The government of Australia has established a commission on antisemitism. Its name is the “Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion.” It was a good idea, this commission. The necessity of it, of course, is tragic, and infuriating.

A great deal of testimony has come out of this commission. I fastened on this:

A Jewish employee known only as ABM has told the Royal Commission she was asked to use a different, less obviously Jewish name at work over fears her “identifiably Jewish” name could upset a stakeholder.

I have quoted this news report. To hear and see this woman’s testimony, go here.

Frankly, I’m at a loss for words—which is a bad condition for a writer. How outrageous, how humiliating, how degrading, how wrong, to be asked to change your name, because it is “identifiably Jewish” and would upset a “stakeholder.”

To hell with the stakeholder, I would say. (There, I’ve recovered my words.)

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In America, is it still advisable to change your name? In the 20th century, many Jews (and others) did. Maybe I could concentrate on two fields: comedy and opera.

Jack Benny was born Benjamin Kubelsky. Mel Brooks was born Melvin Kaminsky. Jackie Mason, Yacov Maza. Joan Rivers, Joan Molinsky.

That’s just four. Let’s do four opera singers.

Richard Tucker was Rubin Ticker. Jan Peerce was Pinkhes Perelmuth. Robert Merrill, Moishe Miller. Beverly Sills, Belle Silverman.

Here’s a bonus: Roberta Peters, Roberta Peterman. (That one was very close.)

This is a rich subject, names and name-changes. Might make a decent book, you know?

***

Putin’s Russia was supposed to conquer Ukraine in about three days. Four years later, Putin was reduced to asking President Trump to ask Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, not to rain on his parade. That is, not to rain on Putin’s May 9 parade in Moscow.

Huh.

Zelensky let that parade go on unmolested—and got a prisoner exchange for it.

Putin quickly went back to work. Here is a headline from May 12: “Russian strike kills 6 in Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region, wounds infant who loses leg.” (For the article, go here.)

Russia cannot lose this war soon enough—for Ukraine’s sake, for Russians’ sake, for the sake of all of us.

***

Yaroslav Trofimov, the chief foreign-affairs correspondent of the Wall Street Journal, had an interesting analysis: “Putin’s Strongman Image Is Fading as Ukraine Brings War Home to Russia.” On reading it, I had several thoughts, one of which was this: If I had my way, Russians would oppose Putin because he is a murderous, monstrous dictator. But if failing to conquer a neighbor is what it takes …

The world, much of it, likes a strongman, a “strong horse”—“might makes right.” What a curse, you know?

***

You may have seen video of a ceremony at Doral, the golf resort in Miami—owned by Trump. It was a religious ceremony. A giant gold statue of Trump was being unveiled. Trump was not at the ceremony in person, but he called in.

I know many people who bristle when others claim that Trumpism is a cult. But can they really blame those doing the claiming?

***

At the White House, a reporter questioned Trump on the cost of his new ballroom. The president said to her, “I doubled the size of it, you dumb person. It’s double the size. You are not a smart person.”

The Daily Wire, circulating the video, apparently got a kick out of Trump’s performance: “😂😂😂.”

Does America at large get a kick out of our “new normal”? Well, I don’t see that they—we—are reacting against it.

***

Regular readers have heard me say, “The Right needs to recover a proper sense of patriotism.” “The Right needs to recover a proper sense of manliness.” On the second subject, let me offer this:

Sebastian Gorka, the senior counterterrorism director at the National Security Council, on Wednesday called critics of the Iran war “testicularly challenged,” accusing those who believe the conflict is unjustified of taking a “low-T approach to threats to the United States.”

I have quoted the opening paragraph of this news article.

What is a man? What is manliness? Well, there are many good books on this subject, beginning with the Bible (and ending with it, I’d say).

***

Bobby Cox, the baseball manager, has died at 84. For his obituary in the New York Times, go here. The obit notes that he “set a record for an arcane statistic, having been ejected from 162 games.” It occurred to me: that’s the number of games in a season. (The exact number.)

In second place is John McGraw, with 121 ejections. Earl Weaver, that famous hothead, was ejected from only 96—but Bobby Cox managed in almost 2,000 more games than Earl …

***

Let’s do a little language. Markwayne Mullin, the secretary of homeland security, was talking to Fox News. He said, “He’s the strongest leader of your and I’s time. Period.”

Period. (That’s what people say when they don’t want to be challenged.) The secretary was talking about Trump, needless to say.

What might he have said besides “your and I’s time”? Well, a number of things: including “our time,” “your time and mine,” and “yours and my time.”

(Bill Buckley would have despaired, while thinking, “Despair is a sin.”)

***

On social media, I saw something I loved, and you might enjoy it too. A tweeter said, “My mom was in post-op at Barnes-Jewish Hospital,” in St. Louis, “and when she came out of anesthesia, they asked her if she knew where she was.”

She said, “Barnes & Noble.” The nurse said, “Close enough.”

***

Friends, I am writing you from Copenhagen, where I have attended the Copenhagen Democracy Summit, which I will be writing about shortly (though at length). I should have a Copenhagen journal, too—I mean, about the city, democracy aside (not that you can really put democracy aside).

Meantime, I’d like to give you a little Hans Christian Andersen, the Danish storyteller. On Sunday morning, I snapped a picture of him in Central Park. Within a day, I had snapped him in Copenhagen.

So, first New York, then Copenhagen:

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, and Happy Hump Day. Do people still refer to Wednesday as that? I’m never entirely sure whether my words and phrases are outdated (though it’s a safe bet they are).

In recent months, I have gotten into the habit of sending you a column on Sunday. I like the idea of a “Sunday column.” It usually has less of the political and more of the cultural. (There’s a broad word: “cultural.”) But here is a column on Saturday, and I will not have a column tomorrow—although there will be a Mother’s Day item at the end of this one.

Happy Mother’s Day Minus One, by the way.

Today’s column is unusual in another respect. Usually, I begin with some big issue or idea. Today, I will begin with a little bidness—and a little song of myself, I’m afraid. (It won’t be as good as Whitman’s.)

Next Thursday will see an anniversary (minor): the first anniversary of Onward and Upward. My first column here appeared on May 14. I am grateful to my readers and subscribers. Very.

Last year, in May, I suffered an employment shock. Many do. Happens every day. One Friday morning, there was a phone call, lasting five or ten minutes, and that was it. I was out of a shop I had worked in for 27 years. No handshake, no brown-bag lunch, no nothin’.

I think of a friend of mine. Years ago, he was fired from his job and left by his fiancée—on the same day. These were unrelated events, let me state.

He got back on his feet. What a satisfying thing, to get back on one’s feet!

And it helps to have friends. The saying goes, “A friend in need is a friend indeed.” Good saying, and true.

I could detail my “employment shock” and have been urged to do so. “It’d be good for business,” people say. But would it be good for one’s soul?

As you know, I named my new site “Onward and Upward.” Looking back did not do much good for Lot’s wife. And while we’re on the Bible: “… forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before …”

I also think of a hymn, setting a poem by Whittier: “… all of good the past hath had / Remains to make our own time glad …”

Last October, a friend with whom I used to work at National Review sent me a note—a note that tickled me, as we say in the Midwest:

Loving your newsletter. So great. Joyful even if the analysis is clear and unsparing. It’s nice to detect joy here and there in this strange world. It is “NR” to me, in the sense that “NR” to me is a spirit, a way of being, not a magazine or website.

(National Review was founded by William F. Buckley Jr. in 1955. I did a series on Bill last year, on the occasion of his centennial. It is in eight parts, the last of which is here. There is a note at the top that links to the preceding seven parts.)

My audience, some people have observed, is niche-y. In today’s climate, there is not a big market for Reagan conservatives who are also inclined to arts and letters. There are much, much bigger markets for … other things.

But, you know? That makes one appreciate one’s audience—one’s readers and listeners and so on—all the more.

Thus far, Onward and Upward has been free to all. Paid subscribers have access to the comments section. There may come a time when the site goes “all-paid,” or “paid-only.”

But, you know? Papa so vain, he like everyone to read. In other words: I am such a show-off, I like my material available to all.

At any rate, to be determined. I am going to end this song of myself, blessedly—but not before thanking my readers and subscribers once more. Thank you ever so much.

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***

Did you hear Emmanuel Macron, the president of France, singing “La Bohème,” not the opera by Puccini but the song by Charles Aznavour and Jacques Plante—Aznavour’s signature song? You can hear Macron here. If I were an assignment editor, I’d suggest that someone write an article on heads of state or government who sing.

I recall Stephen Harper, when he was prime minister of Canada: singing a Beatles song along with Yo-Yo Ma and others. Go here.

***

A line from Jonathan Martin, the ace political reporter, put me in mind of Bill Clinton. J-Mart had interviewed JB Pritzker, the governor of Illinois, and asked whether “the country is ready for a husky Jewish billionaire”—as president.

“Husky” is an interesting euphemism in our society. I remember being touched by something President Clinton said—at a time when I was flamingly anti-Clinton. He talked about having been “the fat kid in the size ‘Husky’ jeans.”

Department stores had such sections: “Husky.” Very embarrassing for the boys who had to shop there.

***

Everyone my age watched WKRP in Cincinnati, a sitcom that ran from 1978 to 1982. (I was in junior high and high school.) Do you know that Cincinnati now has a real WKRP? In fact, that is the title of an article by my friend Jim Swift: “WKRP Is Real.”

I’ll be danged.

***

Let me share a picture with you—of some light-orange blossoms in Riverside Park (on the west side of Manhattan) on a rainy day. More like a misty day. A soft day.

Hold that thought. Here’s the picture:

Do you know “A Soft Day,” the song by Charles Villiers Stanford? It sets a poem by Winifred Mary Letts. The song was recorded, indelibly, by Kathleen Ferrier. Hear it, and her, here.

The second (and final) stanza goes,

A soft day, thank God!
The hills wear a shroud
Of silver cloud;
The web the spider weaves
Is a glittering net;
The woodland path is wet,
And the soaking earth smells sweet
Under my two bare feet,
And the rain drips,
Drips, drips, drips from the leaves.

***

Speaking of rain in May, do you know this old joke? The elementary-school kids in your life might get a kick out of it. “If April showers bring May flowers, what do May flowers bring? Pilgrims!”

(Think 1620 and the New World.)

***

I have a friend who sometimes signs himself “Scott from Sconnie.” He is from Wisconsin (the northwest of the state). He now writes,

Jay, a brief piece of trivia for you:

George Roy Hill, the director of such classics as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Sting, and Slap Shot (one of my favorites), studied composition under Hindemith during his time at Yale. Maybe you knew this, but I did not.

Perhaps this is something with which you can impress your friends at future intermission get-togethers!

I met Scott, in the flesh, at intermission once—at the Metropolitan Opera, where his daughter sings.

***

End with a song? It is a great one, by Hugo Wolf, which begins “Benedeit die sel’ge Mutter” (“Blessed be your mother in heaven”). The poem is by Paul Heyse. And here is DFD, i.e., Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, to sing it.

I have gone from a song of myself to a song by Wolf—much better! Later on.

A little excerpt, please, from an article I wrote in 2014:

Manuela Hoelterhoff reminded me recently of why she has long been one of my favorite writers (and people). This piece, at Bloomberg, is 100 percent Hoelterhoffian. It’s bitchy, bright, informed, and delicious.

A sample from Mani’s piece:

Who wants to hear an opera called “Albert Herring”? Indianapolis Opera found out and had to cancel its spring production. This piece has been boring since Benjamin Britten finished it in 1947. Why did you folks not know this?

In 2022, Mani’s friend Sheila Nadler, a mezzo-soprano, died. This is how she began her appreciation:

Sheila Nadler (Ida! to her closest friends) passed away on June 25 at the age of 82 having avoided salad her entire life. I knew the end was near when even a large bag of Reese’s peanut butter cups failed to rouse the usual smile of delight. Her favorite meal consisted of two helpings of mac and cheese washed down by a tall glass of vodka with very little ice. Tuna melt would do in a pinch. Astonishingly, she never got large.

Yesterday, on social media, I wrote,

Manuela Hoelterhoff passed away earlier this week. The word “unique” is both overused and misused, but she was: unique. She was a superb and stylish writer. Sharp, in more than one sense (bright, and prone to barbs). She won the Pulitzer Prize, for criticism, in 1983. I met her in the mid-1990s. We talked for 30 years—mainly about music, but also about life, with its bumps and bruises.

Yeah.

Mani was born in Hamburg in 1949. Her mother was Latvian, her father German, a veteran of the war. Mani knew about the horrors of life. A beautiful thing happened to her: her family came to America, in 1957.

She loved music and words (a powerful combo). Naturally, William F. Buckley Jr. gave her her start in writing. I say “naturally” because Bill was a keen spotter of talent, and a nurturer of it. Tremendously talented himself, he made room for the talent of others.

In the late 1990s, Mani wrote a book called “Cinderella and Company,” about the opera world. Reading that book—especially, but not only, if you are inclined toward the subject—is like eating candy.

WFB called himself “a performing writer.” So was Mani. He was musical, in his prose, and so was she.

“The cardinal sin of performance,” said Franz Liszt, “is dullness.” If Mani was ever guilty, I never saw it.

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She was sometimes cross with me—she was sometimes cross with everyone, I think (and I am sometimes cross with myself)—but she was also very kind. Our correspondence is full of fan mail, running in both directions.

It was a goal of hers to get me a Pulitzer Prize. That she felt this way, was a prize itself.

She said one of the nicest things ever said to me. When I told her, in an e-mail, that I had been divorced, she answered, “Oh, Jay. I wish I were younger and straight.”

Let me provide you some samples of Mani—further samples—almost at random.

“Lincoln is on for 12:30,” she wrote. “Is that okay?” My answer: “Absolutely. What’s Lincoln?” Her answer: “A great restaurant at Lincoln Center, just opened, next to the Beaumont. Wear shoes.”

