I find the Iran war confusing—maybe I like things too clear-cut. First, is there still a war on? President Trump and his team are reluctant to call it a war. They say “conflict” or “skirmish” or “little excursion.” But it is a war, correct?

If it’s still on, are we winning? Is Iran? If it’s over—who won? I hope the answer is, “We did.” I’m not sure.

The above sounds flippant, I realize—but I mean it in earnest. Perhaps you are in the same boat.

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***

In Ukraine, Putin’s forces bombed a village called “Komyshuvakha.” The death toll is now up to 53. To learn about this massacre, go here. This is something that ought to horrify the world. But the world, much of it, is numb. I hear no criticism from the U.S. administration. Not from Marco Rubio, not from anybody.

Our country needs to do no less than recover its soul. And we might start by not calling Putin a “humanitarian.”

***

In Ukraine’s Poltava region, the Russians destroyed a center for children with disabilities. Day after day, we see a kind of comic-book evil. But this is “real life.” The center was called “Kolibri,” meaning “hummingbird.”

***

It is good, you will agree, to know some names and faces—names and faces of the murdered. Otherwise, it’s all too abstract. Anton Gerashchenko chose to highlight Kateryna Bozhko, here. Killed on November 3, she was 14. “She had all her life ahead of her until Russia destroyed it,” says Gerashchenko.

***

Virtually every morning, here in the Eastern Time Zone, I wake up to news that Russia has murdered innocent civilians; and that Ukraine has bombed oil refineries or other such infrastructure in Russia. In this war, there is a complete imbalance.

In the Oval Office last week, a reporter confronted President Trump with all the killing that Putin is doing—bombing people in their apartments, on buses, in their schools, etc. Does Trump bring this up with Putin?

“I always bring it up,” said Trump, “and I also bring it up the other way, because, the other way, they kill too, you know—a lot of people are being killed.”

Trump actually said “both sides.” “I bring it up on both sides. You know, Russia’s losing civilians also.”

This is madness. It is also a flagrant example of “moral equivalence”—a false moral equivalence, which Republicans and conservatives decried for years. Under Trump, they went silent.

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***

In a column the day after the midterm elections, I wrote,

I have two main hopes for the new Democratic majorities—the majorities in the House and the Senate: that they curb the corruption and lawlessness of the executive; and that they help the Ukrainians, somehow (in accordance with our national interest).

No to a partnership with Putin. No.

Here is a post from Senator Richard Blumenthal (D., Conn.):

To Blumenthal, Michael McFaul, a former U.S. ambassador to Russia, responded, “Yes! Godspeed.” I add my amen.

***

On social media, I wondered whether the new Congress could restore our “radios”: our world broadcasting services. Radio Free Asia, RFE/RL, Voice of America, etc. “These are jewels in the American crown,” I said. They have meant a lot to millions of people around the world, and they have advanced our national interest.

One of my critics wrote,

If you gathered up all the people in the country who give a fig about RFE/RL and Radio Free Asia you might (*might*) be able to reach the maximum legal capacity of the men’s room at the Middle Ridge Service Plaza on the Ohio Turnpike.

As far as national priorities go, the algae in the Reflecting Pool takes precedence.

But here’s the thing: The radios mean a lot to me. And to others. Majorities are indifferent to all sorts of things that are important. Isn’t that axiomatic?

(Let me sneak in a quick language note: “algae” is plural, not singular. My critic should have written, “… the algae in the Reflecting Pool take precedence.”)

***

In all likelihood, the new Congress will launch investigations of the executive branch. Already, Republicans are crying “Witch hunt!” (or “hunts”). Indeed, congressional investigations can be witch hunts. They ought to be conducted with sobriety.

And they are very important. Checks and balances are important. Accountability is important. Our Framers knew this—consult the Constitution, consult The Federalist Papers.

Congress must not shrink from doing its job (and Congress has been microscopic in recent years). Otherwise, our system crumples.

***

In my column on Sunday, I led with an item about Boston accents. After an audition process, Logan Airport chose Chris Donisi, a pipe fitter from East Arlington, to be its official “voice,” welcoming travelers.

A friend of mine writes,

Chris Donisi’s accent is good, but I think it’s not sharp enough. The best Boston accent for Logan Airport would have been my mother’s. Unfortunately, she’s not available, having passed away years ago.

The second-best is the male vocalist in the Jamies who does the opening and closing solos in “Summertime.” Since the song was recorded in 1958, he may not be available either.

Marvelous. (The Jamies’ “Summertime,” incidentally, is not to be confused with Gershwin’s lullaby in Porgy and Bess.)

***

Here, I learned that Tim Parlatore is a special adviser to Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defense. He should really be Hegseth’s spokesman—for “parlatore” means “speaker.”

***

Would you like a column on the shorter side today? I’ll “get out,” as John McLaughlin used to say (hosting The McLaughlin Group). (“Let’s get out”—of a particular subject, and move on to another one). Maybe I can end with a dose of music? Here’s a review of the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, conducted by Louis Langrée, in Carnegie Hall. The program: all-Berlioz.

Thank you and I’ll see you.

A feature of this column, since it began in 2001, has been an appreciation of regional and local speech—and a worry about the evanescence of such speech. My sister has sent me this article from the New York Times. It tells us that Logan Airport has chosen “its new voice.”

“Let’s go, Bahhston,” indeed.

We learn that “a pipe fitter from Massachusetts beat out thousands of other applicants to provide the voice that welcomes travelers to Boston Logan Airport.”

The voice belongs to Chris Donisi, whom NPR’s Scott Simon interviewed, here. That is a Boston voice out of Central Casting.

I lived in Boston (the area) in the mid-1980s. Older people spoke with Boston accents—the plural is important, for there has never been just one Boston accent. But younger people were speaking with neutrality.

And that was 40 years ago!

It is natural for regional and local speech distinctions to fade out, for reasons I have gone into many times (prosperity, mobility, etc.). But what a loss it would be, to lose them altogether.

I know that virtually everything “evolves”; no one is naïve around here. Still, I would like to hang on to some things of the past (for as long as possible).

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***

Responding to my column about the midterm elections, a friend wrote, “I told my kids, both of them Democrats, that I was glumly glad about the outcome.”

I was struck by that phrase, “glumly glad” (with a “gl” at the start of each word). I shared it on social media. Many people responded that they could relate. They, too, were glumly glad about the outcome of the elections.

***

At Onward and Upward and on social media, I have expressed my disappointment in the defeat of Pennsylvania congressman Brian Fitzpatrick. He is something all too rare: a pro-Ukraine, anti-Putin Republican. And he is loud about his beliefs.

On Twitter, I wrote, “I hope he stays involved in public life somehow.”

Congressman Don Bacon (R., Neb.) replied,

He’s been a great friend and colleague the past 10 years. He’ll do more and God has a plan.

Well, I trust the same is true of Don Bacon—who is retiring at the end of this term. He, too, is pro-Ukraine and anti-Putin, strongly so.

Bacon and Fitzpatrick have been something like a caucus of two …

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***

When Vivek Ramaswamy called Amy Acton to concede the U.S. Senate race in Ohio, Acton let the call go straight to voicemail. This, according to Ramaswamy himself.

On social media, I noticed some tut-tutting by Republican journalists. (Ramaswamy is a Republican, Acton a Democrat.) They said that Acton was uncivil not to have accepted Ramaswamy’s call.

I doubt I would have accepted it either. The ad that Ramaswamy ran against Acton was not rough-and-tumble politics; it was despicable. (I am tempted to upgrade that word—downgrade it?—to “evil.”)

(For a piece of mine about Ramaswamy and the ad, go here.)

When asked about the call that she let go to voicemail, Acton spoke about the offending ad: “I think we can’t normalize behavior like this. It was so beyond the pale. So, no, I have no intention of speaking to him. I do believe that leaders’ words matter, and we need to hold folks accountable.”

I agree. Some things, you can’t shrug off. You can’t grin and bear them. In 2004, I understood why Dick Cheney told Pat Leahy to … perform a difficult gymnastic act.

***

Not often these days do you hear a defense of good old-fashioned American pluralism. So my ears pricked up at the governor of Illinois, JB Pritzker, when he said,

We should not fear immigrants and people of color and women. We should not fear the LGBTQ community. We should not fear the beardos and the weirdos. And we should not fear the Canadians.

That last was a laugh line, given the belligerence of our government—of the Trump administration, at least—toward our northern neighbor.

Pritzker went on,

We should not fear the strange, wonderful mix of diverse opinions and backgrounds and ethnicities that make our communities rich, our food good, our culture strong, our work ethic durable, and our country so uniquely American.

(I wish I could remove the word “so.” “Uniquely” is enough.)

***

The governor of Illinois and I share a first name. He is Jay Robert Pritzker. “JB” stands for “Jay Bob.” And he styles his initials that way: “JB.” JD Vance does the same: “JD.” Yet some publications render those initials “J.D.” or even “J. D.”—which makes me eyes wince.

***

Hang on, stick with language. A reporter for The Free Press said, “Senator-elect Abdul El-Sayed gave his victory speech in Arabic last night.” Evidently, El-Sayed used four Arabic words, accounting for 0.27 percent of the speech.

The Free Press ran a correction:

This post and opinion video states that Abdul El-Sayed gave his acceptance speech in Arabic. That’s not accurate. In fact, he said a few phrases in Arabic, but the majority of his speech was in English. The Free Press regrets the error.

The “majority of his speech”? Remember that “majority” is for countable things: oranges, sheep … Otherwise, go with “most of his speech,” “most of his time” …

***

More language, of a vernacular sort. In a column last week, I included a picture of my favorite sign—my favorite sign in America. This one, from the Milwaukee airport:

When you go through security screening, you get discombobulated. Afterward, you need an area in which you can get recombobulated.

A reader of ours writes,

In college, we would always say something along the lines of, “Give me a minute to get sheveled.”

Nice.

***

Do you know about Holland, Michigan? The capital of Dutch Michigan (if you don’t count Grand Rapids)? I scribbled a journal from there in 2018. Holland is notable for—what else?—its tulip festival.

Well, maybe I’m the last to know this—but Pope Leo went to high school in Holland. (The St. Augustine Seminary High School, since closed.) He was telling someone this the other day. And he said, “The Tulip Festival was always part of my life.”

Huh!

***

Herbert Blomstedt, the Swedish conductor, has died at 99. For his obit in the New York Times, go here. He worked almost until the end, and worked very, very well.

In 2017, I sat down with Blomstedt for a podcast in New York. The next year, I again interviewed him, before an audience at the Salzburg Festival. (Hear it here.) Blomstedt had come straight from a concert with the Vienna Philharmonic—and a great concert it was (Sibelius’s Symphony No. 4, followed by another Symphony No. 4, this one by Bruckner).

He quoted Picasso: “It took me many years to become youthful.”

***

Speaking of age: I was in a convenience store a few days ago in Manhattan—one of those Yemeni-owned ones. The cashier was jovial. A youngish fellow. I said, “I’ll see you later.” He answered, “I’ll see you when I see you. And if I don’t, happy birthday.”

Had never heard that line. “Happy birthday to you, too!” I replied on leaving.

***

Speaking of leaving: I will leave you with a photo of a sunset at the range (the golf range). Thank you for reading and subscribing. Appreciate you muchly.

In our Q&A, we pick through the midterms, but we begin with Stephen Miller, whom President Trump has just named his chief of staff. What does this mean? J-Mart has a pretty good idea.

As we talk, we cover JD Vance, who is doing some fast political dancing. We turn our eyes to Texas, Maine, and other interesting states. We discuss the “blacklash,” and a historic election in Georgia. We’ve got “The Big Dog,” a.k.a. Bill Clinton. “Hurricane Abdul,” i.e., the new senator from Michigan. The late Lindsey Graham. LBJ (even). A host of characters.

Jonathan Martin makes politics absolutely alive. He eats, sleeps, and breathes this stuff, and knows it cold (or hot). His fund of stories is inexhaustible. His insights are keen.

At the end of our conversation, I make a confession to him (and you): I, who had always loved politics, fell out of love with it some years ago. J-Mart helps me get it back.

In 2016, as Election Day neared, a colleague said to me, “Hillary’s gonna have to hang half a hundred on him. That’s the only way Trump and Trumpism will be repudiated. Truly repudiated, finished. A narrow or modest victory won’t do.”

The expression comes from Barry Switzer, the legendary football coach: “hang half a hundred on ’em.” It means, to score 50 points against the other team.

My colleague was saying: Hillary is going to have to win 50 states to zero.

In fact, she lost (in the Electoral College). Trump won. And that changed everything. Not just the Republican Party but the “conservative movement,” which “got with the program.” It accommodated itself to Trump and Trumpism, jettisoning its longstanding beliefs and values.

(I am generalizing, but permissibly, plausibly, I think.)

I will return to this subject at the end of my notes today.

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***

The heading over my column here? Some of you may remember a television drama—1983—about the Cold War: The Day After. It rocked the country, to a degree.

***

Bill Rusher, who was for many years the publisher of National Review, had a pithy saying about voters in “wave” elections: “When they go, they go.”

Yesterday, they went.

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In 1994, the “wave” went the Republicans’ way, giving us the first GOP House in 40 years. (Forty years.) Have a look at a statement by Nancy French last night:

Many another conservative can nod in agreement. Which is meaningful, deeply.

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Yesterday, voters did not just elect a different Congress. They elected a Congress. What I mean is, that branch of the government has been missing. There has been no check on the executive—not from the Hill.

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I have two main hopes for the new Democratic majorities—the majorities in the House and the Senate: that they curb the corruption and lawlessness of the executive; and that they help the Ukrainians, somehow (in accordance with our national interest).

No to a partnership with Putin. No.

