All posts tagged: National Review

The Republican coping goes into overdrive

The Republican coping goes into overdrive

Published by skeptic

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here. Americans claim to dread a Trump-Biden rematch, but some Republicans seem more stunned than anyone else that Trump is back on the ballot. Now they are desperately trying to rationalize supporting their nominee. First, here are three new stories from The Atlantic: “A Psychological Necessity” Saturday Night Live during the 1980s was at the height of its satirical powers, skewering both Republicans and Democrats with surgical efficiency. (In one of the greatest of all such skits, Phil Hartman played Ronald Reagan as a multilingual genius running the Iran-Contra plot faster than his hapless staff could follow.) The current political situation, however, reminds me of a 1988 debate parody with Dana Carvey and Jon Lovitz. After Carvey’s George H. W. Bush plows through a string of non sequiturs and repeats “stay the course” and “a thousand points of light” a …

The Real Reason Trump Loves Putin

The Real Reason Trump Loves Putin

Published by skeptic

For nearly the entirety of the past decade, a question has stalked, and sometimes consumed, American politics: Why do Donald Trump and his acolytes heap such reverent praise on Vladimir Putin? The question is born of disbelief. Adoration of the Russian leader, who murders his domestic opponents, kidnaps thousands of Ukrainian children, and interferes in American presidential elections, is so hard to comprehend that it seems only plausibly explained by venal motives—thus the search to find the supposed kompromat the Kremlin lords over Trump or compromising business deals that Trump has pursued in Moscow. But there’s a deeper, more nefarious truth about people on the right’s baffling unwillingness to criticize the Kremlin: They actually share its worldview. Putin worship isn’t even an aberration in the history of conservatism, merely the latest instance of a long tradition of admiring foreign dictators. Over the past century, without ever really blushing, the American right has similarly celebrated the likes of Adolf Hitler, Francisco Franco, and just about every Latin American military junta that called itself anti-communist. The right …

Why the media shouldn’t write Nikki Haley off

Why the media shouldn’t write Nikki Haley off

Published by skeptic

Welcome to Up for Debate. Each week, Conor Friedersdorf rounds up timely conversations and solicits reader responses to one thought-provoking question. Later, he publishes some thoughtful replies. Sign up for the newsletter here. Layoffs of 115 newsroom staffers at The Los Angeles Times are the latest blow to the ailing news industry. What is the state of local journalism where you live, and how does it affect your community? Send your responses to [email protected] or simply reply to this email. Conversations of Note In New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation Republican primary, Donald Trump, the former president, beat Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and ambassador to the United Nations. Now many in the press are presuming a Trump vs. Biden rematch. But I’ll proceed writing as though Haley could win, though it may strike some as unsavvy—because she could win, much as an underdog team could come back from a bad first quarter. In sports, play-by-play commentators often have strong instincts about the likeliest outcome, but no one wants or expects them to focus their real-time …

The DeSantis-campaign implosion was inevitable

The DeSantis-campaign implosion was inevitable

Published by skeptic

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis suspended his campaign. His loss was inevitable, because Republican voters want Donald Trump. First, here are three new stories from The Atlantic: Trump’s for the Asking I wrote back in May that the Republican primary would be over before they really began. Too many of the candidates were featherweights or no-hopers, and even the more substantial challengers couldn’t bring themselves to go after Donald Trump, despite flaming indictments falling from the skies and covering him in a layer of dirty ash. My prediction is one step closer to fulfillment now that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has bowed out, leaving Nikki Haley as the last alternative standing. The reality, however, is that the 2024 GOP primary was never going to end any other way. When the former speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy rehabilitated Trump, and …

Nikki Haley Is the New Never-Trump Great Hope

Nikki Haley Is the New Never-Trump Great Hope

Published by skeptic

This might be Nikki Haley’s moment. Not her moment to become the Republican presidential front-runner. (Don’t be silly.) Not even her moment to nip at Donald Trump’s heels. But it could be her chance to consolidate the anti-Trump support in the GOP and make a solid play for the silver medal and maybe a good speaking slot at the RNC in Milwaukee next summer. The former South Carolina governor and United Nations ambassador has risen, slightly, in recent polls, and is now third in RealClearPolitics’ average of national polls, after Trump and Ron DeSantis. She is consistently coming in second in polling in the first-in-the-nation primary state of New Hampshire, having pulled ahead of DeSantis there. This week, she picked up the endorsement of former Representative Will Hurd when he dropped out of the Republican race. She’s appearing at two major donor conferences this month. Her boomlet is a long way from the big candidate bubbles of the 2012 and 2016 GOP primaries, but it’s the most notable surge in the race right now. Haley …