During the pandemic, she wrote, “I am about to go swimming in a too tight suit thanks to a slothful three months.”

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She was free, generous, with compliments. “How are you, handsome man?” “Hi, princeling.” “Thanks so much for that nice mention, oh perfect man.” (I had cited her in an article.) But she also thought I dressed too casually, and too sloppily, and she was right.

In her last months, she gave me not one but two shirts. In an e-mail, she said, “I have a gift for you—something that will make you sharper albeit not necessarily smarter.”

Years ago, she wanted me to meet a friend of hers at the Salzburg Festival. From New York, she wrote to the two of us,

Please meet tonight if possible. Jay is wearing a shortsleeved shirt and chinos and has blond hair. [It had been a while, actually.] Francesca has black hair and has great shoes.

(That was true.)

Another note, responding to a review of mine:

Superb. Charming, eloquent, and smart. But please! The lighting! It’s an effing performance. How about a little mood? Even before I became a hermitess I stopped going to lieder recitals.

Please write about this topic.

Another:

That set is ghastly. Ghastly. And the director is a grim, arrogant, and unmusical dimwit.

This isn’t on you!!!!

Jay!!!!

Last summer, I reviewed a concert that included a Bruckner mass. The contralto in the mass was Wiebke Lehmkuhl. Mani wrote (her mind, and pen, worked in interesting ways),

WIEBKE. I love that name.

Hitler loved Bruckner.

(No fault of Bruckner’s, of course. But still true. Mani was perceptive, and biting, about the Third Reich and music.)

Though she did not stint on praise, as you have seen, one of her persistent criticisms of me was that I am “too nice.” (Would that it were so.) When she detected that I was trying to rise above a certain situation, she wrote, “You’re not being noble, I hope. … Listen to Mani!”

When she was your advocate—she was your advocate.

I could go on. In the face of a brutal illness, she was brave. Tough. In addition to music and words and her friends, she loved animals (who were also her friends).

Beagles were her favorite breed of dog, I’m pretty sure. Not long ago, she gave me socks—socks!—festooned with beagles. She loved animals across the board, I think. Including the farm animals at her place in the country.

She once wrote me, simply, “You endure and endure.” Yeah, you too, Mani. Auf Wiedersehen. Thank you for your friendship.

May I start with mayors and millionaires? (And the letter “m,” I guess?) Last month, I had an item beginning as follows:

On April 15, Tax Day, Mayor Zohran Mamdani of New York circulated a video. It showed him outside a rich person’s apartment building, making a bogeyman out of that person and enthusing about taxing the rich.

I then said,

Mamdani has his charm. He’s also a demagogue. And either you’re allergic to demagogues or you aren’t. And I am highly allergic.

I added, “I am also allergic to the politics of envy.”

(The column from which I have drawn this item is here.)

I have now been introduced to Katie Wilson, the mayor of Seattle. I have not met her in the flesh—but I saw a video of her, making light of millionaires who might want to leave Washington state. “Bye,” she said, to the whoops of her crowd.

See it here.

There are a hundred points to make about all this. I’ll make just one.

For years, when people throughout the world complained about American power and influence, John Bolton said, “They’ll miss us when we’re gone.” (We Americans will miss us too, but that’s a separate, though related, story.)

Well, one thing about millionaires: you’ll miss them when they’re gone (and states such as Florida and Texas are smart to scoop them up).

One more point, maybe. Both Mayor Mamdani and Mayor Wilson describe themselves as “democratic socialists.” I am not a socialist of any flavor but a free-marketeer. Yet I can say this: some of the greatest freedom champions we have had have been democratic socialists.

Orwell, for one. That’s a mic drop. If you’d like another name, after the mic has been dropped: Sidney Hook. (I recommend his memoirs: Out of Step.)

If Mamdani and Wilson are cut from that cloth—I’d be surprised.

***

For years now, many of us have written about “normalization.” A harmful normalization. “Beware numbness,” I have often said. “Fight the numb.” Fight the new normal.

The president talks like this and nobody bats an eye. It does not make the news, it does not make a ripple.

Leave “THUG” aside for a moment. Many people have noticed that Trump tends to call black people “low IQ.” But he is an equal-opportunity insulter and juvenile. For instance, many times he has called Tucker Carlson “low IQ.”

He is not, I can assure you.

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***

The Justice Department is prosecuting James Comey, the former director of the FBI, for posting an image that said “86 47.” Shells on a beach formed those numbers. “86” means “get rid of” and Trump is the 47th president of the United States (as well as the 45th). Trump and his administration are pretending that Comey issued a death threat.

I think people in general realize that this is a crock. But I bet some people don’t. And it occurred to me last week that some may be confusing “86” with “deep six.”

That counts as a language item, I guess, as well as a political one …

***

María Corina Machado, I have written about many times. She is the leader of the Venezuelan opposition and a very brave woman. Last year, she received the Nobel Peace Prize.

Which really ticked off Trump. Evidently, Machado thought it in the best interest of her cause to give Trump her Nobel medal.

As I have said before: What kind of man accepts a woman’s Nobel medal? Especially when that woman has risked her life, risked everything?

Trump took it as his due.

About a week ago, he said, “María was very nice. She gave me her Nobel Peace Prize because she said she didn’t deserve it.”

Did Machado really say that she did not deserve her prize?

About two weeks ago, Trump claimed that Machado had said, “No, no, I don’t deserve it.”

Do you believe that? I do not.

Trump also said, “I stopped wars that nobody thought—President Putin called me, he said, ‘I can’t believe you stopped this one and this one, which are impossible.’”

Over and over, the president of the United States cites Vladimir Putin for approval. Which is revealing, and, to some of us, revolting.

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***

Above, I used the word “juvenile” (which functions as a noun and an adjective, both). What do you think of this?

***

Let me move to anthropology. For years, Margaret Mead was virtually synonymous with anthropology—with cultural anthropology, certainly. You had Louis Leakey for archeology, or paleoanthropology. Mead and Leakey were household names, pretty much. It’s amazing to think about.

We did not have TikTok influencers …

Let me recommend an article by Conrad Kottak on Mead: here. Kottak is a leading anthropologist himself. And Mead was one of his teachers. She was an interesting, not uncomplicated, woman.

***

Once upon a time, letter-writing meant a lot to many of us. It still does, I suppose—in the form of e-mail. I am grateful for e-mail. It can be just like letter-writing, if you want it to be. And the other person receives your letter—instantly.

Mirabile dictu. (I thought that the fax machine was a miracle. And it was.)

Many people had pen pals. This practice is still alive, says Holly Ramer. She writes for the Associated Press, and she has penned an article on the subject, here. I found it touching, for the stories it tells.

***

Okay, let’s talk ice cream. And inflation. For a year or two, pints of Häagen-Dazs at the grocery store across the street from me have been $6.99. I have bought, uh, a few of those pints (for guests, I mean). Two days ago, I walked in and they were: $8.49. This happened overnight. They did not even stop at $7.99 or something.

Three blocks from me, there is an actual Häagen-Dazs parlor. The pints there? $12.88.

Geezum.

I remember when movie tickets in New York hit $10. (They must be more than double that now.) Ed Koch, the ex-mayor and a great moviegoer, said he would not go anymore. Eventually, he relented.

But I choke at paying $8.49 for a pint of ice cream, I really do. I may have to switch to—I don’t know, popsicles?

***

Tell you something charming, about prices. At a bodega, Yemeni-owned, I often buy a bagel with cream cheese. The price is never the same. It depends on the cashier. Sometimes it is $3, sometimes it is $3.50, sometimes it is $3.75—and once it was (this was really weird) $3.80. I never mention the price fluctuation. I just smile and pay.

***

How would you like a combo of English and Spanish? Behind the counter at a deli, I saw a sign above a piece of machinery. It said, “No worquín.” Loved it.

Later.

Recently, Cass Sunstein has been writing about “viewpoint diversity”: here and here. Sunstein, as you know, is a legal scholar and a prolific writer. He and I did a podcast a couple of weeks ago.

Viewpoint diversity is a very good kind of diversity, particularly on campus, I think. I have long said something like this: “When I was in college, ‘diversity’ meant a white Marxist, a black Marxist, a Chicano Marxist …”

That is an exaggeration, but it makes a point.

“Survival is not enough.” That is a phrase in our culture. It serves as the title, for example, of a book by Richard Pipes, the historian of Russia and “Sovietologist.” Well, viewpoint diversity is not quite enough either, as Sunstein points out.

A person should be good at what he does.

Is Michael McConnell a superb conservative legal scholar? (I am borrowing an example from Sunstein.) Yeah—but mainly, he is a superb legal scholar.

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Sunstein put me in mind of some figures of the past—starting with Edward MacDowell.

MacDowell, who lived from 1860 to 1908, was one of America’s first composers. (First composers of classical music.) His “To a Wild Rose” was once the musical equivalent of a household name. (To hear Van Cliburn play it, go here.)

MacDowell refused to allow his pieces to appear on programs of American music. Let me word that differently: He refused to allow his pieces to appear on programs of music by American composers.

There is a serious difference, right? “The Banjo,” by Louis Moreau Gottschalk, is American music, for sure. But is “To a Wild Rose” American music? Or a piece by a composer who happened to be American?

The latter, I think.

Anyway, MacDowell refused to allow his pieces to be part of “American concerts.” He did not want his credential to be nationality. He wanted to be a composer, plain and simple. He would not accept a “leg up” on the basis of nationality.

Is that too pure? Regardless, I admire it.

Then there is Elizabeth Bishop, the American poet who lived from 1911 to 1979. She refused to allow her poems to be published in anthologies of women poets. She was a poet, dammit.

Too pure? Well, the lady made her choice.

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Finally, William F. Buckley Jr.—who is never past, in my book. (Neither are composers, poets, and others, for that matter.) He would sometimes say, “Are you a conservative journalist or a journalist who is a conservative? Are you a conservative writer or, you know: a writer? A writer who is a conservative?”

Big difference. And Bill was definitely the latter: a real journalist, a real writer.

But wait. Do you mind if I revise and extend my remarks a little? In 2002, The Harvard Salient marked its 20th anniversary. The Salient is a conservative publication on that campus—perhaps the only one. In fact, I think it is.

Is the Salient still conservative or more like “rightist”? I don’t know, and that controversy need not detain us now. I’m going back to 2002.

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There was an anniversary dinner, and Professor Harvey Mansfield gave remarks. So did I (I blush to say, given the company). Bear with me while I excerpt my speech:

I must tell you, I’ve always been of two minds about conservative papers on campus. I guess I wish they didn’t have to exist; I wish we could be simply part of the mainstream, accepted, unremarkable; I also wish I pitched for the Detroit Tigers.

But I see that progress is being made. Your Ross Douthat, who was an intern of ours at National Review last summer, is a columnist for the Crimson—the big time (sorry). An intern coming to us this summer is Jason Steorts, also a Harvard student. He doesn’t write for the Salient at all; he, too, is a columnist for the Crimson. And I say, Great. Hats off.

But thank God for the Salient: a place to go home to, a refuge when others have shut you out—our Israel.

Let me confess something to you, speaking of the Jews. When I was young—quite young—I was appalled at the notion of Jewish country clubs. I thought that was a disgusting notion: a country club only for Jews? It was unfriendly, separatist, un-American. But when I got a little older, I learned something about the origin of those Jewish country clubs: It’s not that Jews wanted to build them; it’s that they were barred from the other clubs. If they wanted to belong to a club—if they wanted to play—they had to build their own. So they did.

I feel that the same is true with us. We have had to build our own, because we haven’t been let in by others, or weren’t. As I indicated, I’m all for going mainstream, if possible. By all means, avoid the conservative ghetto, or get out of it, if you’re in it—but let us tend that ghetto, for as long as we need it.

Keep it while you need it—that could be a slogan. Suited for a bumper sticker.

I think of a line from John Greenleaf Whittier. (This is a weird column, my friends.) (“Oh, different from the others?” I can hear some say.) Let me paste the concluding stanza of his “Mystic’s Christmas”:

“Keep while you need it, brothers mine,
With honest zeal your Christmas sign,
But judge not him who every morn
Feels in his heart the Lord Christ born!”

Before I leave the subject of country clubs—Jewish ones: I love the way Groucho Marx skewered prejudice and discrimination with jokes. “My daughter is only half Jewish. Can she go into the pool up to her knees?” “My son is only half Jewish. Can he play nine holes?”

***

Having re-read “The Mystic’s Christmas,” just now, I would like to do a little language. Whittier writes,

“I listen, from no mortal tongue,
To hear the song the angels sung; …

English is such a minefield, isn’t it? Can you say “sung” there, rather than “sang”? No matter how bad you want to rhyme?

And should that be “bad” or “badly”? (I have a lot to say on that subject, but will spare you, today.)

With “to sing,” we have “sing,” “sang,” and “sung.” But with “to swing,” we have only “swing” and “swung.” Little kids, playing baseball, say, “I swang at it.” Why shouldn’t they? The absence of “swang” is a strange lacuna, to use a Buckley word.

Remember when President Reagan said “squoze”? “Squoze” as a past participle for “squeeze”? He sounded like such a Midwestern kid, a Huck Finn kid.

In 1985, he was giving a press conference, and someone asked him about a problem with his nose. Reagan said, “I picked at it and I squoze it and so forth and messed myself up a little.”

One more thing, language-wise, and Reagan-wise—and Buckley-wise. In 1983, the Gipper said, “I’ve had it up to my keister with these leaks.” Bill loved that. He had never heard the word “keister” (a word I grew up with).

I can see and hear Bill chuckling now. Sort of shaking his head as if to say, “That Reagan.”

Two or three times a week, I pass a security guard, who always has a statement for me—or a little speech or homily. He greets me and launches right into it. My friend is in his sixties, I would say, and comes from Trinidad. He is of South Asian background. He is a proud American with high standards and ideals for our country.

