on August 4. Just two weeks earlier Donald Trump had accepted his party's presidential nomination, marking the occasion with an effective if not elegant speech. A few days later, polls showed Trump opening up a slight…
"GOP at 'new level of panic' over Trump," ran the banner Washington Post headline on August 4. Just two weeks earlier Donald Trump had accepted his party's presidential nomination, marking the occasion with an effective if not elegant speech. A few days later, polls showed Trump opening up a slight…
My editorial in the latest WEEKLY STANDARD has generated several kind and thoughtful responses. Here's one that I think deserves wider readership (and which I reproduce here with the writer's permission):
Editor's Note: Below is an excerpt from the boss's weekly newsletter. You can sign up for free here.
Saturday's must-read: Harvey Mansfield in the Wall Street Journal, "Why Donald Trump is No Gentleman."
Depressed? We feel your pain. It’s not great to be living through the worst presidential matchup ever. And it's not a cheerful thought that one of these two horrendous candidates is very likely to be our next president.
Philadelphia
Donald J. Trump is the presidential nominee of the Republican party. But that does not absolve every Republican office holder, donor, and activist from the responsibility of satisfying himself that it is right to support that nominee for president. There are, in my judgment, many reasons to doubt…
‘A vote for anyone other than Donald Trump in November is a vote for Hillary," the governor of Wisconsin has spent the week of the Republican convention robotically repeating. "It's a binary choice," the speaker of the House keeps on telling us, in his less colloquial, more game-theoretical…
Cleveland
Cleveland
Hillary Clinton may or may not be the all-around worst presidential nominee in the history of the Democratic party. That party has, over the years, thrown up some pretty unappealing characters. It’s also nominated candidates whose policies did (James Buchanan, Jimmy Carter) or would have done…
A savvy and patriotic friend writes:
Any serious student of the theory and history of the Republican National Convention knows the delegates to that convention are unbound and free to exercise their judgment. If this were not the case, why did the Gerald Ford forces think it necessary in 1976 to move to explicitly bind the delegates…
Exactly twelve score years ago, “our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal." More precisely: On July 2, 1776, the members of the Continental Congress agreed to declare independence. On July 4,…
I was chatting the other day with a politically savvy and experienced friend. While neither of us is pro-Trump, we agreed that, analytically, Trump's chances are being underrated, and that while one would still have consider Trump an underdog to Clinton, it's not out of the question that he could…
This election cycle hasn't been kind to Republican big shots. Their favorite presidential candidates—Jeb Bush, Scott Walker and Marco Rubio—fell short. Their opposition to Donald Trump was ineffectual, and their subsequent submission to him inglorious.
As we approach July 4, 2016, the 240th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, it is proper to recall what the philosopher Leo Strauss, in his introduction to Natural Right and History, called the “weight and elevation" of our founding principles. But fine principles are one thing. One must…
In an interview with Chuck Todd that will air on Meet the Press Sunday, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan says this:
“Trust me, he's only hanging on by a thread."
President Bush’s speech before Congress Thursday night conveyed both the determination and the reassurance the American people needed. But what gave the president’s address historic significance was the courageous and visionary mission he set for his administration and for the nation. For Bush…
Almost a half-century ago, the great Donald Westlake published a comic mystery novel, God Save the Mark. It’s probably not one of Westlake's very best efforts (though even a Westlake non-best-effort is awfully good). The "mark" of the title is a reasonably intelligent and likable young man who…
People keep saying how unusual this year’s presidential race is. They're wrong. It's an absolutely normal Third World election.
In an interview with the Wall Street Journal last week, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan argued that young Americans in particular should appreciate the power of choice:
This careful and first-rate national poll, done by Joel Searby of Data Targeting, has just been released. Searby's summary memo and the actual survey results are posted on Data Targeting's website; I encourage you to take a look at them yourself.
