Before the November 3 election, a foundational principle of the American republic—checks and balances—was on life support. The same inaccurate pollsters who predicted a blowout win for Biden also predicted the Democrats would take control of the Senate. With one-party Democratic control, America as we know it would disappear. The results of the election didn’t match...
The growing evidence of massive fraud in the 2020 elections should distress and sicken all voters, Democrats and Republicans alike. Kill voters’ trust in the election process, and you’re putting a knife into the heart of our republic. This whole year has shown that America’s elite maintain a culture that blithely ignores the concerns of...
For Republicans, the returns were mixed on Nov. 3. Though he carried burdens unrivaled by a president since Herbert Hoover—a plague that has killed 230,000 Americans in eight months and crashed the economy to depths not seen since the ’30s—Donald J. Trump amassed 72 million votes, the largest total in Republican Party history. And while...
Many years ago, my family was partway through dinner on a Monday night when there was a knock at the door. Answering it, my father found—to his great surprise—one of the gubernatorial candidates for our state. This candidate was locked in a close primary battle, and, discovering he had some extra time between meetings, decided...
Despite Pat Buchanan’s record as a Trump-supporter sans pareil, his most recent column, on why Trump’s challenges to the Biden victory are both futile and possibly harmful, is profoundly unsettling. It is also based on questionable assumptions. “It seems a certainty that not enough electoral votes could be flipped from Biden to Trump to overturn’s Joe Biden’s...
Washington Post columnist Paul Waldman somehow contorted the mixed, and yet unresolved, 2020 election results to simultaneously claim that mandates do not really exist, but that Joe Biden nonetheless has one. It is important to refute this spurious claim because Biden and Kamala Harris will use any excuse they can to push a laundry list of progressive legislation...
At 11:00 on the morning of November 11, 1918, the Great War, which some at the time innocently called “The War to End All Wars,” came to an end. The guns fell silent, the murderous slaughter of soldiers and civilians ceased, and the survivors in the trenches and on the battlefields realized they would live...
We, the 71 million Americans who voted to reelect Donald J. Trump, do not forgive. We, the 71 million Americans who voted to reelect Donald J. Trump, do not forget. We, the 71 million Americans who voted to reelect Donald J. Trump, do not surrender. We, the 71 million Americans who voted...
“In victory, magnanimity… in defeat, defiance.” That counsel about human conflict comes from Winston Churchill. And President Donald Trump, given all he has endured for five years from those piously pleading now for a “time of healing,” cannot be faulted for his defiant resolve to unearth any and all high crimes or misdemeanors committed in the...
Joe Biden may have declared victory, but whether he or Donald Trump officially wins the presidency may remain undetermined for weeks, even months, and even then we may see the election brought before the Supreme Court. Who knows? What we do know is that this election has delivered a mess not seen since 2000, when...
In the eyes of much of the world the United States is now reduced to the status of a banana republic. The sordid spectacle of the past week—with the Democratic Party machine, the mainstream media, and social media barons forming a joint criminal enterprise to steal the presidential election—is reminiscent of similar ploys in the...
Donald Trump may end up losing the 2020 election in the Electoral College, but he won the campaign that ended on Nov. 3. Democrats had been talking of a “sweep,” a “blowout,” a “blue wave” washing the Republicans out of power, capturing the Senate, and bringing in an enlarged Democratic majority in Nancy Pelosi’s House....
On the last days of the 2020 campaign, President Donald Trump was holding four and five rallies a day in battleground states, drawing thousands upon thousands of loyalists to every one. Waiting for hours, sometimes in the cold, to cheer their champion on, these rallygoers love Trump as few presidents have been loved. This writer...
There are numerous media savants and would-be intellectuals who suffer from Trump Derangement Syndrome, and the renowned linguist and leftist political activist Noam Chomsky would seem to have one of the worst cases. Chomsky considers Trump to be the “worst criminal in human history” because he will have the United States completing its formal withdrawal...
Facebook has removed its mask and is playing censor-in-chief on the eve of the 2020 election. On Monday morning, we found that none of the scheduled weekend posts of our alternative web publication, Intellectual Takeout, were released to the public. When attempting to post new material, Facebook informed us that restrictions are now in place...
C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) is arguably the most influential Christian writer of the 20th century. To tell the story of his life is to speak of a remarkable journey out of youthful skepticism into the joyful discovery of faith; of an embattled defense of traditional moral sanity; and of a profound artistry in the creation of...
I’m Thinking of Ending Things Directed by Charlie Kaufman ◆ Written by Charlie Kaufman (screenplay) and Iain Reid (book) ◆ Produced by Likely Story and Projective Testing Service ◆ Distributed by Netflix The Ipcress File (1965) Directed by Sidney J. Furie ◆ Written by W.H. Canaway and James Doran (screenplay), and Len Deighton (book) ◆...