Of late, he has been very disappointed.

Last Thursday, he said to me—without even saying hello, I think—“You know, no one has any respect for anyone these days.” He continued,

There’s no respect in this country. Not for older people, not for anyone. When I was growing up, you always greeted your elders respectfully—your aunties and uncles. We called them “ajas” and “ajies.” You respected your parents. You obeyed them. Everyone deserves respect.

In this country, that is all gone. No one has any respect for anybody.

He said this with considerable emotion. I understood him. And I now think of Aretha Franklin, singing “R-E-S-P-E-C-T.”

***

Like you, perhaps, I have been reading a lot about bursts of antisemitism in the United Kingdom. And I had a memory, which I’d like to share with you. I shared it before, in a 2012 column. Allow me to paste:

In 2005 or so, I read an article in The Spectator saying that antisemitism had become so bad in Britain, some Jewish grandparents were urging their children and grandchildren to leave.

I encountered a well-known British journalist at a conference. (Jewish, I should say.) (The journalist, not the conference.) I said, “Is it as bad as all that?” He said, “I would never say this in public, but, to borrow familiar language, they’ll come for them before they come for us.”

What he meant was, British society in general will “come for” antisemitic Muslims and other antisemites before they ever come for the Jews.

In recent years, I have doubted this is true.

***

Something brighter, concerning that country—something I spotted and smiled at on April 30:

Will there always be an England? I certainly hope so.

***

I was talking with a friend about older musicians—people we should see, or hear, while we still can. Some musicians are very long-lived. I thought of Arthur Rubinstein, the pianist, who died in 1982 at 95.

My grandmother told me something interesting: In the 1950s, I believe, she took my dad to a Rubinstein recital at Constitution Hall. (The family lived in Washington.) Rubinstein must have been about 70. My grandmother wanted my dad to hear him before it was too late.

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Brahms died in 1897. That was the year Rubinstein arrived in Berlin from Łódź, to continue his studies. He was ten. He knew people who had known Brahms. “For me, he is a contemporary composer,” Rubinstein would say.

That amazed me, when I was growing up.

***

On the subject of music: here is my “New York chronicle,” in the new New Criterion.

***

An obit published yesterday begins,

Nicole Hollander, a biting cartoon artist whose comic strip “Sylvia,” about a big-haired, cigarette-smoking, cat-loving, hyper-opinionated feminist, made her a singular voice on the funny pages for more than 30 years, died on April 23 in Chicago. She was 86.

The cartoonist was born Nicole Garrison. The obit tells us,

She studied painting at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, graduating in 1960 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree, and she married Paul Hollander in 1962. Four years later, she earned a Master of Fine Arts degree from Boston University and divorced her husband.

“I thought, ‘OK, I’m an adult, I have a married name, I proved that I could do it, and now I don’t have to do it ever again,’” she told The Chicago Tribune in 1990. (She didn’t.)

That is so cool, right? I wonder what Mr. Hollander thought. (I guarantee you that no one cared or cares. That’s the way it goes.)

(This Paul Hollander is not to be confused with Paul Hollander the sociologist and political writer.) (For a piece of mine about the sociologist and political writer, published in 2004, go here.)

***

A colleague of mine—an excellent writer and editor—texted me, “I think we are the last two people who still use the word ‘healthful’ and I have been weakening in my resolve.” I understand. But it’s a shame—because the distinction between “healthful” and “healthy” was useful.

“Apples are healthful. One a day keeps the doctor away, you know. But how about this bushel? Are they healthy? A few look rotten.”

We are perpetually told that “language evolves,” and so it does. What I object to is the shrinking of the language. Evolution often gives us fewer words, not more. If “healthy” now means “healthful,” we have fewer words. If “envy” and “jealousy” mean the same thing, we have fewer words. If “reticent” is taken to mean “reluctant,” we have fewer words.

I’m for growth, not shrinkage!

***

Up in Harlem, I encountered Hancock Park. A bust of the man duly has pride of place. John Hancock, of the famous signature? The one who signed the Declaration of Independence, so distinctively and memorably? No, Winfield Scott Hancock.

This Hancock was a Union general and the 1880 Democratic nominee for president. (He lost to James Garfield.) He was a lot of other things too. An impressive fellow.

By the way, have you seen John Hancock’s signature lately? As a child, I thought it was magnificent, and, looking at it again, I still do:

***

Before leaving a concert at Lincoln Center, I had to take a whiz. This is what I found:

Call me a dinosaur, call me a mossback—I have called myself no less—but I will never get with this. Ain’t finna happen.

***

For reasons unknown to me, the hashtag PutThatInYourPipe was trending on Twitter. I thought of one of my favorite lyrics of all time. It is by Stephen Sondheim, that master, and appears in West Side Story: “I like the island Manhattan. Smoke on your pipe and put that in!”

That may be my favorite rhyme, along with a line from a gospel song: “Glory, hallelujah. I give my praises to ya.”

Do you have a favorite rhyme? I would love to hear about it: mail@jaynordlinger.com.

And thank you so much for reading and, if you care to, subscribing, everybody. Means a lot to this hopeless mossback.

Like others, I have written a lot about Caesarism in our time. In February, for example, I had a piece titled “Hail, Caesar? Hell, No.” It would be nice to be done with the subject. But the subject is not done with us, so to speak.

What if a Democratic president were putting his image in our passports? What if another Republican president were doing the same?

“What if,” we keep saying—rightly.

(“Patriot passport” is a further offense, in my judgment. Also, how about “State Department” or “U.S. State Department” rather than “Trump State Department”?)

***

In that “Hail, Caesar?” piece, I wrote the following:

Earlier this week, Trump announced that he would close the Kennedy Center for two years for “renovation.” In other news—related—he is building an arch: a triumphal arch, to be placed near the entrance of Arlington National Cemetery, across the Potomac from the Lincoln Memorial. People are calling this the “Arc de Trump” (get it?)

In October, Ed O’Keefe of CBS News asked the president, “Who’s it for?” Trump pointed to himself and answered, “Me.”

This is not the American way—unless the American people want it to be so. May the republican spirit (note the small “r”) make a comeback.

Last week, the interior secretary was on Fox News, or Fox Business, talking about the arch. The secretary is Doug Burgum—who said, “Virtually every Western capital in the world has an arch of some sort. This one that’s proposed would be the equivalent or even better than the Arc de Triomphe in Paris.”

I thought of something we conservatives said for years and years: “We don’t have to be like Europe, you know. America is different.”

This was part of our hymnal, you could say. (William F. Buckley Jr. once published a collection called “A Hymnal: The Controversial Arts.”)

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***

Yesterday, I was looking at Kash Patel, the FBI director, talking about the bureau’s investigation into a former FBI director, James Comey. Patel looked to me like a man trying to save his job—trying to stay in the good graces of Donald Trump.

Beware a public servant who would do anything to please, or appease, the boss and keep his job. Such people are not public servants at all.

***

Ephraim Mirvis—Sir Ephraim Mirvis—is the chief rabbi in Britain. I wanted to share the statement he made yesterday:

Following the antisemitic stabbing of two Jewish people on the streets of Golders Green this morning, words of condemnation are no longer sufficient. This must be a moment that demands meaningful action from every institution, every community, every leader, and every decent person in our country. This is a hatred that we must face down together.

***

A report from the Associated Press is headed, “Baby on board: Paramedics help passenger give birth just before Delta flight lands.” I like this line, from the reporter Mark Thiessen: “Baby Brielle Renee Blair came in about two weeks ahead of schedule; the plane, about 20 minutes.”

***

“Nedra Talley Ross, Last Surviving Member of the Ronettes, Dies at 80.” That is the headline over an obit by Clay Risen in the New York Times. (I did a podcast with Clay in February: “Writer of Lives.”) Here is a line from this latest obit: “The Ronettes never officially reunited onstage or in the studio, but they did make several courtroom appearances.”

Nicely turned.

***

Give you a shot of music? (Apart from the Ronettes, I mean?) Here is my review of a concert by the New York Philharmonic. On the podium: Gustavo Dudamel. At the piano: Evgeny Kissin. On the program: Mussorgsky, Scriabin, and Stravinsky.

By the way, I sometimes see the spelling “Musorgsky” (though I grew up with “Mussorgsky”). Maybe some linguist out there can tell me why one or the other is preferable. (I’m at mail@jaynordlinger.com.)

***

Often, I end my column with something on the light side. Not today. Fred Fransen sent me the obituary of his aunt. Fred is a friend of mine and the president of Amerion College, in Huntington, W.V. I will quote the obit, at some length:

Our dear mother and Oma, Martha Fransen (born Rempel), died peacefully after a brief illness at Marotta Family Hospital in St. Catharines on February 15, 2026, at the age of 98, surrounded by her family.

St. Catharines is in Ontario.

Martha Rempel was born on December 13, 1927, in the Russian Mennonite village of Gruenfeld, South Russia, in the Soviet Union. Her parents were Jakob A. and Sophie Rempel (née Sudermann). Her father was a Mennonite pastor, the Aeltester of the Baratov settlement, which had a number of Mennonite villages. He had studied and worked his way up from extreme poverty …

Pastor Rempel ran afoul of the Soviet authorities, as a pastor (a genuine one) would.

Martha was the youngest of six children. A seventh child died of starvation as an infant. It was the time of severe anti-Christian persecution by the Communist regime in the Soviet Union.

In September 1929, Martha’s family was forced out of their home, becoming homeless … Two months later, when the family had gone to Moscow hoping to emigrate, her father was taken away at night by the OGPU (secret police) and was imprisoned, beaten, and tortured for eight months, and then exiled to the Solovetsky Islands in the White Sea …

Martha was not yet two years old. She and her mother (who was newly pregnant) and siblings were sent to the village of Zentral, near Moscow, where they lived for the next four years, moving from place to place since they were homeless and had nothing to eat. Then they were able to move to the Mennonite village of Einlage in the Chortitza region.

Meanwhile their father had been exiled to various concentration camps, attempted a few escapes, one time jumping a prisoners’ train overnight during January in Siberia, was always recaptured, and was eventually shot and killed on Stalin’s orders.

By the grace of God, Martha and her mother and siblings were able to survive these experiences …

What some people endure. What some people endure.

Also: to hell with dictatorships.

News from Houston, all too typical—all too typical in our country: “Congregation Beth Israel and the school on its campus closed Wednesday after the Houston Police Department informed them about possible threats.”

(That article is found here.)

And it’s not only our own country. The headline over this article reads, “Antisemitic incidents in Canada hit another record high in 2025, Jewish group reports.”

This is an age-old virus, antisemitism. Evidently, it infects even the nicest of countries.

When I made this point on social media, a reader responded,

Get rid of Netanyahu and stop committing genocide. I could be wrong, but I think that is why you are seeing this.

The genocide charge is outrageous—as outrageous as it is routine—but I would like to address something else. Without a sense of history, one might finger Israel as the cause, or one cause, of today’s antisemitism.

But remember: modern Israel was founded in 1948. What about antisemitism—terrifying, murderous antisemitism—in 1848? Or 1348? Or 948? Or 248?

You take my point. There is always an excuse, always a pretext. It did not take modern Israel to occasion antisemitism. In the years directly preceding the establishment of modern Israel, Germany and its allies murdered two-thirds of European Jewry.

I commend to you a book by David Nirenberg, the historian: Anti-Judaism: The Western Tradition.

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***

In my column on Sunday, I discussed Nathan Hale and William J. Casey. Hale was the American Patriot and Revolutionary spy, captured and hanged by the British when he was 21. Casey was the CIA director under Reagan.

There is a statue of Hale outside CIA HQ. Casey disliked this statue, very much, because he thought it set a bad example.

On Sunday, I quoted a speech he gave to the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick in 1981:

… it was not Nathan Hale but the Irish tailor, Mulligan, who was the intelligence hero of the American Revolution.

That was Hercules Mulligan, born in Ireland in 1740 and brought to the New World as a child.

Casey went on,

We Irish are too frequently deprived of the credit due us.

When the CIA headquarters were built in Langley, Virginia, Allen Dulles—I believe he was of Welsh descent—had a statue of Nathan Hale erected to inspire American intelligence officers. I think we can do better than Nathan Hale.

It is not so much that Nathan Hale is of British descent. What is important is that Nathan Hale got caught.

Yesterday, I heard from a friend of mine, Deacon Nicholas Dujmovic, now of Greenville, S.C. He writes,

I suspect that I’m your only correspondent who is a former CIA staff historian and an expert on memorials at the Agency. Regarding the Nathan Hale statue at CIA, I was surprised to read that William Casey attributed it to Allen Dulles, because Casey was a pretty good historian himself. The statue actually went up in the fall of 1973, about twelve years after CIA Headquarters was finished and long after Dulles was dismissed as CIA director (because of the Bay of Pigs). It was the idea of Richard Helms and went up when Bill Colby was director.

It’s true that Casey hated the Nathan Hale statue. He was glad it was outside the main building, and his corrective was commissioning a statue of his hero, “Wild Bill” Donovan, the OSS director, which was placed in the main foyer.

What don’t my readers know? Am grateful for them.

***

On social media, a friend was saying that he had just finished a podcast—and he was pleased that he had kept his “um”s to a minimum. “Um”s and such are known as “vocalized pauses.” I learned this term from Bill Buckley. “Iron them out!” he advised a colleague of mine—especially when appearing on television.

They’re kind of natural, “vocalized pauses,” aren’t they?

James Levine, the late conductor, often preceded a statement with an “um.” In fact, someone at the Metropolitan Opera had buttons printed up that said “Um.” She gave the maestro one. He had no idea what it referred to. (She told him.)

***

Let me share something I read the other day. Then I’d like to make a point about our English language.

That “good” in “good for last place” is kind of funny, right?