"Sometimes party loyalty asks too much." —John F. Kennedy, 1960 I have always voted for the Republican presidential candidate. From Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford to Ronald Reagan (twice) and George H. W. Bush (twice) and Bob Dole, from George W. Bush (twice) to John McCain and Mitt Romney—I've…
Donald Trump awakened this morning to a Wall Street Journal editorial, "The Third-Party Temptation," warning against the search for an independent candidate who "would give conservatives an honorable alternative to Trump-Hillary." The Journal in effect called on all concerned to (grudgingly) accept…
On Tuesday, April 26, Donald Trump won impressive primary victories in five states, victories that would seem to make it difficult (though not yet impossible) to deny him the Republican nomination. On Wednesday, in Washington, D.C., Trump read from a teleprompter a foreign policy speech designed to…
Here is the bulk of an April 24 memorandum from Rich Danker, a bright young conservative operative who ran the Lone Star Committee, an independent expenditure effort on behalf of Ted Cruz. Danker's insights go beyond his analysis of the 2016 Republican race, and are a helpful guide to any…
On April 19, 1775, first at sunrise in Lexington and then at midmorning a few miles away at the North Bridge in Concord, the war for American independence began:
Ted Cruz, we are told, has a fondness for American popular music. We therefore trust he knows by heart and can belt out on demand Frank Sinatra’s "New York, New York."
If you’re a conservative, you admire Edmund Burke—and you may recall this passage—a bit hyperbolic perhaps, but stirring and powerful:
There would seem to be three possible outcomes for the Republican nominating process. Each has (more or less) a historical precedent.
In honor of Opening Day, I had a short discussion of baseball in yesterday's weekly newsletter (yes, you can get it--it's easy, just sign up here. And yes, it's free!) But I'll admit last night's Villanova-North Carolina game could call into question my endorsement of the superiority of baseball.…
John Feehery is a Washington lobbyist and former spokesman for the disgraced ex-speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert. Last week, Feehery explained to the Atlantic’s Molly Ball why he's reconciled to accepting Donald Trump as the nominee of his party:
Last night's events in Chicago brought to mind the great 1838 address before the Young Men's Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois, by the 29-year-old Abraham Lincoln, on "The Perpetuation of Our Political Institutions." Here are a few excerpts. Read the whole thing:
Two months ago, in an editorial whose headline expressed both a hope and an imperative—"Neither Trump Nor Hillary"—we concluded, "Can the Republican party be saved from Donald Trump and the country from Hillary Clinton? The possibility of defeat is obvious and of failure is close."
Soothsayer: Beware the ides of March. Caesar: He is a dreamer; let us leave him: pass. Donald Trump is no Julius Caesar. At best he's kind of a comic-book version of a Caesarist-wannabe. Had he been born two millennia ago as Donaldus Trumpum, he would have dodged the Gallic Wars, hired a…
Over the next two weeks, the non-Donald Trump candidates (except for Ben Carson) will stay in the race. That's fine. And the good news (if you're in the anti-Trump camp) is that all they have to do is pursue their enlightened self-interest, and that their interests pretty much coincide.
I've received lots of emails over the last few days from acquaintances and correspondents writing in the hope that I convey their strong feelings about a possible Trump nomination to those with the resources or political clout to do something about it. I thought a few representative ones might be…
‘You inspire us all." With that fulsome greeting, Pat Robertson welcomed Donald Trump this week to the stage of Regent University. According to the school's catalogue, the university's name invokes the fact that "a regent is one who represents Christ, our Sovereign, in whatever sphere of life he or…
We seem to be particularly susceptible to fatalism. Modern doctrines of science and history incline us philosophically in that direction. The experience of mass movements and mass effects seems to suggest individuals can do little to affect the course of events. When we do indulge our hopes and…
There seem to me to be two dominant scenarios for what happens next in the Republican presidential race. For now I'll just sketch them out, in the interest of stimulating thought and commentary rather than asserting a conclusion.
Michael Gove, Secretary of State for Justice and probably the most impressive member of the British Parliament, has issued a statement on the European Union referendum. Here are the highlights:
"It is safer to try to understand the low in the light of the high than the high in the light of the low. In doing the latter one necessarily distorts the high, whereas in doing the former one does not deprive the low of the freedom to reveal itself fully as what it is."