***

Putin had a bad night. He has a dream team in our executive branch: Trump, Vance, Witkoff, Kushner, et al. The Republican Congress has shied from supporting Ukraine because this Congress is a servant of Trump.

May the next one be starkly different in this regard.

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***

Sometimes, you root for defeats, not victories. I thought it was important that Ken Paxton lose in Texas and that Vivek Ramaswamy lose in Ohio.

In Texas, Republican voters decided not to renominate their veteran senator, John Cornyn; they nominated Paxton instead. Thus did they nominate one of the most corrupt politicians in America.

Against the Democratic nominee, James Talarico, the Republicans ran a foul, nasty campaign—and a campaign free of substance.

Glad they lost.

I’m glad, too, that Ohioans rejected Ramaswamy. (I wrote about him a couple of weeks ago, here.) Ramaswamy is a poison in our public life.

And the guy hit the jackpot. He “landed with his bum in the butter,” as the British say. Let me explain.

His parents immigrated to America from India. (Big break for Vivek.) He went to Harvard and Yale. He became a billionaire.

And he used this success to spread poison in our politics.

***

Last week, the Milwaukee Brewers won the World Series. This proved that money isn’t everything—the Brewers are one of the least wealthy teams in baseball. (And they are the best.)

Texas, too, proved that money isn’t everything. Elon Musk, the richest man in history, dropped something like $170 million on the Paxton for Senate campaign. And they went down to ignominious defeat.

Reassuring.

***

One more word about Texas. Greg Abbott, the governor, lost. Glad he did. I admire him. When he was in his mid-twenties, he suffered a hideous injury, leaving him paralyzed him from the waist down. Yet he persevered. And he rose to the heights of politics.

A brave, determined dude, Greg Abbott.

When Trump and Trumpism came along, he accommodated himself. He went along with all the malevolence and stupidity of the era.

A pity, a waste.

***

Darline Graham, in South Carolina? Of her opponent, Annie Andrews, she said, “She’s just plain old batsh** crazy.” Graham has gone down in defeat. And she disgraced herself in the campaign.

Bad show, all around.

Trump dubbed Andrews “Tranny Annie.” South Carolina senator Tim Scott and other Republicans repeated this.

Bad, bad show.

***

From Kansas, there will be a new Democratic senator. None of us has ever written “Democratic senator from Kansas,” except when referring to history.

In college, I was an intern for Senator Bob Dole. I know the names of lots of Kansas towns—because I answered constituent mail.

***

Maine’s Susan Collins first ran for the Senate in 1996. She pledged to serve just two terms: “Twelve years is long enough to be in public service, make a contribution, and then come home and let someone else take your place.”

Thirty years later, she has at last been defeated.

***

As of this writing, the Mississippi Senate race is too close to call. Either way, the race saw one of the most delightful ads of the year.

In an interview, the incumbent senator, Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith, said, “You know, there are so many proteins to choose from.” She was responding to a question about the high price of beef.

Her Democratic challenger, Scott Colom, then hit her with this.

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Colom would be the first black senator from Mississippi since Reconstruction.

***

In Georgia, Keisha Lance Bottoms was elected governor. She will be the first female governor of Georgia. She will be the first black governor of Georgia. She will be the first black woman to serve as a governor anywhere in America.

That’s a lot of firsts.

***

Several weeks ago, I gave a definition of “having your cake and eating it too”—a personal definition: I wanted Democratic majorities in Congress, to check the executive—but without Abdul El-Sayed, of Michigan.

I am not eating my cake, for El-Sayed won.

***

By the way, his name should really have a small “e”—“Abdul el-Sayed.” But he spells it with a big “E,” for some reason. It’s hard for me to type.

***

I recall Spencer Abraham, who was a senator from Michigan (a Republican) from 1995 to 2001. Then, in the first term of George W. Bush, he was energy secretary.

There was a funny line about Abraham. His handicap, went the line, was that Arab voters thought he was Jewish, and Jewish voters thought he was Arab.

This year’s Senate race in Michigan was very different.

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***

In her Florida district, Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna eked out a victory. Too bad. She is one of the most ardent Putinists in Congress. (Three guesses which party she belongs to.)

***

In Pennsylvania, Congressman Brian Fitzpatrick lost. I am very sorry about this. He is a pro-Ukraine, anti-Putin Republican. I mean, vocally so, and actively so. There are precious few.

The Ukrainian journalist Illia Ponomarenko posted this:

***

In Indiana, Congresswoman Victoria Spartz lost. Let me give you Yaroslav Trofimov, the chief foreign-affairs correspondent of the Wall Street Journal (who was born in Kyiv):

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Take note of Rebecca Bennett and Nancy Lacore. Both Democrats, they have been newly elected to the House. Bennett will represent a New Jersey district, and Lacore a South Carolina district.

Bennett was a naval aviator. Lacore was an admiral, fired by Pete Hegseth.

They may well be interesting to watch.

***

Perfect—just perfect.

***

Bruce MacKinnon is a veteran political cartoonist at the Chronicle Herald in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Have a look:

***

Okay, back to where I started—to 2016 and all that. I will be blunt (too blunt, probably). I don’t take all that much pleasure in yesterday’s elections.

From about 2017 to 2019, I was hoping for a nationwide revulsion: a revulsion against Trump and Trumpism. It never happened.

Trump lost in 2020—and then tried to overturn the election. He fomented violence to this end. I could go on, at great length.

And what did the Republicans do? They nominated Trump for the third time in a row. And the American people elected him for the second time.

You know, it’s just too late. The Republican Party has been disfigured. The conservative movement has been disfigured. America has been disfigured.

Oh, so people are unhappy about the high price of beef and the high price of gas? Great, I guess. But what about the corruption, the lawlessness, the Putinism, the lies …

So, part of me is churlish, or, worse, blasé. But only part of me …

***

This morning, I received an e-mail from a friend of mine, a prominent Norwegian journalist. He wrote,

Are you happy with the midterm results? Might it be a good thing for the Republicans in the long run?

I answered,

(A) I am happy with the results. (B) I’m sure this is wrong of me, but I don’t give a damn about the Republicans. (I must, however, because I care about my country, and the Republicans are half of it.)

***

I would like to see a revival of conservatism—genuine conservatism, not the vulgar nationalism and clownish populism that have been visited on us, and that erstwhile conservatives have appeased, excused, aided, and abetted.

***

Earlier today, I was talking with a young friend of mine—an earnest and real conservative—and a phrase occurred to me: “Nothing is written.”

Do you mind if I paste a (longish) excerpt from a little essay I wrote in September 2025?

“Nothing is written.” That’s the answer that Patrick Chovanec gave me, when we were talking in a podcast last year. He is an American analyst—political and economic. I had asked him whether we were going to make it, basically. Whether the constitutional “guardrails” in our country would hold. Whether our democracy would soldier on. “That’s in our hands,” he said. It’s up to us.

He then cited the script of Lawrence of Arabia. “It is written,” people keep saying. In other words, this or that is preordained, and there is nothing that human beings can do about it. Lawrence goes off to rescue a man in the desert, who has been fated to perish, in some eyes—because “it is written.” Returning with the man, Lawrence says, “Nothing is written.”

My essay concludes,

One more phrase: “Fortune favors the bold.” That is a line from antiquity, but never-staling. The authoritarians, all over the world, have no lack of boldness. May the advocates of freedom match them, and best them.

I’ve gone on long enough—too long. Thank you for bearing with me. Thank you for indulging my moods and quirks and crotchets and peeves. Thank you for reading and subscribing. God bless America, and God bless you.

Almost every day, the Trump administration does something that pleases the Kremlin (and dismays the Ukrainians). I harp on this. Then again, I can think of little else so worth the harping.

“Trump Administration Halts Funding for Key Ukraine Security Programs.” That article is here. “U.S. Pushes to Restore Russian Gas Sales to Europe via Ukraine.” That one is here.

“Make America great again,” goes a slogan. Yeah, how about it?

***

In Midtown Manhattan, I encountered a clock I hadn’t seen in a while—this one:

Tick-tock, y’all. Just because no one cares, doesn’t mean it’s not important—importantissimo.

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***

Back to Ukraine and Russia for a moment. This report by Simon Ostrovsky is hard to read (or so I found). The instinct to avert one’s eyes is natural and non-damnable. But …

“Elon Musk Slowed Starlink. Then a Russian Drone Killed Six Ukrainians.”

***

Such an interesting man, Judge Hellerstein. “Alvin K. Hellerstein, Federal Judge Who Oversaw Maduro Case, Dies at 92.” That obit is here. I would like to paste an excerpt, then recount a familiar story:

A deeply religious Orthodox Jew from the Bronx, the judge was known to hold sentencings on Fridays so he could reflect on his decisions over the Sabbath. Hanging on the wall in his chambers was a Hebrew scripture that read, “Justice, justice, shalt thou pursue.”

You all know the story of Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., to whom another great judge, Learned Hand, called out, “Do justice, sir!” Holmes replied, “That is not my job. It is my job to apply the law.”

We hope that the law is just—and that it leads to justice.

In that obit, Judge Hellerstein is quoted as follows: “There’s no such thing as purity in judgment. Without facts and context, judgment becomes abstract — you lose out on the passion of judging. Justice does not require absolute purity, but a check on bias.”

Sounds reasonable to me.

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***

I would like to recommend an article. It is one of the most moving I have read in quite some time. Its title: “I Thought I’d Left Authoritarianism Behind.” Its subtitle: “Four decades ago, I escaped Communist Czechoslovakia for America. Now my adopted homeland reminds me of the one that I fled.”

The author is V. Patrick Poch, who works as an architect at the State Department. Is he working there still, now that this article has been published? I would not bet on it.

There is a great deal to say about the article—it was incredibly moving to learn about the author’s father—but I will simply leave you to read it, when you have the time. I have shared this article with two Czech-American friends. To them, it was all familiar.

***

Sometime in the late 2010s, I started hearing about right-wing extremism among college students and other young people. I was skeptical. (A) I had never seen any such extremism in my own youth. (I saw extremism on the other side.) (B) We Reagan-Thatcher types were routinely called “fascists,” “racists,” and “Nazis.” I was conditioned to false charges.

But I heard about the new extremism from conservative interns and junior staffers (genuinely conservative ones, I mean). They should have known. And they did. I did not.

I do now.

Articles such as this have become dog-bites-man. Yet another congressional staffer, found to have posted vile stuff online. These types have infiltrated Congress and the executive branch. I have personal acquaintance with a few of them.

We will be living with this a long time. Young illiberal rightists today will be at it for decades.

I hope the conservatives and the liberals stay strong, against the illiberals on either end (who are really comrades).

(In truth, the conservatives and the liberals are comrades too, given that they all support our constitutional order, the democracy we have known.)

***

Feel like some music? Here is a review of Medea, Cherubini’s opera, at the Met.

***

On Sunday was the New York City Marathon. It is an energetic, colorful event. This, from the New York Times, was delightful, I thought: “13 Unforgettable Looks from the New York City Marathon.” A phrase occurs to me: “salutary weirdness.”

For example, newlyweds from Germany ran in their wedding outfits: he in his suit, she in her gown.

I like weirdness, within limits—or you could call it individuality.

***

Out on a pier over the Hudson River, there was a dog leashed to a stroller. He was looking intently at his “humans”: a mother and her barely toddling daughter, who were about seven yards off. I smiled. The mother said, “A patient, longsuffering dog.” I said, “This scene is straight out of Norman Rockwell.” She chuckled with appreciation.

***

Care for some Halloween, even though that’s in the rearview mirror? My block is a hot block for Halloween—lots of decorating and trick-or-treating. Here are some shots of “the calm before the storm.” These are from Halloween afternoon, about 3:30:

Then the party began. How about the imagination of this guy?

A joyful spirit at my building’s entrance:

***

Thank you so much for reading, subscribing, corresponding … Means a lot to lil’ ol’ me. I am not a politician, though sometimes I have flights of fancy. (Fewer than before.) I don’t have a “closing message,” but if I did, it would go something like this:

“My fellow Americans: Say no to Putin. Say no to our betrayal of Ukraine. Say no to corruption, to lawlessness, to indecency. To Caesarism. To a daily torrent of lies. In short, make America great again.”

A brief reminder of Mona and her professional doings. She is a syndicated columnist. She is a writer and editor at The Bulwark. She is the host of The Mona Charen Show. She is the author of several books, including Sex Matters: How Modern Feminism Lost Touch with Science, Love, and Common Sense.

At the beginning of our Q&A, I ask her about transgenderism. It has exploded in recent years. It is an amazing, and often painful, phenomenon.

Mona and I then get onto—well, many issues. Ukraine. The GOP. The Democrats’ Abdul El-Sayed. The Republicans’ Vivek Ramaswamy. Washington, D.C.

What do I mean by that last one? I am a lifelong lover of Washington, and a recent visit left a sour taste in my mouth. I wrote about this here. Mona has lived in the D.C. area for most of her adult life. How does she feel?

I have some further personal questions, including, “Do you still refer to yourself as a conservative, or have the Trumpite Republicans irretrievably mangled the word?”

Mona Charen is a combination of good, independent thinking; a “moral sense” (to use an old-fashioned term, which James Q. Wilson chose as the title of one of his books); and a lyrical pen.

I think I may have even voted for her for president once (not that she approved) …

Though I am a Detroit Tiger, I salute the Milwaukee Brewers for their triumph this year. Last week, they won the World Series. For one thing, this proves that money isn’t everything. That money isn’t the be-all, end-all. The Brewers are not one of the wealthier teams. But they are the best.

Reassuring to know.

***

In Texas, Elon Musk has spent something like $170 million on the Paxton for Senate campaign. Wouldn’t it be something if Texans said no? (I wouldn’t bet the ranch on it.)

