Donald trump

Thursday

Damian Thompson

Playing with fire — did QAnon start as a cynical game?

On Easter Monday 2018, Donald and Melania Trump stood on the balcony of the White House next to a giant bunny. It’s part of the job: since 1878, presidents have hosted a children’s Easter egg hunt on the south lawn. Usually they rhapsodise abut what fun the kids are going to have. Trump, true to form, told his young guests to ‘just think of 700 billion dollars, because that’s all going into our military this year’. And he also said that the White House was an amazing place, in ‘tip-top shape’. The liberal media rolled their eyes about Trump boasting to children about military spending but quickly moved on. The

Thursday

Tom Holland and Francis Fukuyama

Marxism, football and Trump’s demise: Tom Holland and Francis Fukuyama in conversation

TOM HOLLAND: The title of your latest book, a book of interviews, is After the End of History. This alludes to what I guess must still rank as your most famous book and I wonder: is the fame of that book a burden? Do you feel like a famous rock star whose fans want him to play the greatest hits? FRANCIS FUKUYAMA: You know, it is really only when I meet up for interviews with journalists who want to talk about very general types of topics that the issue comes up. TH: Since it is the title, could we just nail down what you mean by ‘the end of history’?

Saturday

Edward Howell

The increasing cruelty of the North Korean regime

On a humid summer’s day in Singapore three years ago today, Donald Trump became the first incumbent US president to meet with his North Korean counterpart. For all of the summit’s theatre, Kim Jong-un’s pledge to ‘work toward complete denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula’ seems unlikely to be realised. Three years on, and the country shows little intention of either abandoning its nuclear ambitions or reforming Pyongyang. Instead, the regime has tightened its control over society, not least ideologically, after the failure of the Supreme Leader’s five-year economic plan. In 2018, the leadership assured North Koreans that the country had achieved its primary geopolitical aim of becoming a ‘fully-fledged nuclear

Thursday

Lee Cohen

Biden proves that Trump was a true British ally

Now that Joe Biden has landed in the UK, many Brits may be realising what a stalwart friend they had in Trump. Within minutes of arriving on UK shores, Biden was denouncing Britannia, Boris, Brexit — you name it. Far from hailing the UK, America’s most cherished ally, BIden was showing Britain a bullying disdain that should be reserved only for China or Iran. It is difficult to conceive of two stranger bedfellows than the golden-tongued Old Etonian and the awkward, plain-spoken ‘blue collar’ Joe Biden. But rhetoric, style and acuity aside, the two heads of government face divergent motivations when it comes to policy — these are likely to challenge the British-American partnership. Last

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Boris, Biden and the orange elephant in the room

Donald who? As Boris Johnson meets Joe Biden in Cornwall this week, the Prime Minister will hope that the President doesn’t dwell on his efforts to woo the last occupant of the Oval Office. Boris’s dalliance with Donald Trump is a bit like his affair with Jennifer Arcuri — an embarrassing fling with a rotund, brash American conspiracy theorist, something he’d rather the world forgot. He’s moved on and so should we. Boris wouldn’t, for instance, want Biden to be reminded of the time in November 2017 when, as foreign secretary, he went on Fox News to say of Trump: ‘What you’ve got to realise is that the American President

Thursday

Matt Ridley

The Covid lab leak theory is looking increasingly plausible

In March last year, it was widely agreed by everybody sensible, me included, that talk of the pandemic originating in a laboratory was pseudoscientific nonsense almost on a par with UFOs and the Loch Ness monster. My own reasoning was that Mother Nature is a better genetic engineer than we will ever be, so something as accomplished at infection and spread could not possibly have been put together in a lab. Today, the mood has changed. Even Dr Anthony Fauci, the US President’s chief medical advisor, now says he is ‘not convinced’ the virus emerged naturally. This month a letter in Science magazine from 18 senior virologists and other experts

Thursday

Andrew Sullivan

The Trump nightmare isn’t over

What would happen to the Republicans after Donald Trump? That has been one of the pundits’ favourite themes in the past few months. Maybe the GOP could run against Joe Biden’s massive spending and borrowing splurge, some pondered; or go after some low-hanging woke excesses on the left; or exploit the huge influx of illegal immigrants at the southern border that Biden is bringing about so swiftly; or warn of inflation, or the generosity of pandemic relief holding back the recovery; or find some new young faces to appeal to minorities who moved ever so slightly to the right in the last election. And some Republicans have indeed made gestures