Donald Trump, the leading candidate for the Republican nomination for president, claims in Saturday night's debate that the most recent Republican president, George W. Bush, knowingly and purposefully lied us into war in Iraq.
It was a wild and woolly debate, with lots of arguments worth commenting on and exchanges worth evaluating. But as is sometimes the case in these debates, only one statement really mattered.
When I was first saw the San Antonio newspaper was reporting Nino Scalia's death, I fervently hoped it wasn't true. But then there were other reports, and emails from friends, and hope was replaced by shock, and by grief.
I thought readers might be interested in this email I received today from a thoughtful Trump supporter ("for now"):
We seem to be at a point in the election season where, to quote George Orwell, “restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men." So to restate the obvious: Choosing Donald Trump as the Republican party's nominee would be a mistake. He lacks the character to be a trustworthy…
I've just heard from a political operative whom I've known a long time and whose integrity I trust. This person is working with an organization—not one of the campaigns—that was in the field (using a very reputable pollster) Wednesday night in South Carolina.
It’s been one scary horror movie. But now, at last, the happy ending. The slasher is dead. The aliens have been defeated. The flesh-eating zombies have been disposed of once and for all. The vampires will never suck blood again. You exhale. You relax. You heave a sigh of relief.
Watching the Republican debate tonight, I couldn't help but think,
The Weekly Standard looks forward to the 58th swearing-in of a president of the United States on January 20, 2017. The oath-taking is the heart of the occasion. It’s what makes the winner of the presidential election legally and constitutionally able to execute the office of the president. All the…
I'm passing on this amusing and thought-provoking email from a political junkie friend.
Depicted by masters of American literature from Herman Melville to Mark Twain to Donald Westlake, cropping up in real life in each epoch of our great hustling and bustling and grasping commercial republic, the confidence man is a primordial American type. Many accounts treat him with some…
One thought on last night's Democratic debate. It seems clear Hillary Clinton has decided to wrap herself in the mantle of President Obama, and in effect run for Obama's third term.
A confession: I didn't wake up at 4:00 am here in Israel in order to watch last night's Republican presidential debate. A further confession: I can't say I regret that decision. But it does mean my judgment of the debate, which follows, is based on reading the transcript rather than watching and…
Jerusalem
I'm in Israel, where I've been leading a full-day seminar on American conservatism for twenty or so very bright young Israelis. So I've been spared (thankfully) the annoyance of watching Obama's State of the Union, and also haven't been able to follow the Iranian seizing of our sailors as closely…
Writing in mid-June, a couple of days after Donald Trump announced his candidacy, we offered the judgment that he should not be our next president: “We're not Trump enthusiasts. We're not even Trump fellow travelers. We're closer to Trump deriders."
Well, we’ve endured 2015, the next to last year of the Obama administration. It's not been without damage to the country—both to its constitutional fabric and its standing in the world. But endured we have. One more year to go.
On January 15, 1787, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart wrote proudly from Prague to his friend Baron Gottfried von Jacquin: "Here nothing is talked about except Figaro; nothing is played, blown, sung, and whistled except Figaro; no opera draws the crowds like Figaro. It's always Figaro. Certainly it's a…
You're worried. Okay, you're alarmed. Actually, you're panicked. Donald Trump will be the nominee and destroy the party. It's embarrassing for the GOP that Ben Carson has so much support. Marco Rubio will be judged by voters too young and inexperienced for the Oval Office. Ted Cruz would be a…
It would be an interesting exercise to trace the history of the word sanctimony. In its original derivation from the Latin sanctimonia, it seems to have had the straightforward sense of sanctity or sacredness. But centuries ago, it took on its current meaning—of pretended or affected or…
How unusual is this year's GOP presidential race?