***

The principal owner of the Brewers is Mark Attanasio. I have a friend with that same last name—an Italian, a Milanese. Last summer, I discussed this name with him. It is an Italianized version of an old Greek name: “Athanasios,” meaning “deathless” or “immortal.”

In 4th-century Alexandria, there was a theologian and patriarch who became St. Athanasius.

***

Bob Uecker is a Milwaukee legend—specifically, a Brewers legend. A native of the city, he played for the team, even if he did not excel. He excelled as a broadcaster, actor, and all-around personality.

[This just in—a correction from a reader. Ueck played for Milwaukee, all right—but for the Braves, before they moved to Atlanta.]

I was in Milwaukee recently and snapped the below mural. May I point out one minor thing? Ueck’s signature. See the elegance of that handwriting? That’s the way they used to teach it …

***

Regular readers know that this is pretty much my favorite sign in America. It’s at the Milwaukee airport, right after security screening. During the screening, you get discombobulated. Then you have a chance to recombobulate.

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***

Stick with language for a moment—French, in particular (or its variants). In my column on Friday, I had an item about French in Maine. Today, let me share a New York Times article—fascinating—headed “Oldest Recording of Louisiana’s Vanishing Creole Language Is Published.” The article includes a recording of Emma Benoit, from 1935. To hear her speak—one could get shivers.

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The first thing I saw in Tucson, on arriving at the airport, was an eatery advertising “New York bagels.” I had just flown from New York (where I live). Kind of funny.

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On the way into town, I saw billboards advertising weed—“Good Weed,” etc. What a pity. But I know that this ship has sailed. Or has it? Might Americans have second thoughts about legalization, seeing its effects? Might they turn the ship around?

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Some eye-catching flowers, near the U of A (University of Arizona):

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A building at the university—unusual, imaginative, impressive:

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Look, this isn’t Cooperstown—but I’m glad there’s a Handball Hall of Fame. It’s a wonderful sport.

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“Be on Time!” says this elementary school. “Attendance Matters!” Good values.

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Throw some more flowers at you? Purple jobbies this time?

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A little night practice at the university, making for a lovely scene:

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On my trip home, a flight attendant was a real comedian. I’ll give you a brief sampling of his work: “Everyone’s a winner today. There are no middle seats on this fabulous ship.” “We’re going to experience some turbulence. So fasten your seat belts, and do it just like my grandmother’s support bra: low and tight.”

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***

In my Friday column, I had occasion to mention Ken Burns, the documentarian. Let me quote a little from the relevant item:

Burns graduated from Pioneer High School in Ann Arbor. (Pi High.) I went to the other high school, Huron. Anyway, we are both Ann Arborites, and one of us has made good. There may be hope for me yet …

I heard from Julie Stielstra, whose dad, Jay, was renowned in Ann Arbor—as athlete, coach, teacher, and, not least, singer-songwriter.

Julie writes,

I was in high school with Ken Burns at Pioneer, though he was a year ahead of me. I remember him as a skinny kid who often wore a green army jacket and lurked backstage at the theater. He was the guy who knew everything about sets, lighting, working the curtains … He was behind the camera, so to speak. No surprise he ended up doing what he does—and superbly. Those bangs were longer and in his eyes back then.

Marvelous.

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I’m sorry this is a lousy picture—but it tells you something about New York. Can you read the sign? “THIS IS A FILM SET. Not real police activity.”

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Over the years, I have written a lot about panhandling—begging. I have thought about this issue since I was in grad school. I encountered panhandlers in Cambridge, Mass. And then, on virtually every block, in Washington, D.C., and New York. I’ve gone back and forth on giving. I’ve given a lot—probably unwisely—in the past 40 years.

Anyway, I don’t want to get into that today. I wanted to share a thought, which occurred to me the other week. Young people, I understand, seldom carry cash. Society will, by and by, go cashless.

What will that do to panhandling?

***

The Finnish embassy in Washington put out a funny video about Halloween—about the stuff that Finnish nightmares are made on. (Shakespeare said “made on,” not “made of.” Don’t screw that up, please.) Amusing.

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“Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, Who Helped End One-Party Rule in Mexico, Dies at 92.” That obit, by Anthony DePalma for the New York Times, is here. Very interesting life. In 1988, a presidential election was stolen from Cárdenas—outright, brazenly stolen. No one disputes this.

Cárdenas “refused to call his followers into the street,” as the obit says. It also quotes Enrique Krauze, the historian, whom I am privileged to know. “An order from him would have sent Mexico up in flames.” Cárdenas “did the country a great service by sparing it a possible civil war.”

Ladies and gentlemen, you are really nice to join me today. Thank you.

Troy Jackson, the Democrats’ nominee for Senate in Maine, was talking about discrimination against the French. For generations, French-speakers were looked down on in Maine. Is this still the case?

Jackson said that three of his four grandparents were French-speakers. But his parents never learned the language, and neither, of course, did he. It was too stigmatizing in Maine.

Listening to Jackson, I had a memory. When I was growing up in southeastern Michigan, I heard Polish jokes. I don’t know why. Poles were the butt of jokes. For a number of summers, I spent a couple of weeks in Maine. And I heard the very same jokes, directed against French people.

This taught me a lesson, early: People have a strange need for objects of mockery and scorn.

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Polish jokes were killed off, or at least dented, by widespread admiration of Pope John Paul II and of the Solidarity movement in Poland. Lech Wałęsa, the leader of that movement, recently spoke of the United States and what has happened to us. “Reclaim, as Americans, your leadership role in the world,” he said. “And you can begin by saving Ukraine.”

Wałęsa may think more of us than we do.

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***

Another day, another massacre by the Russian military of innocent Ukrainians.

A Russian drone struck the main railway station in the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro as people waited to board a train on Thursday morning, killing 14 people.

Another 10 people were wounded in the strike, the latest in a series of Russian attacks targeting civilian spaces as well as transport and energy infrastructure in Ukraine. At least 19 people, including two 15-year-old girls, were killed across the country on Thursday …

The Ukrainians want to live. They want to live in their own free and independent country. The Russians, in the form of the Kremlin, want to crush and subjugate them. The Ukrainians’ “crime,” in the eyes of the Kremlin, is existing. Their very existence is an offense unto Putin and his ilk.

When Russia launched its all-out assault on Ukraine in February 2022, I heard from the nat-pops around me: “The West has poked the bear.” “NATO has encroached on Russia.” “Putin is rescuing Russian-speakers in eastern Ukraine.”

All lies. The Russians want Ukraine because they do. Putin wants Ukraine to be Russian, and Ukrainians want Ukraine to be Ukrainian. That is the crux of the matter.

I think, too, of a recent statement by Viktor Yushchenko, a former president of Ukraine: “No one has expressed it better than Golda Meir: We have hardly any room for compromise—they want to kill us, and we want to live.”

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What side is the United States on? I will quote Kori Schake, who directs foreign- and defense-policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute. But first, I would like to note a couple of news items:

The Trump administration is exploring a new concession to Russia: lifting sanctions on the country’s flagship government investment fund, long viewed by U.S. officials as one of the Kremlin’s most powerful tools of international influence.

That report is here. Another one carries the following headline: “In U.S. Gas Talks With Kremlin, Hidden Financing for Alaska Project Emerges.” Gee, wonder where that financing comes from.

I will now quote Ms. Schake, in a piece titled “A Requiem for Ukraine—and America”:

It cannot be stated often enough or vociferously enough: The Trump administration is helping Russia to conquer Ukraine. The United States of America has taken the side of an aggressor against its innocent victim. We are helping our actual enemies as they prey upon us and our friends.

That is a bitter pill to swallow, but swallow it we must. The American president and his party have put us on the side of the aggressor, the invader, the mass-murderer. I doubt that anything can erase this stain from our country.

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Let me link to another article: “How Elon Musk Turned on Ukraine: No reliable alternatives exist to Musk’s satellite network, and Ukraine cannot survive for long without it.” If at all possible, the Ukrainians must free themselves of dependence on Musk, Trump, and others who hate them. It is a national, existential imperative.

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On the domestic front, I wish to highlight this story, which begins,

A federal grand jury in Washington on Tuesday rejected an effort by the Justice Department to indict Cassidy Hutchinson, the former White House aide President Trump targeted after she gave damning testimony to a congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, according to people briefed on the matter.

Have a little more:

The rejection of the indictment—known in legal circles as a “no true bill”—was the latest extraordinary setback in Mr. Trump’s wide-ranging campaign to go after his political opponents. The Justice Department has repeatedly failed to build criminal indictments against the president’s rivals.

When I was coming of age, there was an expression—something like, “Any prosecutor worth his salt could indict a ham sandwich.” Google tells me that the expression originated with Sol Wachtler, a New York judge.

If the Trump administration’s prosecutors are failing to indict their targets—what does that tell you about the prosecutors’ cases? The fact that juries are saying no is somewhat reassuring.

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Donald Trump has offered $5,000 to every adult in America—but only if the Republicans hold Congress in the midterm elections. On the heels of that offer comes this: “Trump offers $1M reward for voter-fraud tips that result in conviction.”

Do you ever get the impression that the Republicans lack confidence in the ability of their policy ideas to persuade?

We used to be bursting with ideas—good ones! If you had told me, short years ago, that the GOP would become the party of Putin, tariffs, governmental ownership of companies, and homoeroticism . . .

(The president is going around praising the physiques of Republican nominees—male ones. In truth, the homoeroticism is the most benign of the party’s current traits.)

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***

Jerry Seinfeld joked about “rooting for laundry.” You don’t know who the players are on your sports teams anymore. They come and go. You essentially root for jerseys, i.e., laundry.

For many, politics is just the same way. A friend of mine writes:

Jay, I had occasion to visit my 92-year-old father-in-law last week, and, unfortunately, politics came up. He’s a MAGA guy. When I told him I despised Trump, he called me a Democrat! First time for everything, I guess.

People root for jerseys. Is the GOP anti-Kremlin, pro-West, pro-trade, pro–personal responsibility, pro–character in office? Well, that’s my team. Hang on, now they’re the opposite? Well, they’re still my team.

Laundry, that’s all it is. Principles, values, and ideas have nothing to do with it.

James Talarico is the Democrats’ Senate nominee in Texas. As the Republicans paint him, he’s a gay trans vegan socialist. In a recent interview, Talarico said,

I think we learned back in the Second World War that when we failed to stand up to an aggressor in Europe—that comes back to haunt us. We need to strengthen Ukraine. We need to strengthen our NATO allies as they stand up to Russian aggression, so we don’t have to. In some ways, I see this as a cost-saving measure. If we can stop this aggression, if we can stop Vladimir Putin in Ukraine, then we’re not going to have to stop him elsewhere.

That is exactly—exactly—how Republicans used to talk. I care about ideas and values, not laundry (although I’m a Michigan Wolverine and a Detroit Lion, Tiger, Piston, and Red Wing to the grave, and beyond).

***

Speaking of the homefront: “Ken Burns wins a $250,000 prize for bringing American history to life.” (That article is here.) Burns graduated from Pioneer High School in Ann Arbor. (Pi High.) I went to the other high school, Huron. Anyway, we are both Ann Arborites, and one of us has made good. There may be hope for me yet …

(Did I ever tell you that both Bob Seger and Iggy Pop went to my junior high, Tappan?)

Oh, I have a lot more to tell you, but I’ve kept you long enough. Thank you for reading, subscribing, corresponding, and being. Later on.

A few days ago, I was talking with a young friend of mine—someone immersed in politics. I said I had learned a lesson, later than I should have, but I was glad to have learned it regardless: You don’t have to defend everything.

I was a red-hot Reaganite. I defended President Reagan on Bitburg (his visit to that military cemetery in West Germany). I defended him on Iran-contra. I hated his enemies even more than I liked him, and I was loath to “give” them anything.

I am so, so glad to have outgrown that.

Tribalism or partisanship is an enemy of thinking—an enemy of independent thought.

It is hard to be an individual, don’t you think? The pull of the tribe is very strong. There must be a biological root to it. Individuals are scarce as hen’s teeth, really.

I will give you three examples of individuals—true individuals—in journalism: George F. Will, Kevin D. Williamson, and Nick Cohen.

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***

In 1962, there was a Port Huron statement—the political manifesto of SDS, i.e., Students for a Democratic Society. Well, President Trump has made a Port Huron statement himself. He held a rally in that Michigan town on Sunday.

I will quote from the Reuters report:

U.S. president Donald Trump on Sunday escalated ​his invective against Norway, calling it a “shit-house country” and ‌saying Norwegian immigrants were not welcome in the United States because the Nobel committee, based in the capital Oslo, had not awarded him a peace ​prize.

What a crybaby. It’s a wonder that grown men and women support him.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee, which awards the peace prize, is independent of the Norwegian government. It is hard to convince some people of that. In 2010, the committee gave the prize to a Chinese political prisoner, Liu Xiaobo. China retaliated against Norway.

And nothing can convince Donald Trump that the Nobel committee is separate from Norway at large. Other people share and echo his grievance—House speaker Mike Johnson, for example. I wrote about this in a column last January, here.

If you would like to know more about the Nobel Peace Prize, consult my history, Peace, They Say. The peace prize is indeed an expression of Norwegian political culture. But many of the committee’s decisions have made life difficult for the government.

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The United States should really not be like China. The president of the United States should really not be like the Chinese dictator. Have you seen this news? Trump officials have floated the idea that Viktor Orbán, the former prime minister of Hungary, should be the secretary-general of the United Nations. Orbán would be the consensus candidate of the U.S., China, and Russia.

Of course he would.

How disgusting, to have our great country in the company of the Chinese and Russian dictatorships, which are mass-murderous.