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***

In Sunday’s column, I included a couple of pictures of Duke University. Care for a few more?

I was interested in the “Old Chemistry” building. Is that an old building for chemistry? Or a building in which they teach old chemistry, as opposed to an updated kind? At any rate—handsome:

***

This is the famous basketball venue, Cameron Indoor Stadium. Frankly, I had always thought of it as “Cameron Arena.” But the proper and official designation is “Indoor Stadium.”

***

Here is Wallace Wade, after whom the football stadium is named. I noted the gap: he coached the team from 1931 to 1941, and again from 1946 to 1950.

I looked up the Wikipedia entry for Coach Wade. He indeed served in the Army during World War II. Born in 1892, he was in his fifties.

I fastened on something else in that Wikipedia entry:

Wade played guard on the Brown football team, which went to the 1916 Rose Bowl. One of his teammates at Brown was Fritz Pollard, who went on to become the first African-American coach in the National Football League.

I looked up the Wikipedia entry for Fritz Pollard. Astounding life. His formal name was Frederick Douglass Pollard. He was born in Chicago in 1894, the year before Frederick Douglass died.

***

Check out this sign in Old West Durham. I liked everything about it—including the spelling.

Why not? (“Laundrymat” is probably easier to remember than “laundromat.”)

***

The Raleigh-Durham airport boasts Bond Brothers Kitchen & Bar. The biscuits are truly heavenly, accompanied by some kind of dark jam and honey butter. Right out of Central Casting, if you will allow that formulation …

***

Back home at LaGuardia Airport, I concentrated on something that has long kind of bugged me: the airport is “LaGuardia,” but the mayor after whom it is named is “La Guardia”—Fiorello H. La Guardia.

And wait a second: I now see, on the Internet, that the famous high school named after the mayor—the performing-arts school—calls itself “LaGuardia.” That’s on the website. But the lettering on the building says “La Guardia,” giving the man his space!

Well, all this makes me feel a little spacey myself. See you later.

More than a few analysts have said, “President Trump is not focused on this war”—meaning, the Iran war. “He needs to get focused. This is important.”

I thought of a phrase from our past: “Dr. Win-the-War.” In a press conference—December 28, 1943—FDR said that America had once needed “Dr. New Deal.” (We might debate that.) After December 7, 1941, however, our country needed “Dr. Win-the-War.”

To read a transcript of that press conference, go here. You might be amazed, as I was, at how a president could talk: in complete and rich sentences and paragraphs.

***

In a column last week, I quoted President Reagan in a speech given to a conference during Captive Nations Week. (This was in July 1987.) He highlighted the case of a Soviet political prisoner, Petro Ruban.

Ruban, said Reagan,

is a prisoner in Special Regimen Labor Camp No. 36-1, one of the most notorious of the Soviet camps. In 1976, he fashioned a wooden replica of the Statue of Liberty and for that was taken away. Later, he was arrested again for criticizing the invasion of Afghanistan.

I thought you might like to see what Ruban said when Reagan died in 2004:

For a long time, the U.S. Congress was struggling to force the Soviet Union to release me from jail as a prisoner of conscience. But only Ronald Reagan achieved this. I was released in May 1988 …

I remember Reagan for his magnificent internal beauty. For me, he is the president who gave me freedom.

And second, I think that in the history of America there was no other political figure, with a bright mind and strong actions, who could ruin the Evil Empire, the Soviet Union.

Several weeks ago, Senator Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) appeared on Fox News and said, “To Donald J. Trump: You just surpassed Ronald Reagan as the most consequential Republican president since Lincoln.” He went on to say, “You’re Reagan plus, plus, plus.”

Some of us don’t think so.

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***

At The Dispatch, Ivana Greco had an article about Nathan Hale—specifically, about the statue of Hale at Yale. (I did not mean to make a rhyme.) To refresh your memory on this illustrious American, I will quote Wikipedia:

Nathan Hale (June 6, 1755–September 22, 1776) was an American Patriot, soldier, and spy for the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War. He volunteered for an intelligence-gathering mission in New York City but was captured by the British and executed.

He was 21.

Talk of a Hale statue made me think of William J. Casey—our CIA director under Reagan. There is a statue of Hale outside CIA headquarters at Langley. Casey never liked this statue—because Hale had been caught.

Here is Casey, giving an after-dinner speech to the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick on March 17, 1981:

… it was not Nathan Hale but the Irish tailor, Mulligan, who was the intelligence hero of the American Revolution.

That was Hercules Mulligan (a memorable name).

We Irish are too frequently deprived of the credit due us.

When the CIA headquarters were built in Langley, Virginia, Allen Dulles—I believe he was of Welsh descent—had a statue of Nathan Hale erected to inspire American intelligence officers. I think we can do better than Nathan Hale.

It is not so much that Nathan Hale is of British descent. What is important is that Nathan Hale got caught. In contrast, Hercules Mulligan kept delivering secrets until the British went home. He never broke his cover to the end. …

Hercules Mulligan, not Nathan Hale, is the example we want to emulate. I intend to speak to the grounds committee about it when I return to Langley tomorrow.

I hope and trust that Casey was (mainly) kidding. (Otherwise, he sounds like Donald Trump putting down another American hero, John McCain.)

***

Dip a toe into literature? Let’s dip. Kevin D. Williamson writes,

There is a new television series out set in the world of The Handmaid’s Tale, which means a new round of not very interesting discussions of the sexual politics at play, the relationship between sex-policing and broader authoritarian tendencies, all that stuff. One thing that is too often left unsaid in these conversations: Margaret Atwood is a hell of a writer, and The Handmaid’s Tale is a novel that is very much worth your time.

Huh. I have read about that novel but have not read it. (I could say the same about many novels. Many, many.)

I have had one encounter with Margaret Atwood. She wrote poems for a song-cycle by Jake Heggie: Songs for Murdered Children. I wrote about that cycle last year, here. Those poems are—damn good. I remember thinking, as I sat in Carnegie Hall, “The Handmaid’s Tale may be deplorable, but one thing seems clear: this woman can write.”

***

The heading over an obit reads, “Andrew Hacker, Author Who Challenged Conventional Thinking, Dies at 96.” I’m not sure this fellow would have been my cup of tea, or that I would have been his. But I was taken by something in his life story.

A political science major, he graduated from Amherst in 1951, from Oxford with a master’s degree in 1953, and from Princeton with a doctorate in 1955. He then joined Cornell as a lecturer, rose to full professor in 1966, and joined Queens College in 1971.

That would be Queens College in New York City, not Queens’ College, Cambridge, in England, or The Queen’s College, Oxford (also in England).

The obit continues,

“I looked at myself in the mirror one day and decided that I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life in an Ivy League school,” Professor Hacker recalled. After 16 years, the transition to the urban melting pot of Queens College was, in his words, “the ultimate.”

“The Cornell students were smarter, but the Queens students were hungrier,” he went on. “The administration at Queens said to me, ‘You want to come here?’ They couldn’t quite believe somebody would want to leave Cornell.”

I was struck by that: “… the Queens students were hungrier.”

***

Feel like a little language? I have pretty much given up on “reticence”—I mean, the retention of its meaning. People have seized it as a synonym for “reluctance.” Therefore, we will have to have a new word meaning “reticence.”

Will “taciturnity” suffice? But it’s a pity to lose “reticence.”

Here’s The Atlantic—The frickin’ Atlantic: “… even as he reiterated his reticence to back a progressive politician such as Gavin Newsom over JD Vance.”

I give up (although I may have some fight in me yet).

(The article from The Atlantic, by the way, is about Hasan Piker and is found here.)

(I had not heard of Hasan Piker until a few weeks ago. Since then, I have heard about practically nothing else.)

***

An old, old word came to thought the other day: “Yugoslavian.” I was writing about Ivo Pogorelich. When we first knew him, he was a “Yugoslavian pianist.” That phrase is burned into my mind, apparently: “Yugoslavian pianist.”

Pogorelich, properly, is Croatian.

Here’s another one: “Günther Herbig, the East German conductor.”

***

I texted a young friend the other day, “Everything copacetic?” I then worried that he might not know this word from long ago. But he did …

***

On social media, I spotted a wonderful video, which came out in 1992. It explains, and illustrates, the “Minnesota goodbye,” which is a long one. See the video here.

Reminded me of something I learned from my grandmother: “What’s the difference between the British and the Yiddish? The British leave without saying goodbye, and the Yiddish say goodbye without leaving.”

***

I was going to see some friends in a few days, and I found myself texting them a line from my dad: “As the butcher said when he bumped into the grinder, it won’t be long now.”

(This same butcher backed into the grinder and “got a little behind in his work.”)

***

Care for a little music? Here’s a review of Alexandre Kantorow, the phenomenal young pianist from France. (He played a recital in Carnegie Hall.)

***

Yesterday, I found myself tramping around Duke University. Here’s a shot:

And here’s James Buchanan Duke, the founder, or funder:

James Buchanan Duke was born on December 23, 1856, several weeks after James Buchanan was elected president of the United States. Did this have an influence on the name?

Dunno. Would like to ask the man’s parents …

***

Before I left for North Carolina, I was at the golf range in New York, talking with a man about the weather. He said, “Any weather I wake up to, is good weather.”

Well, happy weather to you all, and thanks so much for joining me. Talk to you soon.

In recent days, videos have shown North Korean soldiers arriving in Russia—ready to be sent to Ukraine. “Ready” is not quite the word. I’m not sure “soldiers” is either. These men are fodder. They are being sent into Putin’s war to kill and be killed.

I feel sorry for them. Obviously, I hope the Ukrainians can overcome them, but I feel sorry for them. It is wretched to be born North Korean.

We might say, too, that it’s wretched to be born Russian—especially if you are male, without privileges, and subject to the draft.

In the Ukraine war, the worst of the worst are allied: Putin, North Korea, China, Iran … The Free World ought to come to Ukraine’s defense, for Ukraine is defending the Free World, whether that world knows it or not.

One more thing, before I move on. This is an item from Meduza, the Russian news organization in exile: “Russia’s Culture Ministry denies distribution license for film about woman who leaves North Korea.”

Kim Jong-un scratches Putin’s back, and Putin scratches his. I hope they lose—Putin, Kim, Xi Jinping, the mullahs. The whole blood-soaked crew.

***

I know many people who feel they have lost their parents or grandparents to the media they consume—to the irresponsible media those elders consume. Maybe you know of such cases, too.

It is a source of sadness and frustration for many. Agony, even.

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Now, the American situation is very different from what Hungary has been. Still, I thought of our country, and this phenomenon, when reading a report out of Budapest: here.

I will quote the first three paragraphs:

As thousands swarmed the streets of Budapest last weekend to celebrate the defeat of Viktor Orbán, Balasz said he could not help thinking of his great-grandmother—now in her 80s, living in a rural town in Hungary’s deprived east. For her, having consumed little but state media for the past decade, the victory of Péter Magyar was not cause for joy, but for crippling fear.

Throughout Orbán’s reelection campaign, the media controlled by his governing Fidesz party depicted Magyar as a reckless enemy of peace, bent on dragging Hungary into the war in neighboring Ukraine. Balasz, a 42-year-old financial analyst who gave only his first name, said he was shocked by the extremity of the “lies” his great-grandmother was told each day …

“It’s like, you’re old, you’re in the countryside, you’re poor, you have, like, two TV channels, you’re listening to state radio” … The Orbánist propaganda, he said, reminded him of the sort peddled by the Communist authorities in the Soviet Union.

***

May I quote some Daniel Hannan to you? This is always an advisable move. In a column published last week, he writes,

Imagine it was someone other than President Donald Trump. Suppose a different leader were posting deranged rants in the small hours, insulting the spiritual leader of 1.3 billion Catholics, threatening entire civilizations with annihilation, and comparing himself to God. What would be the reaction?

We all know the answer. Both parties would be rushing to bundle him out of office before he did irreversible harm to the republic. Yet, as we all also know, different rules apply to Trump.

Hannan makes a point, or implies a point, that I have long made. Actually, I’m not sure I have long made it. I have long thought it. I will make it now.

For a while, I would say of my colleagues in the conservative movement, “They would never tolerate this in a Democratic president.” But the truth was even worse, if you will: They would never tolerate it in any other Republican president either.

Not Bush (either one). Not a Dole or a McCain or a Romney.

Nope, only Trump receives this strange exemption.

Why? Well, that requires psychological examination—even spiritual examination—and we might engage in that another time …

***

On April 15, Tax Day, Mayor Zohran Mamdani of New York circulated a video. It showed him outside a rich person’s apartment building, making a bogeyman out of that person and enthusing about taxing the rich.

Mamdani has his charm. He’s also a demagogue. And either you’re allergic to demagogues or you aren’t. And I am highly allergic.

I am also allergic to the politics of envy.

Moreover, I think this: to bogeyize a private citizen is un-American, illiberal, and dangerous.

(You will not find “bogeyize” in a dictionary. It is a Buckley word, like many excellent words.)

Remember: Demagogues start with easy targets—some Richie Rich, for example—and then, somehow, get to you …

***

I am not entirely sure of the proper use of “shibboleth.” I know that this word is subject to misuse.

Let me ask you: Is denial of the 2020 election a Republican shibboleth?

I was watching a video of Kevin Warsh, President Trump’s nominee to be chairman of the Federal Reserve. In testimony before the Senate, he refused to say whether Trump lost the 2020 election.

Back to “shibboleth.” Here is the relevant page in Merriam-Webster. There are several definitions—nuances, shades. I’m still not sure …

***

A column by Gerard Baker taught me the word “cacology.” Baker writes, “There are those who think Vance’s cacology might be the result of rising alarm in his fertile mind that he is falling out of favour with the boss.”

(The column was published in the Times of London: hence, “favour.”)

“Cacology,” according to Merriam-Webster, is “bad diction or pronunciation.”

