DeSantis is a Republican establishment win-win
The populist heart may want Trump, but many heads are for the Florida governor
Populism
Monday
Thursday
A GOP of Trump’s choosing?
The same activist and business forces that have determined the policy priorities of the right for decades remain in place
Wednesday
Republicans want populism but how much?
Tuesday’s primaries paint a more complicated picture than is sometimes assumed
Monday
The Ohio Senate race becomes a clown show
Josh Mandel tries to fight another candidate but J.D. Vance is still the worst
Friday
The straitened situation of conservatism
The prevailing assumption has been that the natural historical trend is leftward
Friday
The future of populist conservatism
The anti-liberal opposition will continue to be demotic and anti-theoretic, impatient with and scornful of ideas, in public life especially
Monday
Populist Trump can win
To triumph, the President needs to offer winning policies for sensible, everyday Americans
Tuesday
Frightened people love their leaders
Leader approval ratings are ticking up — similar to those terrifying COVID charts
Tuesday
Ross Perot was the populist who betrayed populism
By failing to team up with Pat Buchanan, he set back his cause by 20 years
Monday
Towards an American nationalism
At a time of angry division, what can bind us together?
Tuesday
The triumph of Matteo Salvini
Il Capitano has become the most important populist in Europe
Wednesday
When populism fails
If Trump continues to ignore the forces that elected him, he will unleash great cynicism
Wednesday
The heart of populism is identity, not race
Many voters are troubled by the fact that much of the new migration is illegal, and that the numbers are so large that assimilation will be difficult
Thursday
Macron vs Salvini: the ideological battle for Europe’s future
The first sign that Matteo Salvini was destined to do battle with Emmanuel Macron came in June, a few days after he was named Italy’s interior minister. Salvini, whose party, the League, wants to cut immigration drastically, announced that a German-registered rescue ship carrying 629 aspiring migrants from Africa would not be allowed to dock in Sicily. Macron reacted with disgust. ‘The policy of the Italian government,’ a spokesman for his political movement announced, ‘is nauseating.’ Salvini responded that if the French wanted to show their open–heartedness, they might make good on their unfulfilled pledge to feed and shelter some of the 100,000 African migrants Italy had until recently been
Thursday
Sweden’s political panic attack
Uppsala, Sweden When I dropped off my kids at school early last week, I noticed that -another parent’s car was covered in ash — it had been parked in a garage where arsonists had been at work, attacking scores of vehicles. His Volvo had got away: just. ‘My car can be cleaned,’ the father told me, ‘but how can I explain this to my young kids?’ As Sweden goes to the polls next weekend, its politicians face another conundrum: how do they explain all this to the country? I live in Uppsala, a leafy and prosperous university town north of Stockholm. Around Gothenburg, the attacks have been far more dramatic:
Thursday
The more extreme the left’s screeches, the greater the populist surge
The latest exciting news is that it may very soon be possible for surgeons to perform uterine transplants, so endowing a man who has ‘transitioned’ into being a strange approximation of a woman with the ability to gestate a child. And to give birth, after a fashion. The benighted child would need to be hacked out of the man’s midriff, because there’s not enough room down there for a child to come out naturally (yes, because he’s a man). Sweden — the world leader in uterine transplants — is anxious to reclaim the title of the world’s most batshit crazy nation, which the Canadians and that simpering idiot Justin Trudeau
Thursday
‘I’m fascinated by Mussolini’
We are in a hotel suite at the Park Hyatt Hotel in Zurich when Stephen K. Bannon tells me he adores the fascist dictator Benito Mussolini. But let’s be clear. Bannon — as far as I can tell — is not a fascist. He is, however, fascinated by fascism, which is understandable, as its founder Benito Mussolini, a revolutionary socialist, was the first populist of the modern era and the first tabloid newspaper journalist. Il Duce, realising that people are more loyal to country than class, invented fascism, which replaced International Socialism with National Socialism. He was thus able to ‘weaponise’ — to use a favourite Bannon word — what the