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***

I would like to make a point about realism—realism in foreign policy. First, I will quote Michael McFaul, a former U.S. ambassador to Moscow:

After Hitler invaded Poland, some “hoped” he’d stop there.

Hope is not a strategy.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is realism. And it’s amazing how unrealistic self-styled realists can be when it comes to Putin and Russia. Amazing.

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Stick with “amazing”: How do you explain the self-styled nationalists who are hostile to Ukraine and soft on Putin? Ukraine is the great nationalist cause of our time. A people is fighting to retain its independence against an invader that seeks to drag it back into empire.

But we have a plethora of anti-Ukraine, pro-Putin “nationalists.” I will give an explanation my best shot.

Some people are simply confused—ignorant. They have heard from their favorite TV hosts or podcasters that Ukraine has to do with “global elites.” But others are simply authoritarian at heart. If nationalism serves their ends, fine. If it takes imperialism, also fine.

That’s the best I can do today.

***

Yesterday, I had the privilege of talking with Yaroslav Trofimov, the chief foreign-affairs correspondent of the Wall Street Journal. He was born in Kyiv—Soviet Ukraine—in 1969. You will find our podcast here.

As we were talking, the following thought gelled in me:

Trump has worked hard to scapegoat Ukraine—to convince Americans that their high gas prices are the fault of Ukraine and that their arsenal is being depleted on account of Ukraine. What rotten lies to tell about a nation under siege, fighting for its very right to exist.

People say that Americans aren’t buying the lies. I hope this is true. Still—how rotten.

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Who is next on the scapegoat list? “Look, if we had [had] smart presidents,” said Trump, “the Taiwan problem with China wouldn’t exist. Nobody would care. They stole our chip business [Taiwan, that is]. All of it. A hundred percent.”

Show me where a person, or a party, or a movement, stands on Ukraine and Taiwan, and you have shown me a lot.

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***

William F. Buckley Jr. favored Latin phrases, one of which was this: Mirabile dictu. “Wonderful to relate.” I thought of it when seeing a tweet from a famous Republican, in the bosom of Trumpland:

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Less heartening was a statement by Tim Scott, the senator from South Carolina (Republican, of course). There is a U.S. Senate race in South Carolina this year: Darline Graham, the Republican, versus Annie Andrews, a Democrat. President Trump, of course, calls the Democrat “Tranny Annie.” Andrews is a pediatrician with three children. Senator Scott has adopted this nickname, this insult: “Tranny Annie.”

I have been quoting Shakespeare—his Falstaff in particular. “I am not only witty in myself,” says Sir John, “but the cause that wit is in other men.” So too, Trump is not only vile in himself, he is the cause of vileness in others. Republicans from coast to coast adopt his insults, grievances, falsehoods.

When will it end? And will you give the adopters a pass, for what they did in this era?

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Nothing drives my old nationalist-populist colleagues crazier than the suggestion that America is an idea. Well, a statement by Margaret Thatcher was brought to my attention last week: “Europe was created by history; America was created by philosophy.” My gosh, there is profundity in that …

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“The cardinal sin of performance,” said Liszt, “is dullness.” I attended a concert that was very dull, I’m afraid—and it was given by three excellent performers. Oh, well. Even Homer nods, and even three Homers nod. For my review, go here.

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Maybe I could insert a quick shot of Central Park, as fall begins here in New York:

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Emily Brontë is known for Wuthering Heights—quite a book to be known for. A friend of mine sent me a poem by her, thinking I would like it. Boy, was he right. And if I am the last person to know it—forgive me. Better late than never.

The poem begins,

No coward soul is mine
No trembler in the world’s storm-troubled sphere
I see Heaven’s glories shine
And Faith shines equal arming me from Fear

One more stanza, from later on:

Vain are the thousand creeds
That move men’s hearts, unutterably vain,
Worthless as withered weeds
Or idlest froth amid the boundless main

Okay, the last two:

Though earth and moon were gone
And suns and universes ceased to be
And Thou wert left alone
Every Existence would exist in thee

There is not room for Death
Nor atom that his might could render void
Since thou art Being and Breath
And what thou art may never be destroyed.

Thank you so much for joining me today, my friends. No coward souls are yours!

Like many others, I have learned a great deal from Yaroslav Trofimov about Ukraine, Russia, Europe, the Middle East—even my own country, the United States. He and I last podcasted in January 2024, here. Today, I have a slate of questions for “Yaro,” including these:

Is Ukraine in a perilous moment?

Garry Kasparov often says, “Only Trump can save Putin.” Is this true?

President Trump likes to tell a story about the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion. A Russian general took a wrong turn—a fateful turn—getting stuck in the mud. Otherwise, Russia would have taken the whole of Ukraine quickly. Where in the world did Trump get this story? Why does he repeat it?

“We’ve given a lot to Ukraine,” said Trump. “They’ve given us nothing. Remember that.” Forgetting Ukraine’s sacrifices on the front lines of a broader struggle—which must not be forgotten—what about Ukrainians in Afghanistan and Iraq?

Does the Kremlin “have” anything on Trump? Why does he act the way he does? Why does he exempt Putin from criticism?

What is the role of money on the U.S. side—business deals?

What about China, as part of a Gang of Three with the United States and Russia?

If the United States withdraws its nuclear umbrella from Europe, will the Europeans, and the French in particular, be able to replace it?

It is a pleasure to talk with, and learn from, someone informed, experienced, and judicious. That is Yaroslav Trofimov.

A stirring story: “Ukraine claims world’s first drone evacuation of wounded soldier.” The Ukrainians are heroic and innovative because they have been forced to be. I admire them no end: for their perseverance, their courage, their patriotism.

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Someone should ask President Trump or Vice President Vance, “Do you admire the Ukrainians for attempting to repel the invader and save their country?” I doubt that either man could say yes. I doubt that any administration official could say yes.

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Maybe we should hear a little about the Ukrainian soldier who was evacuated by drone. I will quote this report:

Kostiantyn Vlasenko was huddled in a hole under the boiler of a bombed-out school when he came to a terrifying conclusion: to survive, he needed to amputate his only remaining foot.

The Ukrainian infantryman had already lost his left foot in a Russian drone strike in February. His right leg was broken and bent in the same attack, hindering his ability even to crawl. About three months later, after working up the courage, he grabbed his knife, sliced off his foot, and applied a tourniquet to staunch the bleeding.

He survived.

***

Another story, here at home, which you have probably seen:

President Donald Trump on Thursday accused LeBron James of disrespecting the United States after the NBA star appeared to continue his warmups while the national anthem was performed before Philadelphia’s season opener on Tuesday.

“I said right from the beginning that he’s no good, a TOTAL DISGRACE,” Trump said of James in a social media post sharing the video. “LeBron James should apologize to all of those Great American Warriors and Heroes who died for the American Flag, and all that our Country stands for!”

Well, some of us think that Trump is “no good, a TOTAL DISGRACE.” And James should tell him to go straight to hell.

Trump has plunged a knife into the back of our brave ally Ukraine and placed us on the side of his friend Putin. If I never again heard from Trump & Co. about patriotism, it would be too soon. They should take the word “America” out of their mouths.

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A headline: “Trump to Remove Some Tariffs on Canada in Bid to Help Susan Collins.” Collins, of course, is a Republican senator from Maine, in a tough race for reelection. The subheading of the article reads, “The move, effective Oct. 30, will remove tariffs on some agricultural goods but raise levies on other products.”

Do you know why Trump loves tariffs? A tariff regime allows him to play Caesar: to grant favors and mete out punishment. Economic policy does not govern, you see; personal whim does.

Our country is in dire need of a party that reflects the principles and values of the American conservative tradition.

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***

Story No. 1: “Covert Russian Group Injects Baseless Claim Into the Texas Senate Race: Russian influence operations appear to be stepping up efforts to meddle in the midterms, according to intelligence officials. Most are targeting Democrats.”

Story No. 2: “For weeks, deepfake celebrities have been telling Americans not to vote for Democrats in the midterm elections. U.S. intelligence says Russia is behind it.”

Republicans should be embarrassed to get help from the Kremlin. Hell, they should be embarrassed to give help to the Kremlin.

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“Russia, frankly, has been fine on Ukraine,” said Trump. “They haven’t been doing much.” As the Kyiv Independent noted, Trump said this “hours after a Russian drone strike in a public park killed six people, including two children.”

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Vance said, “I think they should stop bombing Russian energy.” He was talking about the Ukrainians. You know what I think? That Russia should stop murdering innocent men, women, and children.

Why doesn’t Vance ever say that? Why doesn’t Trump? Why doesn’t any other administration official?

Those are important questions.

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Another development: “U.S. delaying Patriot missiles already paid for under NATO initiative, Zelensky says.” This is a delay that, of course, helps Russia slaughter innocents.

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Trump, as usual, painted Zelensky as a villain, saying, “… with all of the money that Europe is famously giving him, and that Crooked Joe Biden gave him in the past, he doesn’t want to end this war, and probably never did.”

You know who approved this mightily? Putin’s envoy to the United States, Kirill Dmitriev, who wrote, “BREAKING: President Trump EXPOSES Zelensky.”

The White House and the Kremlin are on the same side, and the Ukrainians must contend with them both.

***

Here is a message that Democrats should run on: Our great nation does not deserve to be allied with Putin. We are better than that. Redeem our nation, redeem our honor. No to Trump, no to Putin.

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I feel better knowing that Josh Law is among us. Learn about him in this article, which is headed, “24-year-old Coast Guard swimmer says he fought waves and darkness to rescue 16 people from ocean.”

My gosh. Hero.

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When astronomy and art meet: “New study traces van Gogh’s famed ‘Starry Night’ to an actual night sky from 1889.”

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When economic decline comes home and hits hard: “Halloween candy sales are off to a slow start amid high chocolate prices and affordability concerns.”

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Care for a little language? I was in a café here in New York, picking up a baked good (of course). The young woman behind the counter called out, “Cold brew with a shot of vanella!” I was astonished. I thought I was back home in Michigan (where many say “vanella”—and “vanella melkshake”).

Maybe the young woman is from Michigan? I did not ask …

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Here is a long article in The New Yorker by Jordi Graupera about Michael Walzer. (In particular, the article is about Walzer’s views on war and peace.) I would like to cite one passage, almost a stray one:

At his door, I noticed a mezuzah. He has long been secular, and I asked him why he’d put it up. “So the antisemites know which door to knock on,” he said.

That is classic Walzer. Pure Walzer.

***

I never publish fan mail. This has been my rule since 1995 (when I started writing publicly). I would like to break my rule today, for two defensible reasons, I think: (a) gratitude and (b) a desire to reassure others that they are not alone.

Maybe those are excuses rather than reasons. Anyway, here goes:

Hello, Jay,

Please don’t stop writing the truth about Trump or anything else. I want to hear it every day! It’s like putting on my glasses—I can see clearly again. Not only do I want it, we need it.

Thank you, thank you.

As if that weren’t enough …

Hi, Jay!

I can sense the anger, bitterness, and sadness in your posts over the last several days. I share them. My hope is that the midterms have a swift effect; my greater hope is that God is still directing the affairs of men.

I hope that even and especially in these times, you are taking care of yourself; I’m also writing, however, to express my continuing gratitude for your voice. It is a painful thing to need to be standing athwart conservatism. It would be so much harder for so many of us, however, if you were not doing so.

Thank you.

Speechless—except to say, thank you.

***

Halloween, Southwestern-style:

That scene comes from Tucson, Arizona. And here’s one from the Upper East Side of Manhattan:

Got your candy corn at hand, expensive as it may be? Appreciate you so much, my friends. Thanks for reading, subscribing, corresponding, and being.

About the turmoil in France, I have nothing original to say, because there is nothing original to say. But the unoriginal things—the platitudes, if you like—are very important.

Over the decades, brutish types have given “law and order” a bad name. This is too bad. Law and order is a beautiful, wonderful thing. Indispensable, too. Without law and order, a free society—a society worth living in—is impossible.

A government must afford its citizens physical protection. Without this, nothing else really matters. “Ordered liberty” is the name of the game—our high ideal. Both the noun and the adjective are crucial.

Franklin D. Roosevelt spoke of “freedom from fear.” Lots of people have laughed at this, for understandable reasons—it seems a little gauzy, a little pie-in-the-sky. But I believe I know what FDR was getting at.

If you can’t feel safe in your society, you are not properly free.

Civilization will not defend itself. It needs guardians, protectors. If the French government won’t defend French civilization, who the hell will?

Maybe there should be une mission civilisatrice in France.

Everyone says that if “mainstream” parties won’t keep law and order, the people, in their desperation, will turn to extremists to do the job. And everyone is right.

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***

Kimberly Guilfoyle has led an interesting life—probably too interesting for her own good. She was married to a possible future president: Gavin Newsom, the California Democrat. She was engaged to another possible future president: Donald Trump Jr. She was in the heart of MAGA. She served as ambassador to Greece. (“Served” is not the right word, at all, but roll with it.) Now she has been fired.

She is corrupt to the gills, of course. But who isn’t in TrumpWorld?

Guilfoyle should write her memoirs—telling all, in an unvarnished way. They would sell like hotcakes (including to me). And I believe they could render a public service.

How did she end up in the places she ended up in, with the people she ended up with, doing the things she did?

Fascinating.

***

Did you catch this story in the Wall Street Journal? “Ken Paxton Partied in Dubai With Fugitives Ahead of High-Stakes Texas Senate Race.” As I see it, populism is such a weird phenomenon—weird politically and psychologically. Populists rail against “elitists.” Yet the heroes of populism—they tend to live in ways that, in their extravagance, their sheer let-them-eat-cake gall, would make “elitists” blush, or retch.

An amazing con they got goin’, the populists.

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A headline from the Associated Press: “House Speaker Mike Johnson draws on faith as he fights to hold the Republican majority.” (Article here.)