“To give oneself the law is the highest freedom. The much-lauded ‘academic freedom’ will be expelled from the German university; for this freedom was not genuine because it was only negative. It primarily meant lack of concern, arbitrariness of intentions and inclinations, lack of restraint in what…
“It would send a demoralizing and dangerous message to the world that the United States makes judgments about people based on the country they come from and their religion.” Have these groups ever heard of the struggle for Soviet Jewry? Was it wrong to single out that group in legislation? If not,…
Walter Russell Mead has a terrific piece in the American Interest on "President Obama's Cynical Refugee Ploy."
Bernard-Henri Lévy has written an intelligent and forceful, if somewhat grandiloquent, piece on Paris and its implications. Highlights:
Generally speaking, The Weekly Standard is from the Edith Piaf school of second thoughts. We don’t have many. And when we do, we keep quiet about them. As the great chanteuse put it: Non, je ne regrette rien.
During the Democratic debate Saturday night, Hillary Clinton said that ISIS "cannot be contained, it must be defeated." She also said, not once but twice, that this "cannot be an American fight" (while adding, "although American leadership is essential").
Here's the most compelling and powerful reaction I've read so far to the attacks in Paris, by Mark Steyn, "The Barbarians Are Inside, And There Are No Gates."
A thought-provoking email in response to my editorial, "The Self-Destruction of the American University:"
In January 2011, we at TWS had the notion that it would be good to defeat President Obama in 2012. And so in a blog post we asked the sensible question: " Wouldn't it be easier just to agree now on a Ryan-Rubio ticket, and save everyone an awful lot of time, effort, and money over the next year and…
‘Republicans in Turmoil!” “Chaos Confounds GOP Congressmen!!” “Catastrophic Conservative Crack-Up Imminent!!!” “Trump Likely GOP Nominee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
Interesting political debates typically have what could be called primary effects. In Wednesday night's case, those would include the Bush-Rubio exchange, which did a lot of good for Rubio and a lot of damage to Bush, and the Cruz assault on the moderators, which was dazzling.
Anderson Cooper’s final question in the Democratic presidential debate on October 13 led to an interesting and revealing moment. He asked:
Time flies when you’re having fun. It’s been two months since the first Republican presidential debate. How do things now stand for the party upon whose success next year rest all of our hopes for constitutional government at home and a manageable world abroad?
Let me risk ridicule by mentioning the ruthless Vladimir Putin and the clueless Joe Biden in the same sentence: The emergence of Putin abroad and Biden at home could reshape the 2016 Republican presidential race.
How big a problem is it that the two leading Republican candidates for president aren’t actually qualified to be president?
How big a problem is it that the two leading Republican candidates for president aren’t actually qualified to be president?
On Monday, Wisconsin governor Scott Walker, the Republican presidential front-runner on April Fools' Day, quit the contest. There had been no scandal which disgraced him, no momentous mistake which undermined him. It was simply that he once had support from Republican primary voters; he no longer…
Here are the judgments of several senators on the Obama administration’s Iran deal:
All of us at THE WEEKLY STANDARD are shocked and deeply saddened by the terrible news of the death in a cycling accident of our friend Jake Brewer, at age 34. Jake, the husband of contributing editor Mary Katharine Ham, was not only a person of great achievement and remarkable promise, but a…
The American people believe the country is heading in the wrong direction. When pollsters ask whether the country is on the right or the wrong track, wrong track prevails by better than two to one. And the American people are right. We are going the wrong way: The economy isn’t strong, the…
THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with editor William Kristol on the Iran deal, and his recent piece The Supporting Actors.
The results of the latest straw poll of WEEKLY STANDARD readers are in. It's not a scientific poll, of course—but since the respondents are very perceptive WEEKLY STANDARD readers, I'm going to claim (why not?) that the results are a suggestive leading indicator of where the GOP race may be going.
The results of the latest straw poll of WEEKLY STANDARD readers are in. It's not a scientific poll, of course--but since the respondents are very perceptive WEEKLY STANDARD readers, I'm going to claim (why not?) that the results are a suggestive leading indicator of where the GOP race may be going.
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