Sunday

Dalibor Rohac

Europe should be wary of Biden’s cuddly capitalism

Judging by the European press’ reaction to his address to Congress this week, US president Joe Biden’s domestic agenda is popular outside of the United States as well.  ‘In the choice between going big and going bipartisan, big is winning, remaking America with government at the centre,’ the Guardian writes approvingly. Biden embarks on ‘a historic battle against inequality,’ a Le Monde headline announces. ‘America’s democracy can no longer endure the growing gap in income and education, so Biden has to fight for the middle,’ the Süddeutsche Zeitung piles on. Notwithstanding the president’s unassuming demeanour, there can be no question about the his ambitions. After the sizeable Covid-19 relief package, worth

Thursday

Roger Kimball

Is Joe Biden trying to make America poor again?

John Maynard Keynes is alleged to have said ‘When the facts change, I change my mind — what do you do, sir?’ I am no fan of Keynes generally, but there is something to be said for that pithy ‘second-thoughts’ comment. It pains me to admit it, but the president’s address to the joint session of Congress put me in mind of Keynes’s observation. After all, was it not a rousing address? Even long-time critics acknowledged it. One described it as ‘a perfect blend of strength and empathy’. I have to agree. That same commentator wrote that ‘Tonight, I was moved and inspired. Tonight, I have hope and faith in

Thursday

Jeremy Clarke

My French lesson has taken a most unexpected turn

‘Alas, David can’t be here this afternoon,’ I told the French teacher as she let me into her light and spacious home. ‘He has an appointment to see a specialist about his ears.’ I tried to say this in French. Conversational exchanges that take place between her front door and the lesson table are usually conducted under a flag of truce and she restricted her expressions of gaping horror to a minimum. ‘His ears?’ she said. ‘Poor David! What is wrong with his ears?’ ‘I think he was blown up by a shell,’ I said. ‘And his eardrums were damaged in the explosion.’ Our French teacher lives a quiet and

Tuesday

Steerpike

Is Macron the new Trump?

For the last three months journalists across the world have been missing the curious mix of bombast, arrogance, untruths and showmanship that was President Donald Trump. But is a new unlikely figure now filling that void? As an embattled, insecure incumbent staring down the barrel of defeat in an upcoming presidential contest dominated by Covid, Emmanuel Macron must be hoping his fate doesn’t play out like the Donald’s. But as France’s third wave of Covid gets underway, the country’s president appears to be taking tips from his one time counterpart on pandemic leadership. The French newspaper Le Monde today reports a series of fawning quotes from Macron’s aides who now call him ‘the president epidemologist.’ One

Thursday

David Patrikarakos

Walls went up after the Berlin Wall came down

In her 2017 travelogue Border: A Journey to the Edge of Europe, the writer and poet Kapka Kassabova meets Emel, a loquacious Turkish civil servant who tells her that ‘the only good thing about a border is that you can cross it’. These words speak to an inherent contradiction. Borders stand as overt manifestations of national power. They represent what seems most fixed and immutable about the state. But in reality, what they do more than anything else is invite transgression. This idea that borders are not quite what we perceive them to be is the thematic ballast for Klaus Dodds’s impressive and timely Border Wars. And it is a

Sunday

Kate Andrews

Donald Trump tightens his grip on the Republican party

‘Do you miss me yet,’ Donald Trump asked the crowd in his opening remarks at the Conservative Political Action Conference this afternoon: the most important annual conference for the Republican party. The former president was given the keynote address at CPAC, with anticipation that he might have a big announcement to make about his future plans, including the possibility of another run for the White House. In a speech that ran for roughly 90 minutes, Trump never committed himself to a 2024 bid, but he teased it several times. ‘I may even decide to beat them for a third time,’ he said at the start of the speech: the first

