FROM THE MAGAZINE

September 2020

‘From the moment Trump took the oath of office, his presidency has not been about “Trumpism”. It has been about Donald Trump. Every day of the Trump presidency is like a new episode of a reality TV show.’

Waiting game: the NFL takes the COVID challenge

The NFL is right to do everything in its power to start the season as planned

By Charles Walford

From the Magazine

Politics

Is Stephen Miller pursuing policy — or power?

‘He’s like Lady Macbeth. It’s someone who is so ravenous to get what they want, and instead they become a victim of their own insanity’

By Amber Duke

From the Magazine

Insufferable San Francisco

Suburban rockers have ruined my city

By Katya Sedgwick

From the Magazine

Might ‘may’ kill ‘might’?

In recent years the distinction between may and might in the present tense has collapsed

By Dot Wordsworth

From the Magazine

Politics

The return of the Blob

It will mean the return of competence in government — and a sense of dynamism too

By Robert D. Kaplan

From the Magazine

Politics

The future of populist conservatism

The anti-liberal opposition will continue to be demotic and anti-theoretic, impatient with and scornful of ideas, in public life especially

By Chilton Williamson, Jr.

From the Magazine

Politics

After Trump, the reckoning

The election of Biden and Harris will not solve any of the problems that led to Trump’s election in the first place

By Daniel McCarthy

From the Magazine

Politics

American Athens

From democracy to oligarchy

By Solveig Lucia Gold

From the Magazine

Politics

Why I won’t vote

If Trump wins, I reckon America will burn. If Trump loses, America will burn

By Bridget Phetasy

From the Magazine

Politics

Make America Normal Again

Trump should double down on his COVID skepticism, just as Lukashenko did

By Toby Young

From the Magazine

Politics

Playing with fire

Democratic leaders who fail to condemn the West Coast rioters may get burned

By Charles Lipson

From the Magazine

Spectator Editorial

The right stuff

As long as Trump and his family remain the fulcrum of American politics, the GOP will be effectively without a leader

By Spectator Editorial

From the Magazine

Politics

The right after Trump

The time of the woke conservative must come

By Sohrab Ahmari

From the Magazine

Politics

Cuckoo Q: are the QAnon crowd as crazy as they seem?

Where we go one, we go off the deep end

By Ben Sixsmith

From the Magazine

An Anglo-American hero

Billy Fiske, the volunteer pilot who died to save Britain

By William Cook

From the Magazine

Books + Arts

Books

City of the Sphinx

Thebes: The Forgotten City of Ancient Greece by Paul Cartledge reviewed

By Tom Holland

From the Magazine

Art

We’re not going to take it — again

How the Seventies are taking us back to their future

By Titus Techera

From the Magazine

Books

Know better

The Polymath: A Cultural History from Leonardo da Vinci to Susan Sontag by Peter Burke reviewed

By Philip Hensher

From the Magazine

Art

Liberty and death: Jacob Lawrence’s struggle for freedom

His tale is not a ‘let’s hold hands and sing for liberty’ triumph. It’s a violent, gritty and gruesome affair

By Andrew L. Shea

From the Magazine

Books

Rock, a hard place

The Bass Rock by Evie Wyld reviewed

By Emily Rhodes

From the Magazine

Art

Office romance: I’m loving The Bureau

When real members of the DGSE saw the first season, they gave it a standing ovation

By James Delingpole

From the Magazine

Books

Return of the patriarch

The Family Clause by Jonas Hassen Khemiri reviewed

By Boyd Tonkin

From the Magazine

Books

The doctor’s dilemma

Talking Until Nightfall: Remembering Jewish Salonica, 1941-44 by Isaac Matarasso reviewed

By Rony Alfandary

From the Magazine

Books

On the square, on the level

The Craft: How Freemasons Made the Modern World by John Dickie reviewed

By Dominic Green

From the Magazine

Books

Lucky Tim

Italian Life: A Modern Fable of Loyalty and Betrayal by Tim Parks reviewed

By Graham Elliott

From the Magazine

Life

Home

I love Greece and the Greeks but they have destroyed Athens

Much of this city is now one long cement block after another

By Taki

From the Magazine

Humor

Reflections of an outgoing President

From the desk of Donald J. Trump

By Roger Kimball

From the Magazine

Faith

We are living in an age of cultural climate change

Without moral principles, freedom will not survive

By Jonathan Sacks

From the Magazine

Faith

Our lady of hope

Notre-Dame: The Soul of France by Agnès Poirier reviewed

By Graham Robb

From the Magazine

Cease and resist: how to fight the illiberal left

What actions does your conscience forbid? Write a list and tape it to your refrigerator

By David Randall

From the Magazine

Home

How to survive a heatwave

My friend the carpenter bee has expired, the dog can’t move and even the Provençal French see la canicule as an ordeal

By Jeremy Clarke

From the Magazine

Humor

I was almost the Portland Athena

I closed my eyes for a moment and imagined the police’s confusion as they watched me approach them

By Godfrey Elfwick

From the Magazine

Diary

Enes Kanter on freedom and the bubble

‘Every morning I wake up thankful for the opportunity, but there is something that makes me feel like I’m in a cage’

By Enes Kanter Freedom

From the Magazine

Food and Drink

Drink

A leaf from Verdi’s book

Can radicchio take root in the Pacific Northwest?

By Jane Stannus

From the Magazine

Drink

Pita Shack flashback

The bloody horrors that have waylaid Iraq since the 2003 invasion obliterate thoughts of its glorious past

By James Jeffrey

From the Magazine

Drink

Jason Peters writes to entertain his friends and exasperate his enemies

No one who eats food or laughs at jokes should be without his new book

By Bill Kauffman

From the Magazine

Drink

Eye on the pies: food in the age of ‘cultural appropriation’

Am I, a not-Chinese person, allowed to make sesame buns?

By Nancy Rommelmann

From the Magazine

Drink

Count your chickens

Life on a funny farm

By Mary Kate Skehan

From the Magazine

Drink

Digging for clams on the Jersey Shore

While some swear that only while barefoot can you properly detect clams, connoisseurs know that’s bosh

By Benjamin Riley

From the Magazine