On Laura Loomer and the Trump administration; the Naval Academy and censorship; the late, great Mario Vargas Llosa; and more
I’m not sure whether it’s still their practice, but for years the Wall Street Journal would occasionally head an editorial “Who Is [So-and-so]?” “Who Is Smith?” “Who Is Jones?” The editorial would not necessarily be about someone unknown. It could be about someone very well-known — and ask, “Who is he, really? What does he believe, deep down? What does he stand for, if anything?”
Maybe you know her already, but I would like to ask, “Who is Laura Loomer?” She is important, in that she has the ear of President Trump. She is a “right-wing influencer,” who believes that 9/11 was an “inside job” — in other words, that the American government itself engineered the attacks.
I know several people who believe this, including a dear friend of mine. There is nothing you can do to shake such people from their beliefs.
In a gross tableau, Loomer stood with Donald Trump at 9/11 commemorations last year.
There is an interesting video of Loomer clinking glasses with Nick Fuentes: here. He is a Nazi-friendly Putinist. Offering a toast, Loomer says, “To the hostile takeover of the Republican Party.”
President Trump is a great enthusiast for Laura Loomer. Paying tribute to her at Mar-a-Lago last year, he said, “You don’t want to be Loomered. If you’re Loomered, you’re in deep trouble. That’s the end of your career, in a sense.”
True, true.
Recently, Trump met with Loomer in the Oval Office. He then fired six officials of the National Security Council. He also fired the director of the National Security Agency, General Timothy Haugh, and his deputy, Wendy Noble.
All of these people were on Loomer’s “bad list.”
If she and Trump represent the new Republican Party, Mitch McConnell represents the old. The senator had a reaction to the firings, especially that of General Haugh: “If decades of experience in uniform isn’t enough to lead the NSA but amateur isolationists can hold senior policy jobs at the Pentagon, then what exactly are the criteria for working on this administration’s national security staff?”
(For one thing, you had better not be on Loomer’s bad list.)
Trump denied that Loomer spurred him to execute the purge — while hailing her as a “great patriot.” But the White House is pretty leaky. And it seems clear that Loomer got her way.
The secretary of state, Marco Rubio, used to represent the old Republican Party. He called himself a “child of Reagan.” Now he is something very different — an excellent representative of the new. On X, Laura Loomer circulated a video of Steve Witkoff with Vladimir Putin. Witkoff (Trump’s envoy) has expressed great warmth toward the tyrant.
In fact, in the video, he is putting his hand over his heart, as Putin approaches him.
Loomer praised Witkoff to the skies, causing Rubio to respond, “100%.”
This is the new GOP, and this is the U.S. government, or at least its executive branch. That a person such as Loomer is in easy conversation with the president and the secretary of state is illustrative of our era.
• “Who’s In and Who’s Out at the Naval Academy’s Library?” reads a headline in the New York Times. The article is by John Ismay, a Pentagon reporter who is himself a graduate of the Naval Academy (and, correspondingly, a veteran of the Navy).
His article begins,
Gone is “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” Maya Angelou’s transformative best-selling 1970 memoir chronicling her struggles with racism and trauma.
Two copies of “Mein Kampf” by Adolf Hitler are still on the shelves.
Gone is “Memorializing the Holocaust,” Janet Jacobs’s 2010 examination of how female victims of the Holocaust have been portrayed and remembered.
“The Camp of the Saints” by Jean Raspail is still on the shelves. The 1973 novel, which envisions a takeover of the Western world by immigrants from developing countries, has been embraced by white supremacists and promoted by Stephen Miller, a senior White House adviser.
I can tell you from my own experience that The Camp of the Saints is a canonical text for the populist-nationalist Right.
The next paragraph, I believe, is terribly unfair:
“The Bell Curve,” which argues that Black men and women are genetically less intelligent than white people, is still there. But a critique of the book was pulled.