I will be blunt: Give me hard-boiled atheists who support the Ukrainians against their murderers over these a-holes “of faith” who have aligned our country with Putin.

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***

For the last ten years, I have heard more about Carl Schmitt than I had heard in the preceding 50 years of my life. Schmitt is hot. He was a German philosopher and an unrepentant Nazi. The kids—you know, the “youths”—have discovered him. Because of course they have.

Cass Sunstein, the legal philosopher, has scribbled a primer on Schmitt: here. Recommended.

***

While I am recommending Sunstein, let me tell you something—something odd: I have never much been interested in the Jefferson-Hemings question. This is odd because (a) I love American history and (b) isn’t everyone drawn to a sex scandal?

(“Sex scandal” is too trite a phrase for the Jefferson-Hemings matter, I acknowledge.)

Anyway, Professor Sunstein drew me in, here. The Jefferson-Hemings story is one of the most American stories imaginable …

***

Today is not the day to air the question of capital punishment—not in this column. I am against capital punishment, in a somewhat complicated way. But I have great respect for the arguments in favor of it—as articulated, for example, by Walter Berns, whom I have long admired.

For a few days this month, we were debating the merits of live-streaming an execution—the execution of the Fort Hood shooter, Nidal Hasan. The live-streaming, once on, is off. The execution is still on.

What if the execution—the attempted execution—of Christa Pike had been live-streamed? Might that have helped the anti–death-penalty cause? To refresh your memory, here is an article from September 30: “Tennessee Fails to Execute Woman After 2 Doses of Lethal Injection.”

They called an ambulance—an ambulance to an execution. When they failed to kill her, twice, they called an ambulance, to take her to the hospital. How screwed up is that? Why not just plunge a knife into her heart?

The death penalty is a ghastly business. I am not saying it is unjust. But it is ghastly, and there is no point hiding it. If it’s right to do, it’s right to do out in the open.

Is it?

***

Every week, there is a stream of stories detailing corruption in and around the Trump administration. A recent sampling:

“He Crafted a Crypto Law for Trump—as His Company Got Millions From a Crypto Giant.”

“Secret documents reveal donors behind $330 million for Trump’s ballroom.”

“White House preservation group took $2.5M from man who wanted to demolish East Wing.”

“Trump meme coin buyers vie for dinner with the president. Many appear to be overseas.”

“A Billionaire Wanted a Trump Pardon. His Family Gave Alina Habba a $50 Million Deal.”

I want to make a brief, gooey point: I’m grateful for a free press. So grateful. Without it, a democracy has no chance. People may not care about corruption—but at least they are without the excuse of ignorance.

***

General Mike Flynn gave us a MAGA statement for the ages. It should have its own special page in Bartlett’s. Flynn, you recall, was Trump’s first national-security adviser. He is Putin-friendly, to put it mildly.

When Mike Pence blasted Trump for betraying the Ukrainians and bolstering Putin, Flynn blasted Pence, on a variety of fronts—including this: “You certified an election the base rejected.”

Did you know that the Republican Party “base” has a veto over American elections? My civics teacher never told me that …

***

I, for one, am tired of hearing about the midterm elections. I want to get right to them, know the results. I think of a line from James Bond, in GoldenEye (1995): “No more foreplay.”

***

Most people, including Republicans, I gather, are expecting a Democratic wave. But you never know—until the votes are counted.

***

Recently, Matt Labash, my old friend and colleague, was communing with Rilke. In his column, Matt quoted a letter that Rilke sent to a friend whose brother had committed suicide.

To read the entire letter, go here. I will quote just a little of it:

All our true relationships, all our deepest experiences stretch across the whole. Across life and death. We must live in both, be deeply at home in both. …

Resolve to be brave. Be brave this very evening. Play Beethoven.

He, too, belonged to the whole.

Yes, he did. Matt had a question for me: What piece by Beethoven might go especially well with Rilke’s letter? There were so many candidates. I settled on this: the third movement of the String Quartet No. 15 in A minor, Op. 132. Beethoven wrote this music in gratitude for recovery from a serious illness. He gave the movement this heading: “Holy song of thanksgiving of a convalescent to the Deity, in the Lydian mode.”

Well, that’s a “mic drop,” so I’d better sign off. Thank you, my friends, for reading, and for subscribing if you can/want. Appreciate you, mucho. And thank you, Matt. And thank you, Beethoven. And Rilke.

In 2024, an ominous thought occurred to me, and not a few others: The American voter has in his hands the fate of Ukraine. I wondered whether Ukraine could survive a Trump return to the presidency. We would be neutral at best, I thought. Could we actually be hostile—hostile to the Ukrainians? Allied with Putin and his war machine?

On Sunday, Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, spoke bluntly. To fight without the support of the United States would be difficult, he said. “Very difficult.” But to fight against a Russia backed by the United States? Impossible.

“If these two countries will be together, of course we will not prevail,” said Zelensky. “And we will not be able to stand.”

***

Peter Baker of the New York Times provided a sickening summary of what the United States has just done for Putin:

I am reminded of the phrase “wish-list.”

In a 2016 general-election debate, Trump said that Putin had “no respect” for Hillary Clinton. She responded, “That’s because he’d rather have a puppet as president of the United States.” She said to Trump, “… you are willing to spout the Putin line, sign up for his wish-list, break up NATO, do whatever he wants to do …”

Was she wrong?

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***

For years, Trumpers and anti-anti-Trumpers have accused us anti-Trump conservatives of being “hysterical” on the subject of Trump and Russia. In point of fact, we have been stone-cold sober. Realistic.

All you have to be is willing to see.

***

As regular readers know, I am a great admirer of Viktor Yushchenko, the former Ukrainian president who was nearly poisoned to death by Kremlin operatives. He is a man of tremendous courage, and considerable personal grace.

Listen to him here: “No one has expressed it better than Golda Meir: We have hardly any room for compromise—they want to kill us, and we want to live.”

***

On September 1, I wrote, “If the GOP Congress passes, and the Trump administration enforces, meaningful sanctions against Putin’s Russia, I’ll eat my hat—and enjoy the meal.” That meal never had a chance of being served.

***

For years, the Ukrainians have faced an axis of Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran—the worst states on the planet. What they need is the support of Free World countries. So which side is the United States on now?

This is one of the most stomach-turning passes in our history. A repulsive low. The stain, the shame, will last a long time, I’m afraid.

***

In an essay, Ines Burrell has a phrase—a parenthetical aside—that jolted me:

After that, in 2022, came the full-scale invasion … Yet the West (back then this still included the United States) …

Devastating.

***

Also devastating was this: the word “Together,” written by Kirill Dmitriev. Dmitriev is known as “Putin’s wallet” and is a Putin envoy to the United States.

Did you see this image? Examine it:

“Together.” Russia and us against civilization. Swell.

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***

Over and over, Donald Trump says that the Biden administration depleted our supply of Tomahawk missiles by giving them to the Ukrainians. Watch him do it again here. Of course, we have never supplied Ukraine with a single Tomahawk.

In the same clip, Trump denigrates Zelensky, as he always does: “They gave to P.T. Barnum, which is Zelensky …” You never hear Trump insult or mock Putin, ever.

Zelensky is a real man and real leader, in my book. Those other two—no.

***

From the Wall Street Journal: “Putin Floats a Summit With Trump and Xi to Discuss Ukraine Deal.” The article’s subheading reads, “Ukraine’s Zelensky wouldn’t be included in proposed talks, as Russia’s leader seeks to negotiate end to war favorable to Moscow.”

Smells like another Munich. But Putin would be speaking with two allies, essentially, right?

The historian Anne Applebaum had a bracing observation:

This has been Putin’s dream for years: that his country, with GDP per capita lower than Poland, unable to conquer Donbas since 2014, will be treated as an equal to the U.S. and China.

***

“I’ve never met Vance in person,” writes Daniel Hannan, “but this clip tells me pretty much everything I need to know about him.” Yes. The clip in question is here.

Our vice president was asked about Putin—a blood-soaked tyrant and invader. Oh, the “American media” get him all wrong, said Vance! He is soft-spoken. “Very deliberate, very careful.” Looking out for the interests of Russia, as Trump looks out for the interests of America. No wonder they get along so well!

Michael McFaul, a former U.S. ambassador to Russia, says,

I’ve met Putin many times and listened in on calls with him as well. I also speak Russian. Yes, he is soft-spoken, deliberate, and measured. So what? He’s still a killer. He still launched a barbaric invasion of Ukraine, which has produced a tragic loss of life not seen on this scale in Europe since WWII.

If remarks such as Vance’s are galling to us freedom-loving Americans, imagine how they fall on Ukrainian ears. Writes Illia Ponomarenko,

Must be nice to sit comfortably on your couch, fangirling over Putin like a lovestruck teenager, an entire continent and ocean away from what he and his army of death do every single day.

Ponomarenko is a Ukrainian journalist. I podcasted with him two years ago, here. Interesting, invaluable person, informed to the gills.

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There is a school that says, “The Ukrainians must continue to cajole Trump, no matter what. They must try to win him over.” Ponomarenko has penned what amounts to a response to this school—impassioned and true. Here it is.

***

“Wherever Russian troops arrive, Ukrainians cease to exist,” said a Russian lieutenant colonel, Alexey Selivanov, at an event in Moscow. Any questions? How could there be any?

***

A Ukrainian civil-society leader, Olena Halushka, writes, “Those who preach peace through capitulation won’t tell you what Russian occupation means.” Yes. Ukrainians are desperate for the world to understand this: There is nothing peaceful about Russian occupation. Quite the opposite.

***

My general view is: Oppose aid to Ukraine if you want. Hell, support alliance with Putin if you want. But don’t be ignorant of what the Russians are doing to the Ukrainians.

Here is a report from Meduza, the Russian news organization in exile: “Russia’s invasion left thousands of Ukrainian children stranded in Russia. For one 12-year-old girl, the only way out of her occupied village led away from her mother.”

***

Speaking of Ukrainian mothers: This one is signaling to rescuers that her daughter is six years old. The girl was killed in this Russian strike:

***

If you can bear to read about a baby killed in her stroller—here. (Her name was Angelina.)

***

Tom Nicholas wrote,

Trump has now finally made America an ally of the Kremlin and is aiding Putin in his war against an American friend and partner. Shameful betrayal of a U.S. friend, and pathetic submission to a U.S. enemy.

I keep saying: there were people on the other side—the Kremlin’s side—during the Cold War, too. But they tended to be Antioch professors, folk singers—fringe figures. Not president of the United States.

Part of me feels that the Republican Party and “conservative movement” should issue a blanket apology to Angela Davis and the rest. What were we barking on about for all those years? Did we mean it?

Some of us did, I can assure you.

***

It was controversial, and I won’t pause to weigh the merits, but, during the Obama years, the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, spoke “over the heads” of the administration to the American people, directly. In this dark, dark hour, maybe President Zelensky should do something similar.

Trump & Co. are not all of us. There is some of the old spirit yet. How much, I don’t know.

I do know this: I hugely appreciate you, my readers and subscribers. And I believe you will forgive another Ukraine column, on the heels of Friday’s. This is important stuff. An emergency, and a matter of national honor.

For years, I’ve been griping about videos—how music spoils them. Sports videos, in particular, are spoiled by music. You can never hear the sounds of sports: the crack of a bat; the squeak of shoes on a basketball court; the whoosh of a golf swing.

I can always watch videos with the sound muted. But I would rather hear the sounds of sports. And you know where muting does no good? In an instructional video. There’ll be a couple of golfers talking about the short game, for instance. And I’ll want to hear what they’re saying.

But in order to hear them, I have to put up with the music playing over them. And sometimes the music is so loud, you can barely hear what the guys are saying.

Maddening. Why do people commit such sabotage?

Well … the other day, the algorithm fed me a video that was music to my ears. There was no music at all. Just the music of golf, so to speak. Jack Drury playing nine holes early in the morning.

He is a pro at the Stratford-on-Avon Golf Club in Stratford-upon-Avon, England. (I believe a writer once lived there.) Why does the name of the club have “on” in it while the name of the city has “upon” in it? No idea. Maybe I can get back to you on that one.

In any event, thank you, Jack Drury, for this glorious, music-free video.

***

Stay in the United Kingdom for a minute. I received a lovely note from a reader that began, “Hello from Scotland!” Here is part of my reply:

Ignoring the “Nordlinger,” I am Scottish, on my mother’s side—name is Gray. Where in Scotland are you?

She answered,

I live in Perth, the gateway to the Highlands. It’s a great place to live.

So, at this late date, I have learned that the city in Australia was named after a city in Scotland.

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***

In recent times, there has been turmoil on the American right concerning Indian Americans. “Culture warriors” grumble that there are too many, and that they are too successful, and that they—heaven forbid!—study for spelling bees …

I addressed this in a column ten days ago. I would now like to share a letter from a reader—Warren S. Moore III, who is a professor of English at Newberry College in South Carolina.

WSM3 is one of my favorite correspondents.

He writes,

… I was a participant in the 1979 National Spelling Bee, representing the Kentucky Post. Back then, contestants were sponsored by the local Scripps-Howard paper. …

Although I went out on the first day, crashing on timbrel (which I spelled “timbral”—those schwas will get you every time), it proved to be one of the better experiences of my life to that point. Because I was an unusual kid, I had a lot of difficulty fitting in with my peers. For that week at the Bee, however, I was someplace where it was cool to be—let’s say “bookish.” I actually got to be popular for a few days, and that may have been one of the things that got me through adolescence: the knowledge that there were niches for folks like me.

In fact, I remain friends with some of my fellow spellers from that year, almost 50 years later. …

As a side note, I don’t watch the Bee—having been on the stage, I hurt too much for the kids when they go out. But I have no problem with the fact that the Bee has become (as an Indian stand-up comic called it) “the Indian-American Super Bowl.” I love that those kids are finding places where they can belong as well. And that strikes me as especially American.