In reading through the works of popular historian Victor Davis Hanson, I was reminded of a parody in an episode of The Simpsons. Bart and Homer watch a clip of Rainier Wolfcastle—the show’s Arnold Schwarzenegger-esque action hero—fly a UNICEF cargo plane full of pennies to impoverished children. A villainous cadre calling themselves the “CommieNazis” chase Wolfcastle in their...
If you ask historically literate lovers of classical music to identify the leading conductors from the 20th century’s early decades, they will supply a profusion of names: Arturo Toscanini, Wilhelm Furtwängler, Willem Mengelberg, Otto Klemperer, Artur Nikisch, Leopold Stokowski, Fritz Busch, Erich Kleiber, Bruno Walter, Felix Weingartner, Serge Koussevitzky, Pierre Monteux, and Sir Thomas Beecham, for...
The historical ignorance of The New York Times’ 1619 Project is difficult to accept. Is the newspaper truly that ignorant or is it disinformation in a propaganda campaign to destroy our country? What I know for certain is most colleges no longer require the U.S. History and Western Civilization courses once considered essential, and that leftist professors...
President Vladimir Putin has been facing several crises that could undermine Russia’s strategic interests. His inability to respond quickly and effectively reflects lingering complacency within areas of Moscow’s sphere of influence. Azerbaijan’s offensive against the Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, encouraged and abetted by Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, is testing Moscow’s ability to remain neutral in...
If you thought “woke” hysteria killed comedy, fear no longer: Hollywood has come to the rescue. The Academy—a misnomer if there ever was one—has decreed that a movie can no longer be eligible for an award unless it meets certain criteria. All “Best Picture” nominees must include storylines about underrepresented groups, and a significant percentage of...
I was rather taken aback by Fr. Brian W. Harrison’s letter in the September issue of Chronicles (Polemics & Exchanges: “Evil That Good May Come”). He could not have been more mistaken. Fr. Harrison asserts that the dropping of the atomic bomb on Japan was unnecessary because the Japanese were effectively defeated and were ready to surrender, given...
Liberals among the Catholic hierarchy are spending this election season decrying so-called “single-issue voters.” For example, Bishop Mark J. Seitz of the diocese of El Paso decried single-issue voters in America Magazine, the Jesuits’ platform for the Church’s modernist left. According to Seitz, Christian voters are called to consider all issues and the “greater common good”...
Of the presidents in the modern era, many have been dealt a difficult hand by history, but perhaps none more so than Donald Trump. In 1952, Harry Truman was in his third year of a stalemated war in Korea that was costing 200 American lives every week. He lost the New Hampshire primary to Sen....
Though I have spent my life in a relatively conservative area of Northern California, the specific neighborhood in which I presently reside seems to be greater than fifty percent pro-Biden, judging by the lawn signs. Several of these signs have accompanying rainbow flags, Black Lives Matter merchandise, and other announcements of commitment to the cultural...
If Joe Biden loses on Nov. 3, public interest in whether his son Hunter exploited the family name to rake in millions of dollars from foreign donors will likely fade away. It will not matter, and no one will care. But if Joe Biden wins the presidency, a prediction: By the Ides of March 2021,...
President Donald Trump has lost ground in the arena that gave him a victory four years ago: Main Street. Recent headlines are not shy in proclaiming this. But he can win Main Street back if he would commit to reining in Wall Street. A commitment to separate commercial and investment banking through a reinstated Glass-Steagall...
When Amy Coney Barrett was nominated to a judgeship on the U.S. Court of Appeals in 2017, Sen. Dianne Feinstein was taken aback by the Notre Dame law professor’s Catholic convictions about the right to life. “Professor,” said Feinstein, “when you read your speeches, the conclusion one draws is that the dogma lives loudly within...
I recently took a trip to the German city of Constance, site of an important medieval Latin Church council that established the right to remove incorrigible popes. Some reflection on the city and its council may be of interest, given the news today that Pope Francis has apparently decided to endorse same-sex civil unions. Crossing...
In fiscal year 2020, which ended on Sept. 30, the U.S. government set some impressive new records. The deficit came in at $3.1 trillion, twice the previous record of $1.4 trillion in 2009, which was set during the Great Recession, and three times the 2019 deficit of about $1 trillion. Federal spending hit $6.5 trillion,...
Two long established Trump critics have recently berated the President quite differently. One, National Review Editor Rich Lowry, offered constructive criticism of the way Trump has handled himself in the closing weeks of his campaign; the other critic, a National Review Online Founding Editor and syndicated columnist Jonah Goldberg, offered more of the same dyspeptic...
“Apres moi, la deluge,” predicted Louis XV after his army’s stunning defeat by Prussia’s Frederick the Great at the Battle of Rossbach in 1757. “La deluge,” the Revolution, came, three decades later, to wash the Bourbon monarchy away in blood and to send Louis XV’s grandson, Louis XVI, and his queen, Marie Antoinette, to the...
