It is through Ivan’s representation of Soloviev in The Brothers Karamazov that Dostoevsky unearths the grave implications and outcomes of totalitarian politics… Fyodor Dostoevsky’s final novel, The Brothers Karamazov, has rightly earned its place among the greatest books of all time. It warrants this stature in no small part because it addresses questions and problems [...]
All is not well between the nation state and empire: Centre and periphery have their rules which at times collide, as witnessed of late. Are there any possible guiding principles that could minimize the force of collision? In 1887 the optometrist Ludwik Zamenhof published the fruits of his passion for constructing an artificial language in [...]
The Declaration of Independence is the product of the spiritual insight of the people. If we are to maintain the great heritage which has been bequeathed to us, we must be like-minded as the fathers who created it. We must not sink into a pagan materialism. We must cultivate the reverence which they had for [...]
It used to be a fundamental article of faith among American conservatives that the Constitution can only be understood in the context of the Founders’ original intentions. So, is it reasonable to believe that the Founders intended a president to have the power to pardon himself? The Constitution gives the president “Power to grant Reprieves [...]
For those on the Left and the economic-libertarian Right who glibly say, “Build bridges, not walls,” Victor Davis Hanson would reply, “It’s easy to say that when you don’t live in Mexifornia.” With its elegant prose and page after page that is chock-full of knowledge and wisdom, it is easy to overlook that Victor Davis [...]
When it comes to the rhetoric of hate, the cursing of politicians, and the shouting down of speakers, the right is not innocent, but the left is infinitely more guilty… If President Trump’s supporters are truly “a basket of deplorables… racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic,” and “irredeemable,” as Hillary Clinton described them to an LGBT [...]
Paul Kengor’s A Pope and a President is unusual in that it is also a theo-history, taking seriously the religious events of the 20th century. Written with academic rigor and in a brisk, readable style, it is a God’s-eye view of the hidden events of the 20th century and the actions of Ronald Reagan and [...]
One of the greatest causes of concern in American society by the 1820s was the perceived loss of virtue necessary to undergird a republic. All republicans knew that America would not last forever. They did, however, hope that by example, norms, education, and sacrifice, the American people would keep their republic alive as long as [...]
With the Supreme Court’s decision in Gill v. Whitford, the door is now open under the right political circumstances for state courts to take over political redistricting. And the constitutional changes will be permanent… In the Wisconsin political-gerrymandering case, Gill v. Whitford, decided by the Supreme Court last week, the Court avoided ruling on the substantive constitutional [...]
Does the preservation of Western nations and peoples require measures from which liberal societies today reflexively recoil? Does the survival of the West as a civilization require a ruthlessness the West no longer possesses?... "If you’re … pathetically weak, the country is going to be overrun with millions of people, and if you’re strong, then [...]
Victor Davis Hanson’s grave concerns about immigration policy in the United States, as expressed in his book Mexifornia, have proven to be prescient, and its prescriptions are as salutary now as the day the book was published… Classicist and military historian Victor Davis Hanson’s extended essay and memoir, Mexifornia: A State of Becoming, has aged [...]
President Trump may be on the wrong side politically and emotionally of this issue of separating migrant kids from their parents. But on the mega-issue—the Third World invasion of the West—he is riding the great wave of the future, if the West is to have a future... “It is cruel. It is immoral. And it [...]
Nothing dominated the American conversation of the decade of the 1820s more than the idea of Andrew Jackson as president. The back-and-forth between the pro-Jackson and anti-Jackson forces is bewildering and dizzying even to the biographer who has the grand advantage of hindsight... The Great Depression of 1819 and the Missouri slavery question of the [...]
If the Trump-Kim camaraderie goes south and the crisis of 2017, when war seemed possible, returns, President Trump, as he concedes, will be charged with naivety for having placed his trust in such a tyrant... President Donald Trump appears to belong to what might be called the Benjamin Disraeli school of diplomacy. The British prime [...]