My eyes got a little wet when I read that.

Warren signs off, “Keep on ‘truckin’.” And his motto comes from Chaucer: “Gladly wolde he lerne and gladly teche.”

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***

“Go ahead, make my day,” says a movie character. Well, readers often do this for me, as here:

Hi, Jay,

Just thought I’d let you know I learned a bit of language while reading your column yesterday. I’m in my late 70s but am still thrilled whenever I can correct lifelong errors.

You write: “On Monday, Trump was rallying in Ohio in behalf of Jon Husted, the Republican senator.” Something seemed strange in that sentence, and I read it again. Then it occurred to me that I’ve always said “on behalf.” So I did an Internet search asking whether there is a difference in meaning between “in behalf” and “on behalf.” Lo and behold, I discovered there is! I never knew of that distinction. Naturally, you used the correct phrase, given the meaning you intended.

Thanks for the lesson!

Sometimes, I think that my living has not been in vain.

***

Feel like a music review? I was fairly hard on the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and its chief conductor, Kirill Petrenko. Let me quote from my final paragraph:

I think the world of the BPO and Petrenko, and have the highest expectations for them. I do not write about them as I would the Dubuque Sinfonietta.

Nope.

***

Feel like another music review? This one is of the Philadelphia Orchestra, under Yannick Nézet-Séguin, which played Mahler’s Symphony No. 5. My final paragraph:

Did your grandmother or someone else in your life ever say about cooking, “The special ingredient is love”? So it is in Mahler. He was not a lovely man, according to ample testimony, but there must have been reserves of love in him, which he poured into his art. He headed one movement, of a different symphony, “What love tells me.” Bless all those who get him, including the Quebecker on the podium last night.

***

I Googled a recording of Fidelio conducted by Toscanini. (Fidelio is the lone opera of Beethoven, and Arturo Toscanini was a great conductor of the first half of the 20th century.) I smiled at the name of the man in charge of the recording’s restoration: Neville Churchill.

Seems almost like a mistake, doesn’t it? In any case, a remarkable combo.

***

“Martina Arroyo, Luminous Soprano Who Broke Barriers, Dies at 90.” That obit is here. I loved this woman. Met her once in an elevator. Bantered with her. She was amazingly personable.

Listen to what she said back in ’72:

If people think a kind of magic happens on stage, they ought to know that what they’re seeing is a lot of work. To me, “charisma” is just a fancy word for rehearsals. And if I catch you using the word “effortless” about me, I’ll laugh in your face. Maria Callas was the classic example of what I’m after. She worked for hours, but when she came out on the stage, you felt not only that you were hearing the words for the first time, but that she was singing them for the first time—neither of which was so. Every miracle that was known as a “Callas miracle” was a well‐rehearsed miracle.

Yeah, but don’t let Martina fool you. She, like Callas and all the others, had talent out the yan (as well as an exemplary work ethic).

***

I have a couple of young friends who are students of conducting. I asked one of them, “How are you doing?” She said, “I’m drowning in scores.” I said, “If you have to drown—what a great sea to drown in. A sea of music.”

And I thought of “L’infinito,” the classic poem by Leopardi. Its final lines are:

… Così tra questa
immensità s’annega il pensier mio:
e ’l naufragar m’è dolce in questo mare.

Something like: “Thus, in the midst of this immensity, my thought drowns. And the shipwrecking is sweet to me in this sea.”

Have I thanked you lately for reading and subscribing? I think it’s been a few days. Too long! Thank you, and see you later.

One of the reasons I became a conservative and a Republican, many years ago, is that I found them clear-eyed about world affairs. (When I say “them,” I mean conservatives and Republicans.) I thought they were especially clear-eyed about the Kremlin and other enemies of the West. People on the left, I thought, were fuzzy at best.

I am still a conservative, of course (in the traditional American sense), but have not been a Republican—again, of course—since 2016.

George F. Will was asked why he left the Republican Party. “For the same reason I joined it,” he answered. “I’m a conservative.”

The past decade has been topsy-turvy. The Right has often sounded like the Left of old, using the same language as, say, Code Pink. I wrote about this in a long, detailed 2024 essay titled “Our Political World, Topsy-Turvy.”

Are you acquainted with Mette Frederiksen, the Danish prime minister? She is a Social Democrat. Yesterday, she said, “Russia unfortunately doesn’t want peace with us. Therefore, we have to continue rearming ourselves and we need to support Ukraine.”

If you had told me, short years ago, that Scandinavian social democrats would be more clear-eyed about the Kremlin and threats to the West than American Republicans and “conservatives” …

Holy-moly sakes alive, as we say in my native Midwest.

You are acquainted with James Talarico, the Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate in Texas? He is an all-out hate-figure among Republicans. Also yesterday, he said,

I think we learned back in the Second World War that when we failed to stand up to an aggressor in Europe—that comes back to haunt us. We need to strengthen Ukraine. We need to strengthen our NATO allies as they stand up to Russian aggression, so we don’t have to. In some ways, I see this as a cost-saving measure. If we can stop this aggression, if we can stop Vladimir Putin in Ukraine, then we’re not going to have to stop him elsewhere.

My friends, this is exactly how Republicans and conservatives talked until ten years ago. Exactly. I swear, I was there (and did a lot of talking myself).

***

Our president, Donald Trump, has partnered with Putin in an oil deal. This aids Russia’s war machine, which is murdering innocents every day. Are we complicit? Of course we are. Trump demands that Ukraine stop bombing Russian oil refineries. He never, ever demands that Putin stop murdering civilians.

I believe our beloved country has joined the side of evil. That is the strongest of all words (on the negative side). (On the other side, it would be “love,” I think.) But I believe it applies.

About a month ago, I wrote an essay about President Reagan’s “evil empire” speech. Sometimes, the occasion, the facts, call for such language.

You know who else does not shy from the word “evil”? Elon Musk. Last year, when he was a senior adviser to Trump, he said the following about the National Endowment for Democracy, an organization founded at the urging of Reagan: “That evil organization needs to be dissolved.”

Here is Musk yesterday:

Does Musk ever say a word of criticism about the slaughterer? No. Neither does Trump. They only slam people who are defending themselves.

Listen to Mike Waltz, Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations: “The Ukrainians have been attacking Russian refineries as part of the war. The president has been clear in asking the Ukrainians to stop, and asking, you know, from the perspective of the global economy suffering …”

Not a word—not a word—about the daily murder of innocent men, women, and children.

I thought of an acronym: “AINO,” meaning, “America in Name Only.” This is not the America we have known and loved.

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***

Putin is a hero to many. A “guardian of Christian civilization,” they say, a scourge of “wokeness.” Trump and his party—and their media, etc.—have done something remarkable: they have turned Volodymyr Zelensky, a genuinely heroic leader of our time, into a villain while boosting and perfuming the blood-soaked monster Putin.

In explanation, I can only draw on Milton: “Evil, be thou my good.”

***

Katie Zacharia is Trump’s new press secretary. She has a rich tweeting past, as this article details. Shortly after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Zacharia retweeted a post that said,

Which side are you going to stand on! I don’t know fully what is going on but I will tell you that Putin is at war with the CABAL - and the Ukraine is in bed with them.

Yup. That’s how it goes. Heard a lot of that.

***

Neutrality between Ukraine and Russia—invaded and invader, victim and aggressor—would have been bad enough. But to join Putin’s side … This shame, this stain, will cling to America for a long time, I believe, and deserve to.

Once, William H. McRaven, the retired admiral, was teaching a class. He asked the students to define the essence of America in world affairs. After some discussion, with people making this point and that, a young fellow blurted out, “We’re the good guys.”

Still true?

Daniel Hannan, the British Conservative, writes,

This is not neutralism. Neutralism, in the sense of “Putin’s a bastard but wake me up if he invades Seattle,” I understand. It’s not my cup of tea, but I can respect it. No, this is backing the totalitarian aggressor against the victim.

(I myself have made this point repeatedly—for example, in this 2023 column.)

***

Zelensky is now speaking of betrayal by the United States. Many people have said to him, “Hush!” I spent years among such people—the “anti-anti-Trumpers” who insisted that Zelensky had to kiss Trump’s behind at every turn.

Well, how did that work out? What did that gain the Ukrainians? Trump is partnering with Putin anyway.

Might as well tell the truth. Polite fictions and bitten tongues have proven unavailing.

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***

About 25 years ago, Michael Walzer asked a plaintive question: “Can there be a decent Left?” In that same spirit: Can there be a pro-Ukraine, anti-Putin Right? Yes.

Giorgia Meloni, the Italian prime minister, exemplifies this. On Wednesday, she said,

We all want peace. The difference lies in how we intend to achieve it. As I see it, supporting Ukraine is not an alternative to peace; it is what makes peace possible. Because if an aggressor expects its opponent to surrender, why would it negotiate? Surrender is not peace. It is conquest. If Ukraine stopped defending itself tomorrow, as many propose, we would not have peace. We would be discussing the occupation of a European nation and the return of Soviet imperialism.

Personally, I do not miss those times. I do not miss Russian tanks crushing uprisings in Prague and Budapest. I do not miss the Berlin Wall. And nobody will ever convince me that the abandonment of those defending their freedom can be called “peace.”

Meloni makes me think of Kossuth, that Hungarian leader of the 19th century: “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.”

After Meloni’s remarks, Zelensky wrote,

I thank Giorgia Meloni for the support and a clear, unequivocal, principled stance. Thank you for understanding who the aggressor is and what it means to build a dignified and lasting peace. This is possible only through strength and joint efforts for our security.

To hear Meloni deliver her remarks, go here. And lemme tell you: she does it in a honking Roman accent. I rather like that she is so “local,” rather than “standard.” This is not “anchorman” Italian. It is very particular—straight from the Roman streets.

Of course, Romans don’t regard themselves as local but central. Universal!

***

Radek Sikorski, the foreign minister of Poland, is another conservative—a conservative of the Reagan-Thatcher stripe. (They still exist. We could hold our convention at a mid-sized Denny’s.) He said,

We appreciate President Trump’s involvement in trying to end the Russia–Ukraine war. But in Poland, we believe that it will bear fruit if you put pressure on the aggressor and not on the victim of aggression.

“A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver.”

***

Boris Johnson, too, is a conservative, and a Conservative—a former prime minister of the United Kingdom, and a former foreign minister, too. Last Saturday, he wrote,

It is sickening that the USA is now lifting sanctions on Russian fuel, and transparently ridiculous to blame Ukraine for the spike in prices that obviously began with the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. Putin is murdering innocent Ukrainian civilians every day. The Ukrainians are fighting for their lives. And yet the White House is apparently determined to force American drivers to bankroll Putin’s slaughter. It won’t work and I doubt it will make much difference to the price of fuel.

If we want Russian oil and gas back on the world market then let’s end this war—with a free, sovereign and independent Ukraine.

Note Johnson’s first three words: “It is sickening.” That is the way a lot of us feel.

(One note on Johnson’s last sentence—a mere language note. Perhaps a moment of relief. Though Johnson went to Oxford, he apparently does not use the Oxford comma.)

***

Well, I’ve been quoting a lot of foreigners—foreign conservatives. Any American conservatives? Yes, Mike Pence:

President Trump’s decision to lift sanctions on Russian fuel amidst Putin’s ongoing and brutal attacks on civilian targets in Ukraine makes no sense …

America should not be throwing a lifeline to Putin’s war machine. …

Putin doesn’t want peace. Putin wants Ukraine.

That, my friends, is realism. And it’s amazing that self-styled “realists” tend to lose touch with reality when it comes to Putin and the Kremlin.

***

Over the years, I have been asked, “Do you think Trump is a Russian asset?” No. But he is certainly an asset to Russia. In a brief video, I explained the distinction.

Bear with me for a moment—this is a little offbeat. I have a friend who’s a professional golfer. When he loses a ball—a ball he thinks he should find—he says, “It’s not that I want to play that shot, play that ball. It’s not that I want to avoid a two-stroke penalty. I just want to know where it is!”

One fine day—or un-fine day, whatever—I want to know the truth about Trump’s obsequiousness before Putin. It is simple affinity? Admiration of dictators, or even envy of them? Or is there … something else?

I just want to know, as Tom just wants to know where his ball is.

***

The plain truth is, Donald Trump is on the other side—the side of an expansionist, murderous Russian dictator against the Free West. During the Cold War, there were plenty of Americans on the other side. But here’s the thing: they were likely to be professors at Antioch or folk singers. They were not president of the United States.

***

An old saying goes, “You are what you eat.” I say, “You are the media you consume.” A Fox News personality named Rachel said that Ukraine has killed “a million kids on the Russian side.” This is a weird, gross lie. But I know people who are hooked up to that network as to an IV, day and night.

***

In Ukraine, Putin’s forces have committed mass murder, mass rape, mass kidnapping, mass terror … Atrocity after atrocity, war crime after war crime. The day may come when recognition of these atrocities is so widespread, no one will admit to having been against helping the Ukrainians, or having made excuses for Putin.

I think of Edda Mussolini. I wrote about her in a book about the sons and daughters of dictators. She was a flaming Nazi. In her autobiography, she said that an expression arose in Germany after the war: “Hitler? Don’t know him.” But “I myself prefer to say, ‘Hitler, Goering, Goebbels? I knew them.’ It is more honest.” Yes, and she loved those men, too.

James Talarico is the Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate in Texas. His opponent is Ken Paxton, the attorney general of the state. For some reason, it is very important to Republicans that Talarico be gay or transgender. I’m not sure why this is so. We are in a bizarre psychological realm here.

