Columns, pieces and posts
Socialism is not a passing thing but an arriving thing. It must be taken seriously as a factor in our politics and the Democratic Party. A CNN/SSRS poll issued this week reported 34% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning adults identify as “democratic socialists.” That number won’t be depressed by the success of Abdul El-Sayed, who won […]
It wasn’t good for Anthony Fauci or anybody else that he took the Fifth at his Senate hearing this week. That plus his diary may well have been a reputation-destroying event. It was obviously his right as a citizen to invoke the protections of the Constitution, and he surely had his reasons, but everyone who […]
This last in a series on July Fourth themes is about a small sweetness that was gratefully received. As we near our 250th birthday, let us never forget the gift of the Scottish national soccer team and its followers, the famous Tartan Army—the pleasure and delight they gave as they marched through America, drank our […]
As we near America’s 250th birthday, my thoughts keep turning to what we’ll need to get to our 300th. I see three main things. One, a personal and national commitment to endure. We’ve been given this brilliant thing, America, and must shepherd her safely through another 50 years. We can’t know what they’ll hold, but […]
We’ve recently been touching on themes connected to personal biography and the observations of Russian diplomats. This week we go full “hoke,” in a piece about a little bit of hokiness that, 50 years ago, America saw right through and embraced to its deepest heart. A prelude: We need more love in things. The 250th […]
For a long time I have been interested in the stories of those who operated in the top tier of history but weren’t themselves rulers. Many were diplomats whose careers, for all their brilliant efforts, ended in disappointment. One was Sergei Witte, the long-serving finance minister who spent six months as the first prime minister […]
When Conan O’Brien walks into a room people immediately get a merry look, and when he spoke at a university commencement this week it was good to see an air of expectation ripple through the crowd. The flame-haired entertainment icon didn’t disappoint. His message: Be modest. You’ll make mistakes. Don’t be afraid to try. Be […]
I want to mention America’s wide-openness. I don’t mean our traditional openness to foreign-born citizens, which is its own triumph, but our wide-openness to ourselves. It is unique to us, a tradition and a thing of lore. The thought is prompted by the death this week of the movie critic Rex Reed, 87, who was […]
All media this week rang with Ted Turner’s achievements, and if you lived through his rise, the sound of his name brought a wistful smile. What a crazy, fabulous American man. He bought MGM’s library of films and invented Turner Classic Movies to play them; he bought the Atlanta Braves, put them on his superstation […]
I don’t think we fully appreciate how much the country is descending into political violence. We aren’t seeing the speed and pitch of the descent. It is an amazing and little-noted fact that at least four cabinet secretaries in the second Trump administration, including the heads of the State and Defense departments, have reportedly had […]