American Politics
A selection of recent articles on this topic
The Virtues of the Old Establishment
There is something I miss about George Herbert Walker Bush and the bipartisan establishment he represented. I…
Nat Hentoff: One of a Kind
Nat Hentoff died recently, at the age of 91, in his own apartment, “surrounded by family [and]…
The Politics of Answered Prayer
Unanswered prayer is hard to take. “Ask and it will be given,” Jesus promises. When we ask…
Cocktails with the Existentialists
Existentialist Café: Freedom, Being, and Apricot Cocktailsby sarah bakewellother press, 448 pages, $25 More than seven decades…
My Orange Juice Came from Brazil
A couple of weeks ago when I was having breakfast, I noticed that my “not from concentrate”…
The John the Baptist of Post-Truth Politics
There is being a sore loser, and there is being a sore loser. Bill Clinton has many…
Rogue One and the Return of Reverence
Star Wars is—or should be—a religious franchise. The Jedi are a monastic order trained in contemplating and…
Tocqueville in the Gutter
The Art of Being Free: How Alexis de Tocqueville Can Save Us from Ourselvesby james poulosst martin’s,…
Contra Mundum
The world unfurls its flag of toleration, / issues its edicts of equality, / and he who…
Letters—January 2017
Fascist Fallacy R. R. Reno’s “Election 2016” (November) succeeds as an analysis of the historical context gestating…
A New Poverty
Hillbilly Elegy:A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisisby JD vanceharper, 272 pages, $27.99 J. D.…
Eros and Dorothy Day
Christians, it has been said, “worry about what people are doing in bed much more than making…
First Things in the Year Ahead
It’s been a remarkable year. The success of Brexit and the election of Donald Trump signal significant…
More Fascinating than Fiction
Netflix announced its series The Crown as a “biopic” unprecedented in quality and cost—and that was not…
From Atheism to First Things
At the time I came to First Things in mid-2014, I was just a couple of years…