On Tuesday, a member of JD Vance’s crowd called out, “I love you!” He answered, “I love you too, sir. In a totally platonic way, to be clear. I’m the vice president, not James Talarico.”

The crowd ate it up, of course.

Is Talarico gay? This is a matter of indifference to me. But why would the vice president of the United States say such a thing?

The first word in his Twitter bio is, of course, “Christian.”

The first words in the Twitter bio of Kari Lake are, of course, “Follower of Christ.” Lake was the Republican nominee for governor and then for the U.S. Senate in Arizona. Today, she is the senior advisor to the U.S. Agency for Global Media (meaning Voice of America, Radio Free Asia, etc.).

James Talarico was off the campaign trail for nine days with the flu. This gave rise to conspiracy theories on the right. This is what Kari Lake posted:

Bear in mind: Lake is not some random Internet kook. There are a billion of them. She is a top Arizona politician and holds an important position in the federal government.

I think of Arizona Republicans past: Barry Goldwater, John McCain, Jon Kyl. I admired them tremendously. I think of the people I have known who have been leaders of our global media: Jim Buckley, Jeff Gedmin, Tom Kent, Jamie Fly.

Kari Lake?

The Republican Party and “conservative movement” are in a dark, dark place.

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***

As regular readers are no doubt tired of hearing me say—I am tired of saying it—two of my main prayers for the American Right are these: that they recover a proper sense of manliness and that they recover a proper sense of patriotism.

Manliness is not a strutting brutishness; patriotism is not a braying jingoism.

Let me paste two sentences from an article in The Atlantic published last Sunday. The article is about the scheduled livestream of an execution—that of Nidal Hasan, the Fort Hood murderer:

Are we so weak, so insecure, that we must convince the world that we are still powerful by making a public spectacle of an execution? Or maybe Secretary Hegseth and President Trump intend this as a spectacle for the American people: a show of just how much testosterone the two men have surging through their veins.

I am of two minds about public executions—but maybe we can leave that subject for another day. The above words were written by William H. McRaven, the retired admiral who is best known for the operation that killed bin Laden.

He is no cupcake, McRaven.

In my observation, genuinely manly men such as McRaven reserve their greatest contempt for macho, faux-manly bullsh**. I knew a fair number of these men when I was growing up. They had fought in World War II. They did not strut or bray—ever.

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***

I am going to unload. Perhaps I am unwise to do so, but I’ve “had it up to here.”

On Monday, Trump was rallying in Ohio in behalf of Jon Husted, the Republican senator. Said Trump of the candidate:

I don’t do this with men very often. I started examining his body, because I didn’t know he was a great athlete. And I looked, and I watched up and down, and I looked at his a** …

Look, I don’t care. It was kind of funny, actually. But from the Trump Right—the nat-pop, postliberal Right—conservatives like me have heard nothing but “Fag! Fag! Fag!” for ten years.

And who is the masculine ideal of this Right? A man who dyes his hair, cakes on makeup, prances around to “Y.M.C.A.,” hails other men’s backsides …

Day after day on social media, people with Greco-Roman nudes as their avatars heap sexual abuse on me, and all the other conservatives of a pre-Trump stripe.

Something weird is going on here. If someone has an explanation—I’m all ears.

Yesterday, I was writing about the wanton slaughter of Ukrainians by Putin’s military, now with the blatant help of the United States. A reader replied,

Five years of enduring infinite amounts of faggotry from people with Ukrainian flags in their bios have made me numb to the concept of caring about these people.

Another “follower of Christ,” no doubt. I’ve had it up to here—have I said this recently?—with people who hang a cross around their neck, put an American flag on their lapel, and conduct themselves as nastily as possible.

Really.

I ain’t so great. But I know that it’s wrong to invade and murder innocent people.

***

Would you like to move on to sports, music, language, and the other topics I routinely cover? Or should I leave this column short and sweet (more like short and bitter)? I think I’ll opt for the latter. And I promise you a nice column or two in the near future.

Thank you so much.

Today’s Republicans often portray themselves as free-speech champions, fighting against the wokesters and the cancelers. Sometimes they are. But rare is the person who is consistent on free speech—who wants it for himself and others, too.

Let’s talk Gulf politics, and I do not mean the Middle East.

On the first day of his second term, President Trump signed an executive order renaming the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America.” This was an early sign of the unblushing Caesarism that would characterize this second term.

(Mobutu renamed his country “Zaire.” Trujillo renamed his country’s capital after himself. The renaming business makes an interesting study—all too.)

The Associated Press, being a media organization in a free country, decided that it would keep “Gulf of Mexico” in its stylebook. After all, this body of water had been called the “Gulf of Mexico” for 500 years. The White House then banned the AP from presidential press conferences and the like.

There is an old French term for what the AP had committed: lèse-majesté. The AP had offended the sovereign.

Fast-forward to a few days ago. Did you see this story?

Alabama’s Gulf of America Act took effect last week, making it state policy to use President Trump’s preferred term for the Gulf of Mexico.

House Bill 2 requires “all state and local entities and their employees” to “refer to the body of water that borders the coast of Alabama as the ‘Gulf of America,’” and to reflect this “terminology in all newly created maps, documents, educational materials, websites, official communications, and other resources.”

There’s more. And if you feel a chill, you are not alone:

The page-and-a-half-long law has one exception for the public schools, colleges, and universities it impacts: They can use “Gulf of Mexico” “for historical purposes” during instruction. Otherwise, the law doesn’t exempt Alabama faculty or other university employees, including reporters, from its restriction on what they can call this body of water.

You know what I think a genuine, red-blooded American would say? “No.” In fact, “Hell, no.”

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***

On the subject of renaming, I wonder whether you saw this, from our president yesterday:

Can anyone defend this, anyone at all? “THE ENEMY!”? Is this the way an American president ought to talk about his fellow citizens who don’t immediately conform to his linguistic decrees?

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On Wednesday, Trump said, “I view the presidency as a very sacred position.” The Founders did not. It is a civil position. And the president, as a citizen, is not above the law. What was the American revolution about, at its heart? What separated us from the Old World and its ways and notions?

I believe that modern Americans, too many of them, have forgotten who we are.

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***

Kevin D. Williamson had a nifty, offbeat essay on King Henry VIII and his court, making some comparisons to TrumpWorld. One of his points about Henry was this: “Henry was all about Henry.” Kevin did not put it that way; I am paraphrasing him in modern parlance.

I thought of something that a reader said last month. Allow me to “set the scene.”

Trump has a habit of running down America, and doing so on foreign soil. On a recent trip to Ireland, he claimed that the 2020 election had been “rigged” (of course). I commented:

For years, our dictatorial enemies—Russia, China, et al.—have said that our democracy is a sham. What need is there of Kremlin propaganda, for example, when the U.S. president himself says the same things?

A reader, a tweeter, named Andrew—no last name given—replied as follows:

Nothing like a nationalist who runs down his own country.

But he was never a nationalist, really. Just a him-ist. The country is great when, and only when, it serves him personally.

Just a him-ist. That is really well put.

***

One more word on Henry VIII—not from me, or Kevin, but from David Pryce-Jones, the late British historian and man of letters: “He was as close as this country has ever come to a proper tyrant.” (DPJ said this to me when, somehow, we had gotten on that atrocious king.)

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Do you know what a “groyper” is? If you don’t, lucky you. It is a young American who is into far-right politics. Now, I have been called “far-right” throughout my life because I admire Goldwater, Buckley, and Reagan. This is not groyperism. Groyperism is—you know, Hitler and the boys.

With regularity, there are news stories exposing congressional staffers and the like as groypers. There was one the other day, leading David French to say:

This is happening so much that it’s almost dog-bites-man at this point in the Right’s devolution. It’s the same story again and again and again and again.

I replied,

Yes. Many of us watched the groyperization of young people—a disquieting percentage of them. It’s one of the things that gave me second thoughts about “American exceptionalism.” Our degree of immunity to the ills of the Old World.

I have an idea for grad students in political science who are casting about for a topic. See what you think:

In Cold War years, there were “mainstream liberals” who treated left-wing extremists as “liberals in a hurry.” They had a sneaking admiration for the extremists. They might even have been a little shamed by them. “Why am I not doing as much? Why am I not as bold?” There were “coat-and-tie liberals,” as Bob Tyrell said, who put a patina on what the extremists, the commies, were doing.

After 2016, something similar happened on the right. “Mainstream conservatives” convinced themselves that the extremists were “moving the needle.” They were maybe a little rough around the edges, but their hearts were in the right place. The “mainstreamers” even thrilled to these guys, got a kick out of them—these beer-hall types who were “saying the quiet parts out loud,” etc.

Anyway, an idea—an idea for a topic.

***

There will be a presidential election in France next year—and it may come down to Jean-Luc Mélenchon vs. Marine Le Pen. Left vs. Right. Now, by “Left vs. Right,” I don’t mean, say, Reagan vs. Mondale or, in the subsequent election, Bush vs. Dukakis. I mean—the real Left and Right.

Between Mélenchon and Le Pen, who is more anti-NATO? Who is more anti-Ukraine? Who is sweeter on Putin?

An item from a couple of weeks ago:

Jean-Luc Mélenchon blames Ukraine’s “deep strikes” on Russian territory for intensifying the Russian threat in Europe.

Sure.

In American politics, we often speak of the “horseshoe”: Left and Right bending toward each other. In France, the horseshoe seems more like a circle …

***

My friends, this has not been a very “up” or hope-filled column. My apologies. Maybe I can sign off with some flowers, from Tucson, Arizona, from where I am writing you? My vast horticultural knowledge tells me that they’re “orange-red jobbies.” Anyway, they’re appealing to me, and I bet you will find them the same.

Thanks for writing, thanks for subscribing, thanks for corresponding—thank you.

In recent weeks, there have been many articles noting an upsurge in anti-Indian bigotry—by which I mean nativist bigotry against Indian Americans. Let me quote a few paragraphs from a column by Sadanand Dhume in the Wall Street Journal:

The parallels with antisemitism are striking. Like Jewish Americans, Indian Americans are highly educated and have extremely low crime rates and welfare dependency. Both groups are “resented because they are successful,” journalist Jay Nordlinger said in a phone interview.

In 2004, Mr. Nordlinger wrote an article in National Review in which he called Indian Americans “entrepreneurial, hard-working, striving, traditionalist, family-oriented, religious, assimilationist, patriotic”—therefore natural GOP voters. That hopeful time “feels like a thousand years ago,” Mr. Nordlinger said. “The GOP has become a populist-Right party.”

Mr. Nordlinger may be overly pessimistic. … But there’s no question that many GOP-inclined Indian Americans are wondering if the party has room for them anymore.

If you are interested in reading that article from 2004, go here. It’s like a relic, dusted off by the Leakey family in Tanzania.

I wish to quote another article, this one published three days ago in The Atlantic. Its title is “The Mainstreaming of Anti-Indian Bigotry.” Let me paste a paragraph, then give you a memory from almost 25 years ago—a memory of Donald Rumsfeld:

Indian Americans, Rufo argued, are “going to grind on spelling-bee words like unlimited hours,” whereas American culture says, “You’re not supposed to study for the spelling bee.” Keeperman agreed: “What actually makes America so dynamic—it’s not the kid who studies all night for the spelling-bee test. It’s the kid who is the fullback on the high-school football team, who puts his head down and is willing to run through a freaking wall on behalf of his teammates and then spends the night drinking beers at the kegger and wakes up in the morning and gets a 1500 on his SATs, okay?”

Okay. Does America, this great star-spangled country, from sea to shining sea, have room for both? Both the spelling-bee studier and the fullback?

(Bill Buckley liked to draw on the phrase “from sea to shining sea” when indicating the continental vastness of our country and its remarkable variety.)

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In 2002, Donald Rumsfeld was secretary of defense. (He had held the same position 25 years before under President Ford.) I interviewed him as he flew from one event in Colorado to another in California.

He had just seen a movie—a documentary—called “Spellbound.” First, his wife saw it, and then she said, “Come on, you have to see this.” And they went together.

The documentary is about the National Spelling Bee, and, naturally, it features Indian-American kids, among others.

Rumsfeld said that if some Martian or other stranger asked him, “What is America all about?,” he would recommend watching Spellbound.

One could certainly do worse. And I hope and trust that the spirit represented by Rumsfeld and Spellbound is still alive in our country, even in lowdown, boobish times.

***

Well, stick with Indian Americans for a moment. There is a video of Vivek Ramaswamy, the Republican nominee for governor in Ohio. It is actually an ad—a campaign ad for Ramaswamy. One friend said to me, “How in the world could his team approve this?”

The ad shows the candidate taking cuts in a batting cage—and to use the word “cuts” is very generous. The poor fellow shows virtually no acquaintance with a bat and ball.

What’s my point? To knock a guy for his batting swing? No, it is to say this: There are some offspring of immigrants who go overboard in trying to prove how “American” they are. But think of the son of immigrants in this case: He went to Harvard and Yale. He became a billionaire. Now he is in politics, another demagogue and blowhard.

Can you really be more “American” than that (I’m sorry to say)?

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***

I saw this poster in a New York diner:

***

At the beginning of this column, I said that there had been a spate of articles about anti-Indian bigotry. Here is the tweet that started it all—a tweet from a Republican nominee in Texas:

The federal government, in the form of the Education Department, followed that up with a tweet of its own:

I trust this needs no explanation or interpretation.

You know what one big problem is, as I see it? Judging people as members of ethnic or racial groups rather than individuals. Now, some generalizing is necessary—a person can hardly think, talk, or write without generalizing. In that 2004 article, I generalized that Indian Americans were “entrepreneurial, hard-working,” etc.

But you know what we all are? Individuals. This ought not to be forgotten, and I regard it as very American (and classically liberal).

