This essay will appear in the upcoming March 2026 issue of First Things. It’s tempting, given the pace of our news cycle these days, to resist the urge to crown any one event as a watershed moment. But at this moment, that resistance is hard to maintain. ... See more
“Cool,” said my 12-year-old son as we were making our way to New York’s Metropolitan Opera on a sunny afternoon this past Sunday. He was reading about the show we were about to see on his phone. “You never told me Carmen was about ICE agents guarding a gu... See more
You can learn everything you need to know about our collective state of mind from the fact that the most talked-about book of the year is titled If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies. The “it” in question is advanced artificial intelligence. Although the boo... See more
Successful American politicians always know how to pick savvy mentors. JFK had the speechwriter and strategist Ted Sorensen. Donald Trump had the Machiavellian operative Roy Cohn. And Zohran Mamdani has . . . Ms. Rachel . Why would the man about to be swo... See more
American politics is awfully confusing these days. You’ve got pundits like Tucker Carlson, pretending to be conservatives yet criticizing President Trump’s policies, siding with Iran, and fawning over Vladimir Putin. You’ve got newspapers like the New Yor... See more