I do not believe that The Bell Curve belongs in the same company as Mein Kampf and The Camp of the Saints. The book is by Richard J. Herrnstein and Charles Murray. The former died in 1994, the same year the book was published. As for Murray, I don’t believe he would favor the removal of the critique of their book. I bet he would want both volumes to remain — to be available to interested borrowers.
All told, 381 books were pulled from the Naval Academy’s library. Trump officials decided they were “woke” or something. One of the books is Racecraft, by two sisters: Karen E. Fields and Barbara J. Fields. The former was a sociologist. She passed away last year. Barbara is one of the leading historians of the American South. She is also, I’m grateful to say, a dear friend of mine. Moreover, she’s one of the best teachers I ever had.
I wrote about Professor Fields, and another of my best teachers, in a 2021 article: here.
Are the midshipmen of the Naval Academy such delicate flowers, such snowflakes, that their eyes cannot fall on such books as the Fieldses’? These young Americans who may well be sent into battle — they just can’t handle it? Maya Angelou or my friend Barbara might make them pee their pants?
Give me a break. What an insult. What an embarrassment — a national embarrassment.
For years, a rap on conservatives went, “They say they’re for freedom of speech, they say they’re for political and intellectual diversity, but what they really want is control — monopolistic control.”
Well.
You and I don’t have to agree with someone — every jot and tittle of what he says — to learn from him or otherwise benefit from him. You and I don’t have to like a book to think it should be available in a library.
Isn’t this elementary?
• Speaking of books, I was sitting next to someone on an airplane who kept laughing. He was reading a book and kept laughing — genuinely LOL-ing. That is a high commendation. Naturally, I was curious, and the book turned out to be All Fours, a novel by Miranda July. I know nothing about it — except the man’s laughs.
• Stick with books. Mario Vargas Llosa has passed away at 89. I have written my share of eulogies — eulogistic pieces, appreciations, upon the passing of some eminence (or someone simply close to my heart). As a rule, however, I like to write about them while they’re still here. For one thing, I’d like them to read the piece.
I wrote about MVL in 2022: here. He was, is, a great: great novelist, great classical liberal. One of the great figures of our age. A man of rare and immense talent.
Interesting as hell, too.
I would like to tell you something personal — maybe too personal. I am not a chaser. Long, long ago, I decided I would not chase: people (especially women), acclaim, things. And I don’t chase interviews.
You know the expression “He doesn’t take no for an answer”? I take no for an answer. If you don’t want to sit with me for an interview, fine. Does that make me a bad journalist? Un-dogged? My defense, or excuse, is this: Plenty of people are happy, or at least willing, to talk with me. If someone doesn’t — I will simply go on to the next. No problem.
Only in two cases, I think, have I chased a little. I made two or three runs at Jack Nicklaus. (I love him so.) And two or three runs at Vargas Llosa. Three, I think. I finally got a polite no-thank-you, from an assistant.
But hang on, I have a story — a story that makes me wince. For some years, Vargas Llosa attended the Salzburg Festival, with his family. I have worked at the festival every August since ’02, I think. I once had an opportunity to meet MVL, for an interview, at the Sacher Hotel. But at the proposed time, there was a concert I was supposed to cover — and I went to the concert, thinking that I could meet Vargas Llosa some other time.
Stupid, stupid, stupid. The other time never came. And what’s one more concert, out of thousands?
Anyway, enough of me and my mishaps. If you want to be dazzled or enriched by an artist — a literary artist — read a Vargas Llosa novel. And I wish I could place The Call of the Tribe in the hands of every young person, and other people. It is his intellectual autobiography: a chronicle of his intellectual development. In his pantheon are Adam Smith, Friederich Hayek, and Raymond Aron, among others.
MVL is pretty damn patheonic himself. Muchas gracias, señor, por todo.
If you would like to receive Impromptus by e-mail — links to new columns — write to jnordlinger@nationalreview.com.