America’s most enduring bipartisan tradition: political hypocrisy

One of the advantages of finding myself in recent years without a political home is that I feel no temptation, let alone an obligation, to justify or minimize unsavory behavior from either side of the political aisle. My disenchantment with both the Republican and Democratic camps has its drawbacks, but one advantage is that it … Read more

No, Trump didn’t earn an ‘unprecedented and powerful’ mandate

Ever since Donald Trump became a politician, he has upended electoral norms and disregarded presidential traditions. Yet as he took the stage to declare victory on election night, Trump did something utterly conventional: He claimed to have a mandate. “America has given us an unprecedented and powerful mandate,” the president-elect exulted, describing his win as … Read more

Antisemitism and the power of the big lie

LAST OCT. 7 was the deadliest day of violence against Jews since the end of the Holocaust. It was also the start of the most virulent eruption of antisemitism in the West since World War II. To mention but a single statistic, in the first three days following the ghastly Hamas pogrom, online calls for … Read more

Ice cream wasn’t perfect? Make a federal case out of it!

Two years ago, Jenna Marie Duncan walked into a Cold Stone Creamery in Levittown, N.Y., and bought some pistachio ice cream. Some time thereafter — it’s not clear when — she decided to make a stink about the fact that the pistachio ice cream sold by Cold Stone Creamery doesn’t contain actual pistachios. By “make … Read more

The law that ruined America’s immigration system

ONE HUNDRED years ago this month, President Calvin Coolidge signed the Immigration Act of 1924. Passed by large majorities in the House and Senate, the law overturned the system of mostly free immigration that had prevailed for the previous century and a half, transforming America from a collection of English colonies hugging the Atlantic Coast … Read more

Boycotting Israel? Add these to your list — If you dare

For years anti-Israel agitators have urged consumers and institutions to support the international hate campaign against the world’s only Jewish country by boycotting Israeli products, services, and individuals. Some organizations even provide lists of goods or companies for their followers to shun when buying groceries, housewares, or toys. But those lists are woefully incomplete. For … Read more

Why matzah?

As they have done each spring for 33 centuries, Jews the world over will sit down together at the Passover Seder this Monday [April 24, 2024] and Tuesday night to commemorate the liberation of their ancestors from slavery in ancient Egypt. The Seder is the world’s oldest continuously observed religious ritual, and it is drenched … Read more

The man who made conservatism fun

“The Incomparable Mr. Buckley,” a new PBS documentary about the singular opinion journalist who animated American conservatism in the decades after World War II, opens with a clip from “Laugh-In.” Dan Rowan and Dick Martin’s goofy comedy show was known for its silly jokes and catchphrases (“Sock it to me!”), but in December 1970 the … Read more

Science says race isn’t real. How long will the US Census pretend otherwise?

A question about race has been on every US Census since the first one in 1790. But not the same question. In response to shifting politics, social attitudes, interest-group pressures, and government priorities, the list of racial categories into which the American government sorts the American people has changed many times. Now it is about … Read more

I was a young Republican. Now I want nothing to do with either party.

A LONG TIME ago, in a galaxy far, far away, I was an elected Republican Party official. Actually, it was in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, in the early 1980s. But it might as well have been in a time and place that is now a distant legend — not because I am so different, but because … Read more

‘Cancel culture’ grows increasingly cruel

THE RACIAL JACOBINS haven’t eased up in their post-George Floyd ferocity; if anything they are growing more indiscriminate in their determination to enforce political conformity and to punish anything they regard as thoughtcrime. Their targets haven’t been limited to statues of American heroes, editors of prominent newspapers, or professors at leading universities. The toll of … Read more