Saturday

Kate Andrews

What Trump’s acquittal means for the future of American politics

Former President Donald Trump was acquitted by the Senate today, in what has turned out to be the shortest impeachment trial in American history, after the House of Representatives voted to impeach him last month after the riot at the Capitol building. Despite being the first president impeached twice during his time in office – this time charged with inciting insurrection – the Senate once again failed to secure two-thirds majority to convict him. When Trump was first impeached in 2019, the Senate voted along near-partisan lines – only Utah senator and former presidential candidate Mitt Romney broke party lines. This time, seven Republicans broke rank to vote with the Democrats

Thursday

Andrew Sullivan

Trump is being defended by Foghorn Leghorn

We weren’t long into Bruce Castor’s opening speech defending Donald Trump in his impeachment trial before we knew it was going to be special. ‘I don’t want to steal the thunder from the other lawyers’ thunder,’ Castor intoned to a mildly befuddled Senate. ‘But Nebraska, you’re going to hear, is quite a judicial thinking place.’ We never got around to the payoff for that one, but there were plenty of other amusements. We learned about the ‘Greek Republic’, which apparently awaits salvation from the United States Senate. We had a tech update: ‘We all know what records are, right: the thing you put the needle down on it and then

Wednesday

Freddy Gray

The Trump Show enters its final season

There is no point denying it — The Trump Show, the craziest comedy the God of TV has ever produced, has been fizzling out. Yes, the ‘Storming of the Capitol’ episode was a dramatic denouement. The absurd sight of ridiculously dressed QAnoners stumbling into an accidental attempt at a government coup was shockingly hilarious. But the violent scenes left people depressed. The divine scriptwriters appeared to have lost the plot, gone off the deep end, ‘jumped the shark’, as they say. The networks tried to move forward by putting The Biden Show, a geriatric version of The West Wing, on prime time. But audiences so far aren’t sure how seriously they

Thursday

The Spectator

Letters: Don’t overlook the Trumpisms

Canterbury tales Sir: Having opened my copy of The Spectator upon arrival in the post, I read your article ‘Welby’s gatekeeper’ with interest (23 January). I was surprised and humbled to discover how much power and influence I have over the political engagement of the Archbishop. Let there be no doubt that the Archbishop sets his own agenda. More fundamentally and crucially, I was disappointed to see victims of abuse and wider issues relating to safeguarding being brought in to play in a politically focused piece about the workings of Lambeth Palace. It is a matter of public record that the Archbishop and his team are ready to meet with

Lionel Shriver Lionel Shriver

For Democrats, the Capitol assault was the gift that keeps on giving

As events recede, they change. When Donald Trump’s unhinged endgame culminated in a popular assault on the Capitol, most Americans of all political persuasions watched the improbable broadcast with genuine horror. Hell, yes, I was horrified myself. But as this month has advanced, and fears about my country disintegrating into anarchy have so far proved mercifully misplaced, lefty American commentators have progressed from anguish to glee. The New York Times banners that assault on its pages pretty much every day. The still of scruffs in red hats climbing the facade of the Capitol is now a standard backdrop on CNN. It must be thrilling to have your opponents do so

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

The big tech bullies

I was in the kitchen preparing the family’s dinner when the inauguration of Joe Biden was on TV, so I caught only mysterious fragments of his speech, over the noise of the blender and stuff. ‘I want an hour — an hour — with my own teen wolf,’ Joe seemed to say at one point. And then: ‘America, America, I give to you my vest.’ I raced through to the living room when someone announced that Garth Crooks was going to sing ‘Amazing Grace’ — good choice, Joe, I thought. Garth seems to have lost a little weight and indeed colour, but he did a decent job. It all went

Monday

Brendan O’Neill

No, Spike Lee: Donald Trump is not like Hitler

I wish people would stop comparing Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler. Not because I’m worried about Trump’s feelings — he’s big enough to look after himself — but because of the extraordinary damage these comparisons are doing to historical memory. All the loose, opportunistic, cheap-thrill talk about Trump being the new Hitler is trivialising the Nazi regime and the grotesque crimes of the 1930s. The latest celeb to jump on the Trump-Hitler bandwagon is film director Spike Lee. During an acceptance speech for a special prize from the New York Film Critics Circle, Lee said Trump would ‘go down in history with the likes of Hitler’. Trump and all ‘his