By the way, many people equate “diction” with “enunciation.” It also refers to choice of words.

***

Have you seen this story?

The F.B.I. began investigating a New York Times reporter last month after she wrote about the bureau’s director, Kash Patel, using bureau personnel to provide his girlfriend with government security and transportation …

If Nixon has been reading the news of late, he must be thinking, “They made me resign? They were going to impeach me?”

***

Bear with me for a second, please. I was in Kyiv for several days at the end of 2019—talking with people about the war (which Russia began in 2014), talking with them about relations with the United States, etc. It was an illuminating and moving visit.

When Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022, I think I felt it all the more acutely, having been in Kyiv. This is not necessarily right. War—savage, murderous aggression—is just as bad in Syria or Sudan, where I have never been. But …

This story from a few days ago arrested me: “Gunman shoots several tourists at historic pyramids in Mexico, killing a Canadian.” I was there—at Teotihuacán—about this time last year. (For my relevant journal, go here.) Reading the story, I could picture it all.

***

“Texas can require public schools to display Ten Commandments in classrooms, court rules.” This story quotes Ken Paxton, the state’s attorney general, and a moral train wreck (which does not curb his popularity, apparently). Said Paxton: “The Ten Commandments have had a profound impact on our nation, and it’s important that students learn from them every single day.”

Well, I think the same thing applies to attorneys general.

And to us all, heaven knows …

***

Maybe I could close with a speck of music. The Metropolitan Opera has staged Eugene Onegin, that masterpiece by Tchaikovsky (based on that masterpiece by Pushkin). My review is here. A number of issues arise.

Should that be “arise” or “arises”? But we’re done with language today.

Later!

Sometimes I begin a sentence with “If I were president” just for laughs. So … If I were president, I would give a short, crisp speech saying what our goals in Iran are. That is, what are our goals in the war? What is our purpose? How will we know whether we have achieved it?

I study foreign affairs for a living, pretty much—and I don’t know the answers. I’m not sure the president and his team do.

There is also the question of: Can you trust the president? Can you believe what he says about negotiations in Pakistan, etc.?

A reader of mine said something like this: “We have reached a strange pass when I have to check with the brutes in Iran to know whether what our president has said about what they have agreed to is true.”

Often, people roll their eyes when they hear about the importance of character. “Character is destiny” and all that. It sounds goody-goody. It sounds girly. And people—many of them—want to be all macho. “Me strong man!”

Well, strength of character is important.

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***

I would like to note a report in the Guardian, mainly for the purpose of making a general point. There are many such reports. This one bears the following heading and subheading:

‘We were terrified they were going to kill us’: fishers who survived US boat strike speak out

​An Ecuadorian fishing crew describe their ordeal as victims of Trump’s purported war on ‘narcoterrorists’

When I read the story, I had a painful thought: “We’re the good guys, dammit.” I mean, isn’t that our self-image, and isn’t that the reality? Hasn’t it been?

A year ago, I filed a report from Copenhagen. I had gone to talk with Danes about our new belligerence toward them: threats concerning Greenland, in particular. Maybe I could quote the last few paragraphs of that report:

Two days before coming here, I heard a talk by William McRaven, the retired admiral who commanded our special operations. He is best known for being in charge of the raid that killed bin Laden. He was speaking in New York to a gathering of the Renew Democracy Initiative, an organization chaired by Garry Kasparov, the chess champion who is now a full-time human-rights and democracy champion.

We Americans, McRaven said, have always thought of ourselves as the good guys. We have made mistakes, of course. We are not saints or angels. But on the whole, we are the good guys, standing against the darkness of the world.

To think it might be otherwise—with respect to Ukraine, Denmark, and other arenas—is incredibly bitter.

***

Usually, my language notes are at the bottom of my column. But I would like to pause for one now—two, actually.

In that Guardian headline, did you notice the word “fishers”? I’m not sure I have seen that, outside the Bible (King James Version): “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.”

My guess is, the Guardian uses “fishers” in order to avoid “fishermen,” which some would find sex-specific. (I would not find it so, but I’m on the losing side of that battle, among others.)

Also, did you notice the spelling “Ecuadorian”? I have always written “Ecuadorean,” which strikes me as natural. (Same with “Mozartean,” which I use regularly, in music pieces.)

***

Reading about a disruption at the UCLA law school, I thought of Jeane Kirkpatrick—a favorite memory of her, actually.

Here’s what happened at UCLA: That school’s Federalist Society had invited the general counsel of the Homeland Security Department to speak. The result was mayhem.

FIRE, which is to say, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, issued a statement:

What happened at UCLA Law undermines a university’s basic function. Students have every right to object, question, and peacefully protest invited speakers. But sustained disruption preventing others from hearing a speaker has no place at a university committed to free inquiry.

All right, what about Jeane K. and “a favorite memory” of mine? I’ll quote a piece I wrote in 2020—a piece about free speech, particularly on campus:

In 1983, Jeane Kirkpatrick had to leave a stage at the University of California, Berkeley. She was then the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, and was a veteran political-science professor. The students would not let her finish her speech. (She eventually returned and did.) Jesse Choper, dean of the campus’s law school, said, “You children should be ashamed of yourselves.” Later, Kirkpatrick said, “I have not seen a group so interested in denying free speech and discussion.”

Why is this a “favorite memory” of mine? Well, I myself was in college at the time. And I had seen speakers shouted down, prevented from speaking. Usually, they tried to soldier through. But Jeane K.? She just up and left. She left the stage with a disgusted “To hell with you” attitude. With an attitude that said, “You jerks aren’t worth my time.”

I loved her for that, and many other things.

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***

Did I mention college? Well, this was high school—or the summer between my senior year and my freshman year of college. Earlier this week, the Associated Press ran a story headed “Nathalie Baye, French actor known for her warmth and versatility, dies at 77.”

I will never get used to “actor” for women, but …

Anyway, in 1982, she was in a movie called “The Return of Martin Guerre.” I saw it immediately, in part because I was a student of French. And it was hard for 18-year-old me—or most anyone else, I imagine—not to fall in love with Nathalie Baye.

***

Back to something serious—the U.S. government. Did you see this, about our secretary of health and human services? “RFK Jr. once chopped off a dead raccoon’s penis to ‘study later’ while on a family road trip.”

I think we’ve gone beyond Caligula’s-horse territory and have now entered Caligula’s-horse’s-penis territory.

***

Out of Washington, the AP reports,

Eight months after President Donald Trump declared a crime emergency in the nation’s capital and called up the National Guard, more than 2,500 troops remain, in a deployment that has grown increasingly routine, with no clear end in sight.

I’m reminded of an old lesson: Policies or practices that get implemented on an “emergency” basis may well become permanent. (In Egypt, Hosni Mubarak ruled by “emergency” decree for 30 years.)

***

“Possible Spirit rescue fuels new fears about government involvement in business,” reads the headline over this story. “The U.S. could end up owning 90% of the struggling budget airline in a potential deal under discussion. Experts warn it would set a dangerous precedent.”

Yes. If this were a Democratic administration, not a Republican one, Republicans would be squawking, mightily. And I would be squawking mightily along with them.

Also, I can’t help remembering that Donald Trump once owned an airline: the Trump Shuttle. One of his less successful ventures.

***

On social media, the journalist Ben Jacobs pointed out a correction in the New York Times. Want to read it?

Because of an editing error, an earlier version of this article misstated which day the New York Mets suffered their 11th straight loss. It was on Sunday, not Monday. Even the Mets cannot lose on an off day.

As we would have said in the ’70s, “Man, that’s cold. Cold-blooded.”

***

A few days ago, Lincoln Center Plaza, here in New York, got … cinematic:

And Central Park is blooming its hiney off:

Thank you for joining me today, y’all. Truly appreciate you.

… our guest today is Cass Sunstein, the law professor, the legal thinker, the writer. For many years, he taught at the University of Chicago, and for many years since, he has taught at Harvard. He has written a profusion of books, to go with countless articles—though maybe someone has counted them.

His latest books, I believe, are On Liberalism: In Defense of Freedom and Separation of Powers: How to Preserve Liberty in Troubled Times.

Professor Sunstein is also a Substacker. His Substack is called, straightforwardly enough, “Cass’s Substack.” Truth in advertising. It is delightful and nutritious, time after time.

Toward the top of our program, we spend some time on liberalism—beginning with what it is, what we mean by it. In his book on liberalism, Sunstein isn’t talking about the policy preferences of George McGovern or Barack Obama. He’s talking about the liberalism of the American founding, a liberalism that encompasses Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan, et al.

The “holy trinity” of liberalism, says Sunstein, is “the rule of law, pluralism, and freedom.”

Hey, what’s “the rule of law”? Sunstein gives a very clear explication of that as well.

As for the separation of powers—how’s that going in these United States? Sunstein points out something interesting: Congressmen “have been more protective of their own party’s president than of their own institution.” And this is something the Framers “didn’t anticipate.”

In 2020, David French published a book called “Divided We Fall: America’s Secession Threat and How to Restore Our Nation.” Let me quote from my review of it:

French is doing his best to make an academic paper famous. He has cited it in his speeches for years, and he devotes a chapter to it in his book. He says that the paper does no less than “explain America.” If there is one point in the book to understand, he says, it is the point of the paper.

What is this blockbuster piece of writing? Published in 1999, it’s “The Law of Group Polarization,” by Cass Sunstein … And what is its point? French boils it down to these simple words: “When people of like mind gather, they tend to become more extreme.”

This extremism can lead to nasty words on social media, sure. It can also lead to a lot more.

In our Q&A, Professor Sunstein expounds.

His sport is squash, and he has a reputation for it. I ask, “Are you a professional or a top amateur?” He will allow the following and no more: “Well, I’d say an avid squash player. I’ve played in professional tournaments but haven’t done particularly well in them, so I consider myself an enthusiast and not incompetent.”

At the end of our conversation, we say a quick goodbye—because he is “due on the court,” as he says.

I have written many times about Robert Conquest, the historian and poet (and a friend of mine, I’m lucky to say). I once asked him (something like), “What are you?” In other words, “How would you describe yourself politically?”

In the course of his answer, he brought up Orwell: who spoke of “law and liberty.” The “law-and-liberty lands.” Bob said, “I’m for a law-and-liberty culture.”

So, indeed, is Cass Sunstein, who is a superb interlocutor, a superb teacher. You will see and hear.

Earlier this month, I wrote a piece remembering President Reagan—in particular, how he always took care to separate people under dictatorship from the dictatorship itself. In other words, he never equated the victimized with the victimizers. And, at every opportunity, he spoke over the heads of dictatorships to the people under their thumb, or boot.

My piece is here. (It was prompted by the Iran war.)

In my piece, I quoted a speech that Reagan gave at the Ukrainian National Catholic Shrine in Washington, D.C. That was in July 1987. He began by saying,

Let us look forward to the day when Ukrainian Catholics and members of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church will again be free to gather and worship in churches like this in their own homeland.

Later on, he said,

Our global commitment to freedom does not mandate the sending of arms or troops, but at the very least it means that any people whose liberty is denied or whose independence is violated—that these people know we Americans are on their side.

Yes. That was the point, or one important point. Even if we could do nothing for a people, materially, we would let them know that we were on their side. It was moral (to use an antique word).

Anyway, I quoted the above comments in my piece earlier this month. I would like to quote some more.

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Reagan was speaking to a conference during Captive Nations Week. The shrine was a natural venue for the conference. He said,

This commemoration is in keeping with the vision of our Founding Fathers, who saw our new land as an inspiration to all mankind, a bastion of freedom, and a shining beacon of hope for all the world’s oppressed. And that’s what America is all about, and together, we intend to keep her that way.

Doesn’t that seem like a long, long time ago?

Reagan spoke of Abraham Lincoln and his admiration of Lajos Kossuth, that champion of Hungarian independence. Kossuth toured America in 1852, stopping by Springfield, Illinois.

By the way, I have often quoted Kossuth in my writings about peace (this one, for example): “I am a man of peace—God knows how I love peace. But I hope I shall never be such a coward as to mistake oppression for peace.”

Andrei Sakharov, the great Russian dissident, did not like to talk about human rights in general. He did not like to talk about human rights in the abstract. He wanted to talk about particular cases—about political prisoners, especially ones he knew personally.

(His widow, Yelena Bonner, told me this.)

Reagan, too, was mindful to talk about particular cases. Here he is at the Ukrainian shrine:

Petro Ruban, for example, is a prisoner in Special Regimen Labor Camp No. 36-1, one of the most notorious of the Soviet camps. In 1976, he fashioned a wooden replica of the Statue of Liberty and for that was taken away. Later, he was arrested again for criticizing the invasion of Afghanistan.

Well, free Petro and the others in the Gulag and respect people’s fundamental human rights.

That’s the way an American president talked.

He liked jokes—or humorous stories that made a point. Listen:

People who live in the Soviet Union tell many funny stories, often as a form of underground protest. One is about the question: What is a Communist? The answer: A person who has read the works of Marx and Lenin. And the question: What is an anti-Communist? The answer: Someone who understands the works of Marx and Lenin.

About his country, America, Reagan said,

We are the keepers of the flame. It’s up to us to foster the legacy of those who came before us and to ensure America remains a champion of liberty and a force for good in the world.

One more statement from this fella, this kid from Dixon, Illinois:

I think America is heading into one of the greatest periods in its history. Yes, we have our differences, and at times politics can get pretty rough. Democracy is not for weak spirits. Whatever problems we have, whatever differences we have, however, are minor compared with those of our adversaries.

Freedom is now on the offensive. We turned a corner in 1981, and if we have courage and are realistic in our approach to world affairs, freedom will not only survive, it will triumph.

Huh.