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Let’s do a little language, and praise Ken Paxton at the same time. Yes, I will. Paxton is the attorney general of Texas and the Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate. He is the perfect specimen of the corrupt MAGA politician. He is so corrupt, he was impeached by the Republican house in his state, before being let off the hook by the Republican senate. Naturally, Republican primary voters wanted him to be their nominee for the U.S. Senate.

A recording has been leaked in which Paxton explains that he does not have genuine control over his campaign, because everything is coming “from D.C.” But my interest is grammatical. At the end of the recording, Paxton says that “we are maximizing every cent so that people understand the difference between him and me”—meaning between him and his Democratic opponent.

Well, score one for Paxton. In this age of vanishing grammar, he knows how to use his pronouns.

Pronouns are an issue in our politics, aren’t they? (But not the ones I’m talking about …)

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“Bob Pettit, N.B.A. Great for the Hawks, Dies at 93.” For that obituary, published in the New York Times, go here. By the way, I find it interesting that the Times still puts periods in “N.B.A.” I do not. Also, I write “CIA,” “not C.I.A.” But I am inconsistent.

I always do “U.S.,” not “US,” because the latter reminds me of “us,” to rhyme with “fuss.” I also do “U.N.” But, abbreviating “United Kingdom,” I do “UK.” Why?

To heck with abbreviation and back to Bob Pettit. I wish I had been at this game:

Pettit turned in one of the most brilliant playoff performances in N.B.A. history on April 12, 1958, when he scored 50 points, including 19 of the Hawks’ last 21, in a championship-clinching 110-109 victory over the Boston Celtics at Kiel Auditorium in St. Louis in Game 6 of the playoff finals.

Many years later, Pettit said, “In the last quarter, I wasn’t sure what was happening. I was getting the ball, shooting it, and it was going in. I wanted the ball because I didn’t think there was anything they could do to stop me.”

We have a word for that now: “unconscious,” with the first syllable usually drawn out, when spoken.

Bill Russell said, “Bob made ‘second effort’ a part of the sport’s vocabulary. He kept coming at you more than any man in the game. He was always battling for position, fighting you off the boards.”

Many of us could use some of that quality in life—life “its ownself,” as Dan Jenkins would say.

Finally, I want to quote a portion of the obit concerning Bob Pettit’s upbringing:

He did not make the Baton Rouge High School basketball team as a sophomore, but he joined a church league and practiced nightly by shooting tennis balls at a makeshift hoop in his back yard, bending a wire into the shape of a basket.

I just love that, and I believe I can see it. I had a friend who, as a boy, practiced in the freezing cold—outdoors in Michigan—until he got frostbite in his fingers. With the onset of every winter thereafter, he felt his fingers tingle, a reminder of his earlier diligence (or foolishness?). He welcomed the sensation, too—for it meant, “Basketball season has arrived.”

Thank you for reading, thank you for subscribing, thank you for being.

In the Soviet Union, and, later, Russia, Garry Kasparov was in an unusual position. From 1985 to 2005, he was world chess champion, and therefore a national hero. He was also a dissident. Kasparov left Russia in 2013, because it was getting ever more dangerous for him to be there.

Over here, in America, he founded the Renew Democracy Initiative and its publication, The Next Move. Kasparov is a friend of mine and I am affiliated, I’m grateful to say, with RDI and TNM.

A Kremlin plot to murder Garry and others has been uncovered. A dictatorship such as Putin’s doesn’t care where you live; if you are a dissident, particularly one with influence, you are in that dictatorship’s crosshairs.

Garry wrote about this two days ago, here. Today, I will say merely this: He has stuck his neck out, for the cause of freedom, democracy, and human rights. He could have rested on his chess laurels. He did not. I admire him immensely and consider him invaluable.

He has his enemies, in Russia (obviously), the United States (less obviously?), and elsewhere. He has earned them. Sticking up for freedom, democracy, and human rights is not for the fainthearted. Garry’s heart is strong and big.

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It should go without saying that democratic governments often have to maintain diplomatic relations with dictatorships, even monstrous ones, genocidal ones. We have relations with China, for example. But do we have to be lovey-dovey with them? No, not at all.

Here is a tweet from President Trump a week ago:

Our president has the kindest, tenderest words about Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin, and Kim Jong-un. About democratic leaders—Free World leaders—practically none.

In an interview with Bob Woodward during his first term, Trump said, “It’s funny. The relationships I have—the tougher and meaner they are, the better I get along with them. You know? Explain that to me someday, okay?”

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Last week, I had a piece in which I took the liberty of issuing a reminder:

Who is Xi Jinping? He is the boss of the Chinese Communist Party. The CCP imprisons, tortures, and kills some of the best people in China—democrats striving for basic freedoms. The CCP is committing genocide against the Uyghur people. (This was the determination of the U.S. State Department in 2021.) The CCP has crushed Tibet and threatens to do the same to Taiwan.

This government, the Chinese government, is a mortal enemy of the United States and all free countries.

But, again, you have to engage in diplomatic relations with them. The question is: How should those relations be conducted?

In 2011, Hu Jintao made a state visit to Washington. Along Pennsylvania Avenue, U.S. flags and Chinese flags were flown side by side, which nauseated some of us. We cursed President Obama for it.

Have you seen this, from last week?

“Over the top” is the politest thing you could say about that scene. If Chinese political prisoners, or Uyghurs in the gulag, saw it: what would they think about us Americans?

Or as Vladimir Bukovsky, the Soviet-era dissident, said (I will paraphrase): “As Western governments go about their business, doing the necessary, they should occasionally pause to wonder: How will it look to the boys in the camps?”

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***

I think I have read more about tribalism in the last ten years than in all the other years of my life—and I was an anthropology major. The tribalism of blood, I think I understand (even if I don’t like it). But the strength of political tribalism astonishes me.

A report from the Wall Street Journal begins,

The Trump administration used federal funds from the Department of Homeland Security to finance a set of controversial pro-Trump advertisements that recently began airing on television, according to people familiar with the matter.

The taxpayer money used to fund the ads that started airing last week came from U.S. Customs and Border Protection, an arm of DHS that oversees the Border Patrol and customs and immigration at airports, the people said.

If a Democratic president did this, every Republican and conservative in the country would call for an impeachment inquiry. But political tribalism has an almost mesmeric power.

I have learned this, as I think many others have as well.

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By now, you have probably seen this photo, quickly famous, or infamous:

You can read about the matter elsewhere, and I will be brief: Senator Eric Schmitt (R., Mo.), who is the guy sitting in the middle, was questioning Jack Smith, the onetime special counsel overseeing criminal investigations into Donald Trump. The guy on the right, with his right arm on the poster, is Senator John Kennedy (R., La.).

Is “poster” the right word? It is one of those blow-up things that public officials use.

Those two faces—Schmitt’s and Kennedy’s—say a lot. The senators thought they had trapped Smith in perjury. A moment of triumph! It would live in Fox News immortality! But they’d gotten it all wrong and got egg on their faces.

I have roughly a hundred points to make about this episode, but I will make just one of them. Schmitt, I expect little of. He “is what he is”—basically, another guy in the bar. A political blowhard and lout. I expect he will be reelected forever.

But Kennedy? He is splendidly educated and has many talents—intellectual, verbal, etc. He could have been a genuine statesman, a “lion of the Senate.” Instead, he chose to be a blowhard and lout: just another Fox troll, with cornpone.

Our current political era is, among other things, diminishing. It makes people very small. Or, put differently, and better: it leads people to make themselves very small.

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I’ve got a ton more for you, but I have to run, and so do you. Maybe I could throw a music review at you: here. It’s of a concert by the New York Philharmonic, a gala affair. It was introduced by Alec Baldwin. I had a conversation with him, beforehand. I’ll tell you about it later. Kind of interesting (nothing political).

***

A little language? I’ve been hearing, and reading, “core tenets.” The thing about tenets: they are core. No need for the “core.”

***

On social media, I wrote,

A thought (not original): Many of us read great novels when we’re in high school and college—and have relatively little experience of life. We would understand and appreciate them a lot more at age, say, 50. The system seems backward in this respect!

This little jotting received many responses, and interesting ones, too. Would you like to respond? Send me a note? I would welcome it: mail@jaynordlinger.com.

Thank you so much for reading, and subscribing, if you can/want. And corresponding! Have a good weekend. Back at you soon (“not a promise but a warning,” as a friend of mine would say).

Over the years, I have written a fair amount about golf, and a fair amount about golf and honor. I did so as recently as August, here. The subtitle of that piece: “Did Trump really have a round of 70? Did Kim Jong-il have a 34?”

You may have heard about Scottie Scheffler, the No. 1 golfer in the world, and his act of sportsmanship during the Presidents Cup. For an article about this, go here, and for a video, here. I’ll be brief …

Scottie was paired against Nico Echavarría, from Colombia. An American fan yelled in the middle of Nico’s backswing, prompting an errant shot. When the two golfers reached the green, Scottie conceded to Nico a very long putt—32 feet—resulting in a tie on the hole. (Neither golfer gained or lost ground.)

Scottie was making up for the fact that the fan had done Nico dirty.

That’s golf. Scheffler is a genuine golfer, in addition to a great and historic one.

***

I was thinking about the Iran war, and thinking: you and I have a right to know what our war aims are. Can you say with confidence what those aims are? Has the president articulated them, or have others in his administration done so?

Early on, Trump & Co. talked about the destruction of Iran’s nuclear program and the liberation of the Iranian people. What about now? This is no light matter.

I, for one, don’t know what our war aims are. And I think I’ve done a pretty good job of paying attention.

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***

You may have seen this news. I have linked to a report by Michael Crowley in the New York Times, and I will quote at some length:

For decades, the flags of the 190 or so countries with which the United States maintains diplomatic relations have hung above the State Department’s main atrium, greeting visitors with a menagerie of symbols, creatures and colors.

Today, however, they are gone. Each one has been replaced by an American flag, forming a red, white and blue row perhaps 100 feet long in what could be the highest density of stars and stripes anywhere outside a flag factory. …

The change has touched a nerve in diplomatic circles, where many State Department veterans call it an embarrassing symbol of the Trump administration’s showy brand of nationalism.

I remember seeing those flags—the flags of the world—when I was a student. I thought the array was impressive.

And what the Trump administration has done is far from patriotism. It does not even qualify as nationalism. It is childish, bespeaking an insecurity that ought to be foreign (pardon the word) to the American.

(Have you read the Evelyn Waugh novel Put Out More Flags? It’s a winner—which does not distinguish it from other Waugh novels.)

***

A friend of mine asked whether I knew about Manuel Quezon. I did not—had never heard of him. Quezon was the president of the Philippines from 1935 to 1944. I’m very glad to know about him now.

My friend sent me this article by Matt Neal, which begins,

In 1939, more than 1,200 Jews were saved from the horrors of Nazi concentration camps by a man with a list.

While many people know of Oskar Schindler—the hero made famous by Thomas Keneally’s novel and Steven Spielberg’s 1993 film Schindler’s List—there was another man with another list.

Namely, Manuel Quezon. All honor.

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***

Kevin D. Williamson and I are on the same beam, as usual (I’m glad to say). He writes,

I never have liked, accepted, or used the label “Never Trump.” That is not because I have any reservations about the principle that one should never support a man with the character and temperament of Donald Trump for any public office, much less that of president of these United States. … Rather, I prefer to describe myself and my views in my own words and resist the descent into semiliterate hashtag-based conversation.

Do you know? I have never used the phrase “Never Trump” about myself or anyone else. Ever. I think there is something petulant about it, bringing to mind a child stamping his foot and saying, “Never, never!”

I am anti-Trump. I have stated and explained this from the beginning—for example in this article, written in May 2016. Trump had just clinched the GOP presidential nomination, and I was leaving that party, for the reasons I gave.

Still, for some years, people asked me, “Why don’t you like Trump?” What they meant was: “We are on the right, he is the leader of our team, why don’t you get with the program? You’re not a commie, are you?”

Obviously, they never knew me or read me (not that I blame them). (Some of my nearest and dearest don’t read me, although they do know me.)

Listen to the president, speaking yesterday: “Kim Jong-un is a friend of mine. He likes Trump. Doesn’t like a lot of other people. I’m about the only person in the entire world that he likes. And I like him.”

I won’t get into a lot of autobiography—I published a piece called “A Political Testimony” on Election Day 2024—but let me say this: A major reason I became a conservative, many years ago, was anti-communism. Opposition to monstrous dictators, moral clarity on the subject.

That has vanished on the right. Gone with the wind.

***

The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their right names. I did not originate that sentence. Socrates did. Or Confucius did. Someone did, ages ago.

And it is true. President Trump is a big renamer of things. “Say ‘Gulf of America,’” not “Gulf of Mexico.” “Say ‘Department of War,’” not “Department of Defense.” “Say ‘Lake America,’” not “Lake Ontario.” And now: “Say ‘super intelligence,’” not “artificial intelligence.”

Trump’s people have hopped to on that one, as on everything else. Watch the ambassador to the U.N., Mike Waltz, here. Pathetic.

As for me, I quote Nancy Reagan: just say no. No. To take merely the latest change: I will not go from “AI” to “SI,” in part because “SI,” to me, means “Sports Illustrated.”

***

All right, let’s turn to something truly controversial: opera. You think there’s fanaticism in politics? In the last few days, I have reviewed two performances at the Met—of La bohème, here, and Così fan tutte, here.

Enter the fray …

***

When I was leaving the opera on one of those nights, the ballet was letting out too. Across the Lincoln Center campus, a father walked with his daughter. She must have been nine? She was in ballet “gear,” dancing along—dancing across the plaza. What could be better? Bliss.

Thank you for reading, my friends, and subscribing if you can/want. Hugely appreciated. Later on.