“The Indians are seeing 60,000 Chinese soldiers on their northern border,” Secretary of State Michael Pompeo ominously warned on Friday. He spelled out what he meant to commentator Larry O’Connor: “The Chinese have now begun to amass huge forces against India in the north. … They absolutely need the United States to be their ally...
Earlier this year, Joe Biden gave a lengthy interview to The New York Times, a venue as friendly toward Biden as Sean Hannity is to Donald Trump. In the course of this interview, Biden offered the following observation: Well, look what’s happened. Look what started to seep in, beginning and probably even with candidates during our administration. We stopped showing...
Before the first Trump-Biden debate, moderator Chris Wallace listed the six subjects that would be covered: The Trump and Biden records, the Supreme Court, COVID-19, the economy, race, and violence in our cities, and the integrity of the election. According to a recent Gallup survey, Wallace’s topics tracked the public’s concerns—the top seven of which...
What a difference a week can make. Saturday, Sept. 26, was among the best days of the Trump presidency, or so some of us thought watching the president introduce in the Rose Garden his sterling candidate for Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s seat on the Supreme Court. The academic and professional credentials of Amy Coney Barrett, 48,...
On Monday, Oct. 5, our occasional contributor James G. Jatras gave a lecture at the Institute of European Studies in Belgrade entitled “Does America Have a Future? Options Before a Declining Hegemon.” He presented a complex and rather bleak picture of America’s condition to an audience of some 30 scholars and analysts from Serbia’s leading research...
In their first debate, the president of the United States, challenged by the former vice president, performed poorly—even by his own estimation. If memory serves, an instant poll showed that the American people, by 47-43, thought Walter Mondale had bested Ronald Reagan in the Louisville debate where the president made such gaffes as citing the...
Chronicles Foreign Affairs Editor Srdja Trifkovic was interviewed by Serbian morning news program, Dobro jutro (Good Morning) on the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan. We bring you an abbreviated and edited transcript of his remarks in English. ST: The conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh does not have the same potential to trigger...
By nominating Federal Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, Donald Trump kept his word, and more than that. Should she be confirmed, he will have made history. Even his enemies would have to concede that Trump triumphed where his Republican predecessors—even Ronald Reagan, who filled three court vacancies—fell short. Trump’s achievement—victory in the...
Recently C. Bradley Thompson responded obliquely to my critical comments in Chronicles about his book and subsequent observations on the American Founding. Contrary to Thompson’s asides on Facebook and Twitter dismissing my criticism, I did read some of his tome, The Revolutionary Mind, and even commented on it—but I found its discussion of our state-builders so...
“As everyone knows, I made it clear that my first choice for the Supreme Court will make history as the first African American woman justice.” So Joe Biden promised. Since the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, however, Biden has refused to produce a list of Black female judges and scholars whom he would consider...
It’s mid-September, and the sun already seems to be setting lower in a sky of lengthening shadows. The temperatures have noticeably dropped off. Autumn, such as it is in this part of the country, appears to already have begun settling in, like an early and unexpected guest. I was walking along a sidewalk in my...
President Donald Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell are on the cusp of making history. With Trump having named two justices to the U.S. Supreme Court, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, they have an opening to elevate a third justice to fill the seat of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, thereby securing the constitutionalism of the...
Given the spread of violence across America, and the unfortunate politicization of these events, I’ve written a statement that virtually any Protestant or Catholic pastor could release, or deliver from the pulpit, in the wake of the next outrageous attack on innocent life using guns. As a public service to Christians in America, I’ve written...
Having presided over the recognition of Israel by the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, President Donald Trump has been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize amid talk of peace breaking out across the region. Assuredly, this is a major diplomatic breakthrough, and Nancy’s Pelosi’s sour-grapes dismissal of the deal as a “distraction” testifies to that...
It seems that on many fronts, the American establishment right has been incapable of halting the advance of the left. There is one bright spot, however: more Americans are resisting encroachments against their right to self-defense by exercising their Second Amendment rights. Gun stores have had 10.3 million firearms sales so far this year, according to...
“There is no… sound reason for the United States to continue sacrificing precious lives and treasure in a conflict not directly connected to our safety or other vital national interests.” So said William Ruger about Afghanistan, our longest war. What makes this statement significant is that President Donald Trump has ordered a drawdown by mid-October...
The latest poll by Democracy Institute (DI), a nonpartisan polling firm that accurately predicted Brexit and the 2016 U.S. election, shows President Donald Trump pulling ahead of Joe Biden and winning the Electoral College with 319 votes. The DI poll found that Trump leads Biden by 3 percentage points on the national stage, 48 to 45. In swing states,...