***

Speaking of freedom: As I have mentioned in this space before, I am a journalist-in-residence at the Center for the Philosophy of Freedom, which is a component of the University of Arizona, in Tucson. I’m sitting in New York. But I am a journalist-in-residence in spirit, let’s say!

My fellow journalist-in-residence is Johanna Maska, and, on Thursday, we recorded a “Substack Live.” I believe this is a podcast, only one done “live,” rather than on “tape.”

I’m afraid my words are outdated.

In any case, that “live” is here. (And “live” rhymes with “dive,” not “give.”) (English is a mess, isn’t it? A glorious, perfect mess.)

***

Last week, I had a piece on Eliot Engel—a remembrance, an appreciation. For many years, he was a congressman from New York, and he called himself a “JFK Democrat,” and just about the last of them.

My piece is here. And I thought you’d like to see a comment by Kyle Parker. Kyle is an invaluable guy, the chief of staff at the U.S. Helsinki Commission. I have done a couple of podcasts with him: this one in 2023, for example (and an accompanying article about it is here).

Anyway, Kyle:

***

Feel like a little music? For a review of Khatia Buniatishvili, the Georgian pianist, who gave a recital in Carnegie Hall, go here.

***

A little sports? On Twitter, “Ballesteros” was trending. For me, that can only be Seve, the golf champion. But it was Moisés Ballesteros, a catcher and designated hitter for the Chicago Cubs.

Okay, then!

***

A little language—sort of? On social media, people often express an opinion and add, “and it’s not even close.” For example, “Smith is the best ever, and it’s not even close.”

This is a sign of insecurity, I think. It says, “Don’t argue with me, case closed, shut up.”

Bluster, to be avoided.

***

I spotted a passage from Robert A. Heinlein, which comes from his novel Friday:

A dying culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness. Bad manners. Lack of consideration for others in minor matters. A loss of politeness, of gentle manners, is more significant than is a riot.

That is something to think about, at length.

***

On the subject of manners, or of general behavior: I met some fellow Midwesterners of mine at a restaurant here in New York last week. We were going to have a quick bite. Basically, we had about 45 minutes to talk.

For his family and me, Adam ordered just a little—an appetizer or two, and some sparkling water. He said to the waitress, “We’re pressed for time, a car is picking us up at 1 to go to the airport, so …”

I thought, and said: “That’s so like us. So Midwestern. We have to explain to the waitress why we’re not ordering more. We have to apologize, practically. That is so us, isn’t it? A New Yorker would just order what he wanted—period.”

In all my years here, I have never quite adapted …

Maybe I could paste a little note I wrote in 2021. (It’s “on-topic.”)

I loved Wally Moses—I think everyone did. He was the father of Howard Moses, the president and founder of the Cruise & Vacation Authority, which has handled dozens of National Review cruises. Wally was a businessman and bon vivant from Albany, G-A. He was a great raconteur—one of the best and funniest storytellers in world history. Oh, to hear that splendid southern baritone, in those tales!

A day or two before Howard wrote to inform me that his dad had passed on, I was thinking about him—thinking about Wally. One night, I observed him in the casino—the casino aboard the cruise ship. He played a few hands or rounds of whatever he was playing. Then he said, “I quit.” The pretty young woman behind the table—doing her job and trying to keep him on—said, “Awww, why?” Wally answered—you’ve got to hear the accent, and the sheer breeziness and confidence with which he said it—“Because I want to.”

What is so remarkable about that? Well, in brief: Where I come from, you really didn’t say that. You had to invent some excuse. “I’m tired” or “I told my sister I’d meet her” or whatever. Are you allowed simply to say, “Because I want to”?

I want to be more like Wally when I grow up, and I’m trying.

Have you had enough for one day? Enough out of me? Well, I’ve had enough out of me. Thank you for joining me, my friends, and for your—you know: your support and all that. Later on.

Are you Hungary’d out? If you were, I wouldn’t blame you. I myself have been writing about this subject for years now. Last month, for instance, I published a piece about a ghastly coalition: “Putin and Trump for Orbán.”

We all know that “politics makes strange bedfellows.” But this is—well, ghastly.

Hungary’d out as we may be, the subject is important, and I would like to jot a few notes, in the wake of last weekend’s elections, in which Viktor Orbán and his party went down, at long last.

Gregg Nunziata, you know. He is the executive director of the Society for the Rule of Law. Recently, I did a podcast with him, here.

On social media, he wrote:

One lesson from Hungary is that the fight for freedom against corruption and autocracy is not right versus left. Central and Eastern Europeans know well that threats to liberty can come from the right or the left. Were we to know this better, our politics might be transformed.

That is a key point, a key observation. (As I have often remarked, it’s amazing what you can say in a tweet—even an old-fashioned, tightly limited tweet.)

(Bill Buckley used to say it was amazing what you could say on a bumper sticker. You could boil down big, big topics into bumper-sticker language: “Better Red Than Dead”; “Better Dead Than Red.”)

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***

Let me try something out on you, please. I’m going to exaggerate, at the end, but only a little, in order to make a point. See whether you think I’m off base or on.

For ten or more years, the nationalist-populist Right, in various countries, made Orbán’s Hungary a focus of attention. His regime was the beau idéal of this Right.

In America, the nat-pop Right included the Heritage Foundation, CPAC, and so on. Donald Trump and the Republican Party boosted Orbán constantly.

All the while, the Kremlin did the same, of course.

Many people went to Budapest, in trips that were like pilgrimages. Some—including old friends of mine—went to work for Orbán.

This year, he tried for a sixth term in office. The international illiberal Right—“the whole global movement,” as Nigel Farage calls it—rallied ’round him.

President Trump campaigned for him, through social-media posts and videos. Secretary of State Marco Rubio showed up in person. “Our success is your success,” he told Orbán. “Especially as long as you’re the prime minister and the leader of this country, it’s in our national interest that Hungary be successful.”

Vice President JD Vance showed up in person, too, in the last days of the campaign.

From France, Marine Le Pen showed up. From Italy, Matteo Salvini showed up. From Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu planned to show up, but the Iran war kept him at home and he sent a video instead—a video in support of Orbán. He also sent his son, who rallied for Orbán in person.

In any event, a sixth term for Orbán—his perpetuation in power—was extremely important to “the whole global movement.” And when Orbán and his party lost, we heard this, from the “movement”:

“Hungary? Where’s that? Who cares about Hungary, what’s the big deal? Why are the libs making such a fuss? Hungary is a small, insignificant landlocked country, and the libs are all a-flutter. Silly libs!”

***

James M. Patterson has chapter and verse, in an article published by Providence magazine. Chapter and verse on what? Well, Professor Patterson’s article is titled “The Grand Budapest Cartel,” and it begins,

When Vice President JD Vance was campaigning for Viktor Orbán earlier this month, he was also campaigning to preserve the Hungarian funding for the New Right organizations that would support his own future political ambitions. With Orbán defeated, that money is gone. The Hungarians, in their own way, helped decide the future of American conservatism.

How is that possible? How did this happen?

A very interesting story (and to some of us, a little sickening).

***

I grew up with the phrase “goulash communism.” This meant the kind of communism practiced in Hungary—although “practiced in” is not the right phrase; “imposed on” is better.

Well, I suppose we have now seen “goulash conservatism,” or better, “goulash rightism,” or “goulash autocracy” or “kleptocracy” or … Whatever we call it, I hope the allure of it fades, in America at least.

***

Can you stand one more note on Hungary? I was thinking: I wonder whether Péter Szijjártó will pull a Karin Kneissl. Szijjártó has been Orbán’s foreign minister since 2014.

Kneissl was Austria’s foreign minister from 2017 to 2019. She now lives in Russia, working for Putin (more directly, I mean).

She was foreign minister in the nationalist-populist government headed by Sebastian Kurz. Kurz now works for Thiel Capital (and duly endorsed Orbán for reelection this year). In 2018, Kneissl got married, and Putin was a guest of honor at her wedding.

She danced with him, then curtsied before him in her dirndl, gazing up at him adoringly.

I always thought that this posture symbolized the position of “the whole global movement” (to borrow Nigel Farage’s words once again).

After she left government—Austria’s, I mean—Kneissl joined the board of Rosneft, the Russian oil giant. She also blogged for RT, the Kremlin propaganda network.

Finally, she just “went home,” to Russia itself.

And Péter Szijjártó? I have written about him a fair amount. In 2016, he was a guest speaker on a National Review cruise. Our ship was docked in Budapest. I made myself absent, taking a walk around town. Just a little private protest.

Orbánism, I thought, was very unlike American conservatism, as I had always understood it, and still do.

In 2021, Szijjártó received the Kremlin’s Order of Friendship. This was in November, when Putin was massing troops along the Ukrainian border, preparing his full-scale invasion.

Let me paste a paragraph from an article I published last December:

Alexei Navalny, the Russian opposition leader, was killed in prison on February 16, 2024. A funeral for him was held in Moscow on March 1. On that day, Foreign Minister Szijjártó was meeting with Sergei Lavrov, Putin’s foreign minister. Pictures showed them laughing it up together—which nauseated some of us.

In the recent Hungarian campaign, transcripts of phone calls between Szijjártó and Lavrov were leaked. “I’m always at your service,” the Hungarian tells the Russian.

And it was no different between Orbán and Putin. “In any matter where I can be of assistance, I am at your service,” said the Hungarian to the Russian.

What services can Orbán and Szijjártó provide to the Kremlin now? None, I hope.

I will have another column for you tomorrow, with happier subjects, mainly—but I consider the defeat of Orbán happy, as it is a defeat for his allies as well: Russia, China, and Iran, which menace and brutalize the world in multiple ways.

A few days ago, I was talking with a friend who is a veteran conservative writer. She was saying that she felt homeless, tribeless, politically. “But I have my friends,” she said.

Yes.

I thought of a story that Bill Buckley used to tell. He told it in various ways, but here is one version, from a column in the New York Times, published in 1983:

There are two strangers taking wine at a café in the French provinces. After a while, one addresses the other, who is reading a newspaper, and asks, “Do you like Americans?” “No,” is the curt answer. ‘‘Well, then, do you like Frenchmen?” Again, “No.” “Well, do you like Jews?” “No.” “Catholics?” “No.” Finally, with some exasperation, ‘‘Well, whom do you like?” Without looking up from his newspaper: ‘‘I like my friends.”

***

You have seen this, I trust, circulated by the president of the United States:

I have long had an idea, which I think would make some publisher some money: a book of Trump iconography. It might sell to everyone: to anti-Trumpers, to marvel at the outlandishness; and to Trumpers, to enjoy the imagery.

Plus, such a book would leave a record, of a time in American history.

Can you imagine, by the way, if a Democratic president—Barack Obama, let’s say—routinely circulated such imagery of himself? Man alive.

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Still, a lot of people objected to the Trump-as-Jesus thing, including some Republicans. I will quote from a news report:

Trump on Monday deleted an image of him as Jesus from his Truth Social account amid intense backlash, telling reporters that he thought it was meant to portray him as a doctor.

“I thought it was me as a doctor and had to do with the Red Cross,” he said outside the West Wing. “It’s supposed to be me as a doctor making people better. And I do make people better.”

According to some of my critics, I have “TDS”—“Trump Derangement Syndrome”—but, you know? I’m not sure I believe the president.

In any case, it’s interesting that Trump deleted the image. He is not much of a deleter, which is probably to his credit. He “owns” what he publishes.

He did some serious deleting after the election of 2016, however. Four years earlier, he had jotted a series of tweets about the Electoral College. For a time, on Election Day 2012, it looked like Mitt Romney might win the “popular vote” while losing to President Obama in the Electoral College.

Here is a sample of Trump’s tweeting:

“This election is a total sham and a travesty. We are not a democracy!”

“He lost the popular vote by a lot and won the election. We should have a revolution in this country!”

“More votes equals a loss … revolution!”

“The phoney electoral college made a laughing stock out of our nation. The loser one!”

“The electoral college is a disaster for a democracy.”

Four years later, Trump became president via that very mechanism. He deleted his 2012 tweet storm—but it had been captured by the media at the time.

Kind of interesting, right? It speaks to the tribalism, or partisanship, of everything. Everything is “situational,” ungrounded in principle.

***

The Iran war began on February 28. I have written relatively little about it, which is surprising, given that I have spent a lifetime, virtually, writing about foreign affairs. A great deal about war and peace. And here, my own country is in a war.

I believe it is a war, by the way. I will quote from a column I published on March 24:

“The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their right names.” Who said that? Plato or Confucius? In any case, more than one sage has said it, over the millennia.

President Trump says that only Democrats call the Iran war a “war.” “They call it a ‘war’; we call it a ‘military operation.’”

Vladimir Putin calls his war on Ukraine a “special military operation.” It’s “special,” all right.

Here is a curiosity: The administration that insists on calling the Department of Defense the “Department of War” won’t call the Iran war a “war.”

In any event, I sure as hell hope we win. What would winning look like? That is a challenging question.

We will return to that in a minute.

More quoting of President Trump—who said, “I won’t use the word ‘war’ because they say, if you use the word ‘war,’ that’s maybe not a good thing to do. They don’t like the word ‘war,’ because you’re supposed to get approval, so I’ll use the word ‘military operation,’ which is really what it is.”

This reminds me of Rwanda in 1994. The Clinton administration was reluctant to use the word “genocide”—which applied—because that would have obligated the administration to act.

Trump has also used the phrase “little excursion” to describe our war in Iran. He has done that many times. Some people think that he heard the word “incursion” from someone and interpreted it as “excursion.”

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As I mentioned above, I have written about the war relatively little. Five days into it, I published an essay called “Facing Iran.” Two days after that, I published another one, focused on Iranian dissidents and their views of the war.

Concluding that first essay, I wrote,

The ayatollahs’ regime has been in power for 47 years. It has been a curse on mankind: on Iranians, first and foremost; on the Middle East; and on the world at large. There is much to say about the current operation—“Operation Epic Fury,” the Americans call it, while the Israelis call it “Operation Roaring Lion.” There will be plenty of time to say it, as events unfold.

