“Both of America’s major parties are feckless, impatient, cliquey, myopic, rabid, and suicidal. . . . In large part, these defects are the direct result of the failings of their leaders and tastemakers, who have no useful conception of history and no earthly clue as to what normal Americans are actually like.”
Tell us how you really feel, Charlie . . .
And he does, in his cover piece for the August issue of National Review. The deeper problem, argues Charles C. W. Cooke, is that the incoherence of our politics reflects badly on us. On the fringes, we have hyper-partisans yelling about things that don’t begin to touch ordinary people’s lives; but the middle — the normal people who just want things to work — doesn’t get off easy in his analysis. “We have a polity that wants low taxes and high spending, that wants a strong America and an isolationist America, and that wants mass deportations and to be a nation that welcomes immigrants. And so, this being a democratic republic, that is exactly what the people get.” Charlie’s keen assessment of the present political moment is not to be missed.
Elsewhere on the American scene, the August issue brings you:
- Jim Geraghty on the failures of DOGE, and the wasted opportunity to genuinely eliminate government waste
- Caroline Downey on the growing partisan gender gap among Gen Z and the rather shocking (to those of us from older generations) death of romance (it’s even worse than you think)
- Judson Berger on one of life’s sweet and meaningful pleasures that’s disappeared — the home movie
- Vahaken Mouradian’s notes from underground — the heavy metal clubs tucked beneath the Denver streets, that is, a music scene that practically defines “live”
- And, in our continuing and popular series Our Spacious Skies, which sends our writers out to sample the landscapes and lore of America, Andrew Stuttaford reports on the sights, frights, and mysterious lights of Nevada’s Extraterrestrial Highway and (scarier still) Clown Territory
As always, NR’s Books, Arts & Manners section brings you the latest from the cultural realm. In addition to book reviews on subjects ranging from conservative political philosophy to the career of Woody Allen, we have Ross Douthat on the last installment of Mission: Impossible, Bryan Garner on language (this time, a consideration of text and tradition), Brian Allen on the National Gallery’s Semiquincentennial art-sharing initiative, and, of course, the funny stuff: while James Lileks visits Rome, Rob Long is a fly on the wall in a Trump-Musk therapy session.
Our dedicated editorial team encourages you to read it all.
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