Confronting evil and steering our country — and world — in the right direction
How’s your year been? I hope it’s been happy, safe, and prosperous, or at least that you’re coping with the inflation and high prices that the Biden administration assures us are long gone.
For National Review Institute, it’s been a largely thriving year — welcoming new fellows like Amity Shlaes and Brian T. Allen, as well as sterling applicants for our expanded WFB journalism fellowship program, and hosting a spectacular tenth annual William F. Buckley Jr. Prize Dinner. Meanwhile, at National Review, there’s the redesigned and thicker new magazine. Because of support like yours, and the steady hand of NRI’s president Lindsay Craig at the wheel, we’re managing to sail through some stormy seas.
But for the world, 2023 has been a rough year, with evil on the march in far too many corners of our globe. And I don’t mean that as hyperbolic dudgeon over our usual misguided political opponents; I mean human-rights-abusing, innocent-slaughtering, blood-dripping-from-their hands, straight-up unadulterated evil. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, now approaching its third year, has now claimed more than 10,000 innocent civilian lives, including more than 560 children. We all gasped in horror at the scale and sheer demonic sadism of the Hamas massacre of Israelis on October 7. China’s ongoing genocide of the Uyghurs — that’s not just our assessment, but the assessment of the U.S. government and the United Nations — continues apace, with the regime in Beijing brushing off criticism from beyond its borders. As I write this, Iranian proxy groups continue to take potshots at U.S. naval vessels in the Red Sea.
For me, it’s been an extraordinary year in covering these conflicts, stepping out of my comfort zone and reporting for National Review from Ukraine, Taiwan, and Transnistria, a world tour of trouble spots spurred less by a midlife desire to transform myself into Arthur Kent, the “Scud stud” from the Persian Gulf War, than the opportunity to visit those contested spots of land, and the sense that some places deserve to be seen in person. I’m not going to lie, it was difficult and emotionally draining to hear accounts of a man who had to help move the corpses left behind in Bucha, or the account of a mom in Odesa who fled, with her teenage son, six-year-old daughter, and family dog, from eastern Ukraine as the Russian forces advanced toward their home. But it’s worth it to make sure the world knows what happened and doesn’t forget. NRI’s supporters played a role in enabling me to do that important work, and for that I am grateful. (If you haven’t yet made a tax-deductible contribution this year to support NRI’s mission, I hope you will do so now. You can make a year-end gift here.)
Massacres, torture, bombings — there’s a good reason why a lot of people want to turn away when they hear about horrors like these. But those who perpetuate these evils are betting that the rest of the world will avert their eyes, move on, and forget. Recognizing evil brings an inherent obligation to do something about it, and confronting evil is never easy or cheap.
At National Review Institute, we’ve always seen the world clearly — or at least tried our darnedest to see it as clearly as possible — and called out evil when so many others on our political scene want to make excuses or cut a deal. (Recall William F. Buckley loudly warning, while traveling with President Nixon in China, that cutting a deal with Mao represented a sellout of American values that would have long-term consequences. Buckley was so much more right than he realized at the time!)
I don’t want to be alarmist or gloomy, but it feels like a lot of long-simmering conflicts, both at home and abroad, are coming to a boil. The 81-year-old man sitting behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office doesn’t always make a lot of sense these days, but Biden had a moment of lucidity and clarity in October when, shortly after returning from Israel, he said, “the decisions we make today are going to determine the future for decades to come.”
(Wouldn’t you love to know what he was reading in the President’s Daily Brief in the preceding days?)
What we do in the coming year, and the decisions our country and electorate make, will have far-reaching consequences. We at National Review Institute will be pushing, as hard as we can, to steer our country and the world in the right direction. It will not be easy. But then again, nothing worthwhile ever is.
I hope you will continue to stand with us in this effort. You can do so by giving generously to National Review Institute’s end-of-year campaign. Thank you for your support.
May God bless you, and bring you a safe, prosperous, and wise year to come.