I will say, here and now: I wish our forces, and those of our ally, Israel, every success.

Why have I written relatively little about the war? (I’m asking myself this question, not you, the reader.) Frankly, because I have not been quite sure what to say. I have been waiting for clarity. And if I have nothing to say—nothing interesting, nothing useful, nothing worthwhile—I shouldn’t type.

If you had told me, short years ago, that I would be ambivalent about a U.S.-Israeli attack on the Iranian regime—I would have wondered why.

Our president, Trump, and our secretary of defense, Hegseth, have not filled me with confidence. Their statements on the war have often been cartoonish, sometimes alarmingly so.

And the prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu? Two weeks ago, I published an essay on that subject: “Bibi and Me.” That one concludes,

The truth is, I’m ambivalent about Netanyahu. … My only comfort is that others of my acquaintance are in the same boat.

Today, the key question to ask, I think, is: Was the Iran war worth it? I’m not even sure what tense to use: “was”? Is the war over? And how do you decide whether the war was worth it?

We have killed a lot of people—a lot of innocent Iranians. I understand that this is inevitable, or nearly so, in war. Forgive the repetition, but: was it worth it?

What have our objectives been, by the way? (That is a big “by the way.”) Trump, Hegseth, and others have been all over the place.

“Unconditional surrender.” The end of the regime. Freedom for the Iranian people.

The reopening of the Strait of Hormuz?

I think of an old, old saying, dating from antiquity: “If you strike a king, kill him.” Is the regime still standing? What about the state of its nuclear program? Can the regime still inflict harm on its neighbors? What about its internal standing? Is the regime in a position to carry out reprisals against its critics and dissenters, making Iran more oppressive than ever?

As you can see, I have many questions and not many answers. I don’t know whether the war was worth it. “Was”? “Has been”? “Will be”?

Perhaps you are in the same boat as I. To be continued …

***

I have a lot more items for you, but I see I have gone long. I’ll talk to you again soon. (That’s a warning, not a promise.) Maybe I could leave you with a couple of shots of Central Park, springing.

Thank you, my friends. Didn’t we begin this column with friendship? You know this Cole Porter song? “Friendship, friendship, just a perfect blendship.” I think my favorite line is: “If you ever lose your teeth when you’re out to dine, borrow mine.”

Later.

He is Gregg Nunziata, the executive director of SRL—the Society for the Rule of Law. The organization serves an important purpose.

Gregg worked in the Justice Department. And for the Senate Judiciary Committee. And for the Senate Republican Policy Committee. And for Senator Marco Rubio. And so on.

He was in the heart of the Republican legal world.

These days, he has one overriding concern: to defend the rule of law.

Yes, and that’s a fine overriding concern to have.

At the outset of our Q&A, I ask Gregg, “What is the rule of law?” I will paraphrase his answer (though closely):

I think the rule of law, most basically, is the idea of fair play—that we, as citizens, as individuals, live in a system that has rules for resolving disputes.

For most of human history, the weak have been at the mercy of the strong, or the whim of a leader. That is still true for most of the world today. The rule of law is a great equalizer that puts all this aside and says, “We’re going to resolve our differences peacefully and through process.” …

Everything that human beings value—everything that Americans value and maybe take for granted—rests on the rule of law. Prosperity, physical security, our liberties—it all depends on the rule of law.

My remark is, “Yes, it’s kind of the ballgame” (and I’m not so sure about the “kind of”).

The Society for the Rule of Law was founded by a bunch of conservative Republicans, basically, who were concerned about what was happening on “the legal right,” as Gregg Nunziata says, and on the right generally.

What was happening? Well, you know: a collapse of principle.

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Gregg and I talk a bit about his upbringing, his education, his formation. In the 1980s, there were two people who made a deep, deep impression on him: a president, Ronald Reagan, and a Supreme Court justice, Antonin Scalia.

After 9/11, Gregg wanted to work in government somehow—and he eventually got to Washington.

About one of the people he worked for, I tell him the following:

Marco Rubio may have been my favorite politician in America—certainly top five. I have no idea who he is. There’s “no there there.” I have a better grasp on Lindsey Graham! I have no idea who Marco Rubio is, except for the ambition part. And I absolutely adored him.

Gregg says,

I worked for three senators directly. I worked with many others, but with three directly. The first, I respected; the second, I loved; but the third, I believed in.

The first was Arlen Specter, from Pennsylvania. The second was John Thune, who is now the majority leader. And the third was Marco Rubio. …

I really believed in him and his vision. I worked closely with him for four years, and very much wanted him to win the presidential nomination in 2016. A part of me died that year. I mean, it was really disillusioning.

Gregg remembers a fellow who “would speak really, really eloquently about the power of democracy, about the importance of international alliances, about the importance of USAID …”

Yeah.

At some point, Gregg and I talk about the Justice Department. I had always understood it to be an institution serving the country as a whole. Now it is simply the president’s legal shop—an instrument of his will. They have hung a banner of him—of his visage—on the department itself, physically.

Gregg says: “civic blasphemy.”

He also says that lawyers working for the government once understood themselves to be lawyers first, meaning that they told the president when something was undoable because it was unlawful.

Autres temps, autres mœurs.

Gregg says,

I hear regularly from conservative law students that the law doesn’t matter, that we live in a post-legal regime, a post-constitutional regime, or that everything is just about power. Or you hear that law is just an elaborate ruse of the Left to suppress traditionalism and Western civilization.

If you can’t count on a conservative law student to believe in law, you’re in a rough spot. …

I’m just scandalized by the radicalism we see in the Republican Party and from young self-styled conservative intellectuals who don’t want to conserve a thing but want to burn everything down. That worldview has been wrong since Paris in 1789.

Yet Gregg does not despair—and he works every day toward “American renewal,” as he puts it.

For my money, Gregg Nunziata is one of the most important lawyers in the country. He could be at a high, high echelon of power, in the Republican Party, in the Trump administration. All he had to do was play along.

Instead, he heads this Society for the Rule of Law. I’m grateful for the guy, and I know you’ll enjoy getting to know him.

You may have seen this preview of the Trump presidential “library”:

This is perfectly fitting, for Trump. But is it the same for America? I would like to say no. And I do say no. But …

I think of the famous answer from Bill Parcells, when he was asked something like, “Your team is better than its record, right?” Coach Parcells said, “You are what your record says you are.”

There are two major parties in this country. Each represents roughly half the country. One of those parties has nominated Trump for president three times in a row. Never before had anyone been nominated by the GOP three times in a row. Only Trump holds that distinction, that honor.

And I have no doubt that, given the chance, Republicans would nominate him a fourth time.

And the country, in its wisdom, elected him twice. (Once via the Electoral College, but that counts.)

So, you are what your record says you are, right?

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This leads me to the arch:

You can read a story about it in the New York Times: “Officials Release Design for 250-Foot Arch in Washington, as Trump Seeks Another Imprint.”

I think this arch is unfitting, out of place. I think it is swollen, elephantine, almost grotesque. Of course, I think the same of Trump’s redesign of the White House. And I think his larding up of that house with gold is something like civic profanation.

But “know thyself” is an important principle. So let me undertake some self-examination.

As a conservative, I am instinctively resistant to change, and that arch changes a stretch of our capital that I know very well, and cherish.

I am also aware that Parisians at first recoiled at the Eiffel Tower. In relatively short order, the tower was part of the furniture, an emblem of the city.

I also know this: that I am against Trump. When I was a kid, I noticed something about myself. Caught myself in something. Lots of people smoked cigarettes then. And it occurred to me that I was bothered by the smoke of people I disliked—and bothered a lot less, if at all, by the smoke of people I liked.

And it was the same smoke (so to speak).

So, I take all this into account. Still, I think the new arch is a gross imposition, and a besmirchment.

David Frum made an observation that caused me to smart:

Something very late Roman about the triumphal arches growing bigger and gaudier as the triumphs themselves grow scarcer and more dubious.

I also smarted at something Simon Schama wrote:

Where’s Edward Gibbon when we really need him?

In early February, I wrote a piece titled “Hail, Caesar? Hell, No.” It ended,

[Trump] is building an arch: a triumphal arch, to be placed near the entrance of Arlington National Cemetery, across the Potomac from the Lincoln Memorial. People are calling this the “Arc de Trump” (get it?)

In October, Ed O’Keefe of CBS News asked the president, “Who’s it for?” Trump pointed to himself and answered, “Me.”

This is not the American way—unless the American people want it to be so. May the republican spirit (note the small “r”) make a comeback.

***

Linda Chavez recorded a podcast with Bill Kristol. This podcast was made for me, as they are two of my favorite people. For a half-hour or so, they discuss their careers and some essential political questions.

Listening to this podcast, I might as well have been eating a hot-fudge sundae. Delicious.

Linda and Bill talk about Democrats who served in the Reagan administrations. (I am being old-fashioned here, describing one four-year term as an “administration.”) Linda herself was a Democrat. I don’t believe Bill was, though he had worked for Democrats: Henry M. “Scoop” Jackson and Daniel Patrick Moynihan.

Bill Bennett was a Democrat. So was Max Kampelman. So was Jeane Kirkpatrick.

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I thought of Jeane K., as Linda and Bill talked. I got to know her a bit in her final years. Introducing her once, William F. Buckley Jr. said, “She ought to be woven into the flag as the 51st star.” When I first met her, I mentioned this line—recited it. She said, “That’s the nicest thing anyone ever said about me.” I said, “That’s the nicest thing anyone ever said about anybody.”

Jeane was our ambassador to the United Nations during the first Reagan administration. Through all four of those years, she was a Democrat, as she always had been. She did not change her registration until after she had left government. She was 59. (Reagan had been 51 when he went from D to R.) Jeane remarked, “I’d rather be a liberal.”

(You will find all this in Peter Collier’s biography of Kirkpatrick, which I reviewed here.)

She was a liberal. And also a conservative. These terms can be dizzying. I have written about them many times—here, for example. (“American Conservatism and Liberal Democracy: Why one thing goes with the other.”)

In the podcast with Linda, Bill speaks of “liberal anti-communism.” Once, when I was working for Bill at The Weekly Standard—this was in the mid-1990s—I said to him, “Aren’t we liberals, really? Hasn’t the Left misappropriated the term?” Bill answered, in essence, “Give it up, Jay. You have to use words as they are understood in your particular time and place.”

(I cited this exchange in a 2012 essay called “A World of Labels.”)

Well, words keep shifting on us. And I’d better move on to another subject before I find myself typing yet another article about political terms, starting with “liberal” and “conservative” …

***

Above, I mentioned Bill Bennett. I thought of him the other day when looking at this, um … amazing correction:

In 1995, Bill was talking to The New Yorker about Pat Buchanan. Buchanan was “flirting” with fascism, he said. Characterizing Buchanan’s ideology, Bill said, “It’s a real us-and-them kind of thing.”

When The New Yorker’s article came out, that line was rendered, “It’s a real S&M kind of thing.” The magazine had to run a correction.

(John Roche once spoke of “Upper West Side Jacobins.” In a Jimmy Breslin column, that line came out “Upper West Side jackal bins.”)

***

May I run something from the comments section? In this article for The Next Move, I made the point that Reagan always distinguished between dictatorships and the people under their boot. He liked to talk over the heads of the dictatorships to the people themselves.

I quoted a New Year’s address he gave to “the peoples of the Soviet Union.” This was on the last day of 1986, over the Voice of America. President Reagan said,

The American people are deeply concerned with the fate of individual people, wherever they might be throughout the world. We believe that God gave sacred rights to every man, woman, and child on earth.

Leaving a comment, Valeriy Ginzburg said that he remembered hearing that New Year’s address.

It was a breath of fresh air. I immigrated to the U.S. in the early 1990s, and was favoring the center-left politicians, but Reagan always was one of my heroes for his undying love of freedom.

Mr. Ginzburg added,

It is terrible that the “leaders” of our country today support dictators and despots all over the world against forces of democracy, decency, and human rights.

Well, that is a theme for later—and yesterday, and now …

***

Maybe treat ourselves to the beauty of spring? Here are two photos I snapped yesterday here in ol’ New York:

***

One of the kids at the golf range is leaving, for another job. You know what he said to me? I think he’s about 20, and he stuck out his hand and said, “You deserve all the finer things in life.”

I could only blurt out, “Same to you.”

Some people were just raised right. Or are natural noblemen.

Later on, my friends, and thanks for reading and subscribing. ’ppreciate you.

If someone asked you to write a short blogpost about freedom, what would you say? I was handed that very assignment. For the past 30 years, I have written countless words about freedom, in articles and books. Can these words be distilled into a little post? Not really, but my effort is here.

I have linked to a page within a new website, Re:freedom, which is a project of the Center for the Philosophy of Freedom at the University of Arizona. I am a journalist-in-residence at the center, and so is Johanna Maska, who has also contributed a post (found at the same link as mine).

What a happy affiliation, mine and Johanna’s with the Freedom Center. I think she and I will be doing a regular podcast too.

Readers here at Onward and Upward know what kind of society I favor: the one envisioned by the American founders. An Enlightenment society, a liberal democracy, featuring the rule of law, limited government, individual rights, pluralism, and so on.

Ordered liberty, is what we’re talking about. A climate, or environment, or atmosphere, of ordered liberty.

This kind of society—an open society—has always had its enemies. (You recall the title of Karl Popper’s famous book: “The Open Society and Its Enemies.”) For most of my life, I was familiar with enemies on the left: Marxists and their like. In recent years, I have become more familiar than ever with enemies on the right.

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I began to meet young people who were “post-liberals.” They thought the American founding had been a big mistake—a wrong turn in history. Indeed, the Enlightenment itself had been a wrong turn!