American Democracy Requires a Conservative Party

American Democracy Requires a Conservative Party

Published by skeptic

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here. Every nation needs parties of the left and the right, but America’s conservative party has collapsed—and its absence will undermine the recovery of American democracy even when Donald Trump is gone. First, here are four new stories from The Atlantic: The Danger That Will Outlast Trump The American right has been busy the past few days. The Republicans in Congress are at war with one another over a possible government shutdown that most of them don’t really want. Representative Paul Gosar of Arizona (channeling the warden from The Shawshank Redemption, apparently) railed about “quislings” such as the “sodomy-promoting” Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and said he should be hanged. Gosar, of course, was merely backing up a similar attack from the likely GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump, who over the weekend floated the idea …

Trump’s Menacing Rosh Hashanah Message to American Jews

Trump’s Menacing Rosh Hashanah Message to American Jews

Published by skeptic

The former president’s anti-Jewish remarks follow an old pattern. Brendan Smialowski / AFP / Getty September 19, 2023, 10:10 AM ET Like most politicians, former President Donald Trump marked the occasion of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year, by passing along holiday greetings to American Jews. Unlike most politicians, Trump used the opportunity to threaten them. On Sunday evening, just as Rosh Hashanah was coming to a close, Trump posted a meme on his social-media platform, Truth Social, excoriating “liberal Jews” who had “voted to destroy America.” (Majorities of American Jews have voted for Democrats since before World War II.) “Let’s hope you learned from your mistake,” the caption continued, “and make better choices going forward!” Trump’s Rosh Hashanah broadside was far from the first time that he had shared objectionable sentiments about Jewish people. But it was particularly ugly in the way it deliberately singled out a specific constituency during that constituency’s holiest season. As the conservative writer Philip Klein wrote in National Review, “Color me skeptical that Trump’s defenders would be so understanding …

The Misguided Debate Over “Rich Men North of Richmond”

The Misguided Debate Over “Rich Men North of Richmond”

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Why is so much press coverage of this viral song focused solely on politics? Oliver Anthony / RadioWV / YouTube August 18, 2023, 11:09 AM ET Welcome to Up for Debate. Each week, Conor Friedersdorf rounds up timely conversations and solicits reader responses to one thought-provoking question. Later, he publishes some thoughtful replies. Sign up for the newsletter here. Question of the Week What do you think of the viral hit song “Rich Men North of Richmond”? Send your responses to [email protected] or simply reply to this email. Conversations of Note Last Tuesday, an obscure YouTube channel was updated with a three-minute-and-10-second video of a man with a red beard and a guitar standing outdoors singing an original song called “Rich Men North of Richmond.” As I write, that video featuring the theretofore unknown singer-songwriter Oliver Anthony has exceeded 18 million views. The song has been uploaded to, and is thriving on, all the major streaming platforms. And it is selling copies. The song reached No. 1 on the all-genre iTunes chart, the Los Angeles …

The First Amendment Is No Defense for Trump’s Alleged Crimes

The First Amendment Is No Defense for Trump’s Alleged Crimes

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In the two weeks since Special Counsel Jack Smith indicted former President Donald Trump for his attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, the outlines of Trump’s trial strategy have taken shape. Trump has claimed that the indictment seeks to take away his “FIRST AMENDMENT RIGHTS.” His lawyer, John Lauro, is frantically trying to position his client as a hero of “free speech and political advocacy,” arguing that Trump “had every right to advocate for his position” about the presidential election. Many high-profile Republicans and conservatives are also coalescing around the First Amendment as their main avenue of attack on the indictment. Elise Stefanik, the fourth-ranking member of the House GOP, has claimed that “President Trump had every right under the First Amendment to correctly raise concerns about election integrity in 2020,” and several prominent Senate Republicans have made similar statements. National Review, the conservative magazine, has accused Smith of trying to “criminalize protected political speech.” And the law professor and legal commentator Jonathan Turley predicts that the indictment will run into the “constitutional problem …

They Are Still With Him

They Are Still With Him

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Come November of next year, Donald Trump might be elected president of the nation whose democracy he attempted to overthrow. Although it’s early, Trump is polling strongly against his successor, President Joe Biden, despite having been indicted for state and federal crimes, including a conspiracy to keep himself in power after his 2020 election loss. The indictment, filed by Special Counsel Jack Smith yesterday, offers a detailed recounting of Trump’s effort to “overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 presidential election and retain power,” using as pretext claims of voter fraud that Trump knew were false—in the words of one of his advisers, “conspiracy shit beamed down from the mothership.” In addition to simply making unfounded allegations of electoral fraud, which is irresponsible but protected as free speech, Trump and his advisers hatched one bizarre plan after another to illegitimately seize power by overturning the election. If you’re trying to understand how, despite all of this, Trump could still be president again, you need look no further than the reactions of his primary rivals and …