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Yet another example of right wing arrested development CNN: Kevin McCarthy was behind interim Speaker Patrick McHenry’s move to kick former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and former Majority Leader Steny Hoyer out of their office spaces, two Republican sources told CNN. GOP Rep. Garret Graves told reporters on Wednesday that McCarthy is getting the office that McHenry has ordered her to vacate. “Look the deal is that the office that Pelosi is in right now is the office of the preceding speaker. Speaker Pelosi and other Democrats determined that they wanted a new … speaker, and it’s Kevin McCarthy. So, he’s getting the office,” he said. Sources close to Pelosi and Hoyer say it was retaliation for Democrats siding against McCarthy in voting to vacate the speaker’s chair Tuesday. The unofficial offices are located near the House floor. McCarthy and McHenry’s did not respond to requests for comment. Graves then put the blame on Democrats for voting McCarthy out of office. “I don’t know what they’re complaining about,” Graves said. “They created this situation.

Up at The New Yorker this morning, I’ve got a double review of Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt’s new book, Tyranny of the Minority, and Joseph Fishkin and William Forbath’s The Anti-Oligarchy Constitution, which came out last year. My essay addresses the Constitution and the rise of the right, and asks whether any part of the Constitution might help us counter the right. I come out, surprisingly, thinking that, maybe, yes, it might. That’s what I learned from Fishkin and Forbath’s “wonderfully counterintuitive” book, as I say. The other surprise, for me, is the shift in Levitsky and Ziblatt’s position. Five years ago, you may recall, they were the leading scholarly voices arguing against the norm erosion of Donald Trump […]

Hi everyone, I’ve got two new pieces fresh out of the oven. For Compact, I’ve written about about the way in which the Ukraine war — or more precisely the West’s response to the latter — is causing Europe to deindustrialise at frightening speed, and how there is ample evidence that, from America’s perspective, this was the …

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I’ve got two new pieces out. In my first article, for UnHerd, I unpick the announcement made by the Open Society Foundations (OSF), Soros’ powerful philanthropic organisation (now run by his son Alex), that it will be largely withdrawing from Europe. Why is the OSF moving out of the EU? What’s the future of the OSF? What …

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I’ve got a new piece out for UnHerd where I look at the next phase of the West’s strategy in Ukraine: the transformation of the conflict into an Afghanistan-style war of attrition. “A long war”, as NATO’s chief put it. 

The Russia-Ukraine conflict has had massive global economic repercussions — but the worst may be yet to come. I’ve written for UnHerd about the unraveling of two agreements put in place at the start of the Ukraine war to limit the global economic fallout from the conflict: the Black Sea Grain Initiative, whereby Russia allowed Ukraine to continue …

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I’ve got a new article up at UnHerd about the latest BRICS summit, and why it signalled the greatest shift in the global balance of power since World War II — away from the West and towards a post-Western international order already comprising half of the world’s population. I hope you enjoy it.

I’ve got a new article up at UnHerd, where I take a critical look at the increasingly popular concepts of permacrisis, polycrisis and the such.

In my latest column for UnHerd I look at the recent media firestorm surrounding Elon Musk — this time concerning the role of his Starlink satellite system in Ukraine. According to his detractors, Musk thwarted a Ukrainian attempt to use SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet system — which has been providing communications services to Ukraine since the start of …

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A time for “calling in” If the threat posed by the authoritarian right is as existential as it seems, some of us might want to unhunch our shoulders and not be as reflexive about running off potential allies. If Digby’s Monday post about Red Caesarism was not a wake-up call, you just ain’t woke. About that. A repeated theme in Anand Giridharadas’s “The Persuaders” is “Is there room among the woke for the waking?” Do those on the left edge of the left — at the cutting edge of consciousness, if you prefer — possess enough critical mass to achieve the progressive goals they seek: Veteran activists Giridharadas profiles have decided they do not. Success means expanding their movements without compromising them. They’ve learned to “call in” progressives with whom they mostly agree rather than just calling them out for their failings, to focus more on conversion than on hunting heretics. They walk a fine line seeking to coalition with more moderate allies without watering down their own goals. A listserv I once enjoyed blew up when the “call out” fad hit the progressive movement.