Some of these guys, and gals, favored “integralism.” I had never heard the term (until the late 2010s). This is, fundamentally, dictatorship by church (although its advocates would probably not put it this way to you, at least at first).

I heard buzz-phrases: “radical individualism,” “atomization,” an “epidemic of loneliness.” People like me were accused of being responsible for these afflictions, and of being against “the common good.”

You have perhaps heard this general song.

What is “the common good,” by the way? Some of us think that freedom is a common good, in addition to a plain old good. A free society is a common good.

People who live in such a society are very lucky. People who live in an unfree society are very unlucky (unless they are at the very top, lording it over everyone else).

Who decides what “the common good” is? Chances are, not you. It will be someone else doing the deciding, or a committee (a commissariat?). No doubt, there are good, earnest people who speak of “the common good.” Still, I would advise: beware.

“Common good” can mean: “Do as I say.” “Do as I command.” “Obey.”

“Don’t live your life as you see fit. Live your life as I see fit.”

This has been the cry, or claim, of authoritarians from time immemorial: “Do as I say, because it is for the common good.”

In a podcast with me in 2022, Harvey C. Mansfield, the government prof at Harvard, said, “Illiberalism lives on both the left and the right, at the extremes. There will always be people who object to individual rights and who want to put the ‘common’ first. The extreme of this is communism.”

Mansfield pronounced this last word “common-ism,” to illustrate his point.

In communism, or common-ism, “individual rights are totally submerged in the ‘common good,’” Mansfield continued.

Hardly anything is more benign-sounding than “common good.” And it is perfectly right to be mindful of the welfare of one’s neighbor. But, again: beware, look sharp.

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Now to “radical individualism,” “atomization,” loneliness …

In an atmosphere of ordered liberty—in a Tocquevillean democracy, if you will—there are endless opportunities to form and to join voluntary associations. To build communities. Little platoons, or big platoons, as far as the eye can see. A sprawling, diverse, rich civil society.

In an atmosphere of ordered liberty, you don’t have to be alone for one second, if you don’t want to be. You never have to bowl alone. You can belong to 20 leagues, if you can find the time.

But here’s the rub: You must let other people alone. You must let them live their own lives, even as you live yours. And this, many (most?) people are unwilling to do. People are more authoritarian than is comfortable to believe.

In the free society I favor, you can live as socially, as collectively, as you want. Join a commune, if you like. It’s none of my business (as long as you’re not hurting anyone else). But the thing is: you can’t force other people into your commune.

Deal? The discomforting truth is, a lot of people have trouble agreeing. Oh, they may think they agree, or want to agree. But the drive to make other people conform is very strong.

For years in the Senate, Marco Rubio was a Reagan conservative—a shining example of one. Then he became something else (and he is now of course President Trump’s secretary of state).

In 2018, as Rubio was consummating his transformation, he gave a speech denouncing “the radical you’re-on-your-own individualism promoted by our government and by our society in the last 30 years.”

I commented,

Um … has our government, and our society, promoted such an individualism over the last 30 years? Not the government or society I have watched.

But it was the words “you’re on your own” that really grabbed me. That’s what Barack Obama used to say. When he was deriding, and caricaturing, conservative philosophy, he’d say, “You’re on your own!” That was what we conservatives were telling people, according to the Obama caricature.

I blasted him for this many times. And now to hear the same words out of the mouth of Marco Rubio? There could not be a clearer sign of the times.

Yes.

A little more from that article of mine:

Actually, Google tells me that Democrats have been using the “You’re on your own” slander for ages (and I have been blasting them for those ages). In 2007, Senator Hillary Clinton did it to President George W. Bush. What he was calling an “ownership society,” she said, was really an “on-your-own society.” (I blasted her here.)

Just a bit more:

I never heard a better answer to “You’re on your own” than one given by W. himself, after he left office. This was in 2013, when he was inaugurating his presidential center in Dallas. All the living ex-presidents were there, and their wives (so this included Mrs. Clinton). President and Michelle Obama were there too.

And in front of one and all, Bush said, “Independence from the state does not mean isolation from each other. A free society thrives when neighbors help neighbors, and the strong protect the weak, and public policies promote private compassion.”

One good Bush deserves another. I like what his father said in 1988, when accepting the Republican presidential nomination. He was describing what he called his “philosophy,” or outlook:

At the bright center is the individual. And radiating out from him or her is the family, the essential unit of closeness and of love. …

From the individual to the family to the community, and then on out to the town, to the church and the school, and, still echoing out, to the county, the state, and the nation—each doing only what it does well and no more. And I believe that power must always be kept close to the individual …

There is a great deal more to say about this subject. When is there not? But, before signing off today, I’ll say this: Advocates of liberal democracy need more confidence, more energy—more oomph. Even a bit of swagger. They should not cringe or shrink or cower. Our opponents are very loud, very bold. Maybe we should be half as loud or bold?

“The era of liberal democracy is over,” Viktor Orbán proclaimed in 2018. In recent weeks, Secretary of State Rubio, Vice President JD Vance, and others in that camp have rushed over to Hungary to campaign for Orbán—to get him a sixth term.

If the era of liberal democracy is over, then we must usher in a new era of liberal democracy, renewed. We have nothing to apologize for. We have an excellent way of life to promote. Liberal democracy has given the world the freest, fairest, most humane societies it has ever known.

It is a record to be proud of—and to extend.

He is a Wisconsinite, whose father was a newspaperman. “I always thought of the daily newspaper as a daily miracle,” says Charlie. I thought the same thing, by the way.

When Charlie was in eighth grade, his dad was the Wisconsin campaign manager for Eugene McCarthy’s presidential campaign. Charlie traveled around the state that year.

He was immersed in politics—the affairs of the nation and world—at an early age.

Incidentally, Charlie’s father would move rightward, and so would Charlie himself.

Charlie always had a zest for politics. So did I. Has this zest worn off, for both of us? Do we derive the same pleasure from politics—the debates, the rough-and-tumble, the game—that we once did? No.

But it is our duty to hang in there, says Charlie: to make the points that need making, and to take the stands that need taking.

In this Q&A, we spend a little time on the Iran war. I want to know: Was it worth it? And is “was” the right tense? I hope it was worth it; I’m not sure it was.

We then talk about the world we inhabited for so long: conservative journalism, right-of-center politics. Dramatic changes have taken place in that general world. The conservatism of the past has been replaced by the right-wing populism of today.

I confess to Charlie that the shock has not quite worn off for me—though I have had at least ten years to adjust, which is more than enough.

On this as on all other subjects, Charlie has interesting things to say—frank and thoughtful at the same time.

Some people claim that you can draw a straight line from our kind of conservatism—what Charlie Sykes and I have long argued from and advocated—to today. He and I both say: nuts.

We get into the touchy subject of racism a little. And also the subject of tribalism. The “call of the tribe,” as Mario Vargas Llosa says. Tribalism seems to be natural in man—and bless all those who overcome it.

I know what it is to hate one’s political enemies. I stuck with Reagan through everything—Iran-contra, Bitburg … I loved him, yes, but, even more, I hated his enemies.

You can’t bear for the “other side” to win, even for a second.

As I say on this program, I half-believed the conspiracy theories about Bill Clinton: the Mena airport, Vince Foster, Webb Hubbell … I half-believed the “birther” theory about Barack Obama.

What are the conspiracy theories about Donald Trump? I’m not sure there are any. Everything is out in the open—often trumpeted and bragged about!

In our discussion, Charlie Sykes and I talk about Rush Limbaugh: his influence, his legacy. Also, the media today. What does “the media” mean, by the way? Does the term make sense any longer? Does anyone sit down at 6:30 for the evening news—with Rather, Brokaw, or Jennings?

Anyway, you will want to hear Charlie, on our various topics. Before we close, we talk about refuges from politics. Charlie lives in the Wisconsin woods and “touches grass” every day. In New York, I may not touch grass much, but they do have mats at the golf range.

Thanks for listening.

Yesterday, I began my column with NATO, and I’d like to do the same now. One thing that can be said of President Trump is that he’s candid. Very often candid.

Here is the pattern: Trump makes a candid admission, and then an army of people get to work dressing it up, in an attempt to make it look respectable, or somewhat so.

They do this at magazines, in think tanks, at TV outlets (certainly). I worked among these people for many years.

But if you want to know what Trump thinks, he’ll tell you, more likely than not.

Yesterday, the president said this, about NATO:

And you know, it all began with, if you wanna know the truth, Greenland. We want Greenland. They don’t want to give it to us, and I said, “Bye-bye.”

For decades, people have accused America of being a bully. This was, in the main, a false charge. Never was a power so benign or beneficent.

But now the charge is true.

For decades, people said, “America doesn’t give a damn about freedom and democracy. Americans barely care about their own security. They want resources. They want to exploit other people’s resources.”

Remember the slogan “No blood for oil”?

It was always nonsense. But our current president says, over and over, We want to take the oil. We’re gonna take the oil. Yesterday, he said, “To the victor go the spoils.” He said it approvingly.

That has never been the American ethos, the American principle. We always stood against “might makes right” and “the law of the jungle.”

But here we are.

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In 2018, Robert Kagan wrote an excellent book called “The Jungle Grows Back: America and Our Imperiled World Order.” (I podcasted with him about it here.)

America was not supposed to be the one representing the jungle.

***

Yesterday, Trump was at the White House Easter Egg Roll. Talking with parents and their children, he called Kamala Harris “a low-IQ person.” Then he repeated, “She’s a low-IQ person.” Then he said, “Who’s a lower-IQ person? Biden or Kamala?”

I don’t think a president ought to talk this way. I don’t think a man ought to talk this way. I am an antique. Might as well put me out on the lawn for 59 cents.

***

On Election Day 2024, I published a piece called “A Political Testimony.” (It is a personal piece.) I’d like to paste a swath of it, for a purpose.

I will bring it up to date, so to speak.

Anyway, that swath:

On May 18, 2019, Joe Biden launched his campaign for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. In the course of his remarks, he said, “Are we a nation that embraces dictators and tyrants like Putin and Kim Jong-un?”

Four days later, on the 22nd, North Korea’s official “news agency” issued a broadside against Biden, calling him, among other things, a “fool of low IQ.”

On May 25, President Trump issued a tweet:

“North Korea fired off some small weapons, which disturbed some of my people, and others, but not me. I have confidence that Chairman Kim will keep his promise to me, & also smiled when he called Swampman Joe Bidan a low IQ individual, & worse. Perhaps that’s sending me a signal?”

Concerning the firing off of “small weapons”: These missile launches may have been trivial to Donald Trump. But they were not so trivial to the South Koreans and Japanese. The president’s advisers were right to be “disturbed.” (One of those advisers was John Bolton.)

Concerning “Swampman Joe Bidan,” etc.: The conservatives I knew, pre-2016, would have been aghast at what Trump did. You may not like Democrats. But to chortle with a murderous, anti-American dictator over a former vice president …

All right. Yesterday, Trump again spoke of Kim Jong-un,

who I get along with very well. He said very nice things about me. He used to call Joe Biden a mentally retarded person.

Again, I don’t think a president ought to talk this way about his predecessor. I also don’t think a president ought to cite North Korea’s dictator as a character reference.

They call me a “zombie Reaganite” who “doesn’t know what time it is.” Zombie Reaganism aside, I know what time it is. A low dishonest time.

***

In my column yesterday, I spoke of Péter Szijjártó, the Hungarian foreign minister. You recall what he said to his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov: “I’m always at your service.”

True words.

It has now been revealed that, one rung up, Viktor Orbán, the Hungarian prime minister, says the same to Putin: “In any matter where I can be of assistance, I am at your service.”

Again, true words.

Funny thing about the “nationalists” among us. They tend to be Putin men at heart.

***

Vice President Vance is now in Hungary, campaigning for Orbán, who faces an election on Sunday. Both the Kremlin and the White House are working their tails off for Orbán.

(This would have revolted conservatives, once upon a time.)

As other analysts have noted, Vance is singing from the Kremlin songbook, accusing Ukraine and the EU of interfering in the Hungarian elections—even as the vice president himself is in Hungary, campaigning for Orbán.

(To listen to Vance, go here and here.)

For the Kremlin, the Trump administration, and Orbán—all three—Ukraine is a perpetual bogeyman. Thus is an invaded, brutalized, victimized country demonized.

President Trump called in to an Orbán rally, saying, “I just want to tell you, I’m a big fan of Viktor, I’m with him all the way. The United States is with him all the way.”

Not all of us. Not all of us.

***

You could view Hungary as an early 2028 Republican primary. Vance is there now. Marco Rubio was there in February, campaigning. (“Especially as long as you’re the prime minister and the leader of this country,” said Rubio, “it’s in our national interest that Hungary be successful.”) The 2028 primaries bid to be a festival of illiberalism. Who knows? Orbán might even endorse.

Whether anyone will be representing American conservatism, no one can say.

***

Some golf, before I sign off? I thought that Jason Sobel made an excellent point:

I’ve covered the Masters since 2005. What makes it so special? Well, plenty. But here’s the best explanation I can come up with: It’s the only place you’ll ever go where everyone is exactly where they want to be. DisneyWorld? No way. Family wedding? Doubtful. But Augusta National during Masters week? You won’t find a single person who’d rather be somewhere else.

***

Some music, too? The Metropolitan Opera staged Innocence, by Kaija Saariaho, which is about a school shooting. For my review, go here.

***

Some basketball? Oh, yes. My Michigan Wolverines have won it all. We won the NCAA championship last night. Defeating UConn, we were not exactly pretty, but …

I love what Andy Reid, the coach of the Kansas City Chiefs, once said. After his team won a big game in rough fashion, he said, “Hey, not all of Mozart’s paintings were perfect. The end result, though: that sucker’s gonna sell for a million dollars!”

Thank you, my friends. You make one feel a little less alone (if you know what I mean).