Author: Thomas L. Knapp

Source: The Bulwark
by Mona Charen

“Dear President Trump, Of all the wrong ideas you hold in your heart — that tariffs are paid by foreigners, that good looks are the chief credential for cabinet offices, that the 2020 election was rigged, that allies are bloodsuckers we’d be better off without — perhaps the most gobsmacking is your cherished notion that people respect you when they kiss your ass. Sorry, that’s not true. They despise you on two levels. On the first level, because you’ve managed to get elected president, you do have leverage that nearly everyone must grapple with in some fashion. … The second level of contempt arises from the knowledge — recognized by the whole world, Mr. Trump, except you — that your extravagant need for attention and praise is evidence of your emotional stuntedness.” (12/30/25)

https://www.thebulwark.com/p/somebody-needs-to-tell-trump-everybody-laughing-at-him

Source: Antiwar.com
by Alan Mosley

“On Christmas Day 2025, President Donald Trump declared that the United States had launched a salvo of Tomahawk missiles against the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) in northwest Nigeria. In a Truth Social message from his Mar‑a‑Lago club, he boasted that ‘ISIS terrorist scum’ were being bombed for ‘slaughtering Christians’ …. Trump’s message played to a familiar trope in American politics that persecuted Christians abroad must be rescued by U.S. firepower. This narrative, however, ignores the realities of the Sahel. The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) notes that although Boko Haram and its ISWAP offshoot are vicious toward Christians, most of their victims are Muslims because the insurgency takes place largely in Nigeria’s predominantly Muslim north. Attacks on mosques have become more common than attacks on churches since 2015.” (12/30/25)

https://original.antiwar.com/alan_mosley/2025/12/29/christmas-cruise-missiles-nigerias-complex-war-and-americas-misguided-strike/

Source: Reason
by Peter Suderman

“Mamdani’s promise was that, as mayor, he would defeat high prices. But many of Mamdani’s signature ideas are variations on price controls. Take a deeper look at his policies, and it becomes clear that he ran against prices, period. It’s not surprising that a self-declared socialist would make price controls a central part of his economic program. The conceit at the heart of socialism is that when it comes to the economy, politicians and bureaucrats know best. But prices, when they are allowed to work, are signals that provide decentralized information. Price controls don’t solve economic problems; they disguise them, making it harder to know what’s happening. Prices are messages, and Mamdani wants to shoot the messenger.” (for publication 2/26)

https://reason.com/2025/12/30/zohran-mamdanis-prices-crises/

Source: Law & Liberty
by Ferenc Hörcher

“Niccolo Machiavelli and Carl Schmitt are most often regarded as the two crucial modern authors to whom we can attribute our strong concept of the political. Both thinkers present politics as an agonistic struggle for power, and even in certain cases an irreconcilable antagonism between factions. No doubt, modern competitive democracy is itself based on a powerful concept of conflict and rivalry. This is the precondition for claiming that voters will receive well-defined alternative visions of how to handle common affairs, to have real choices. However, it is difficult for everyday thinking to understand why conflict would be necessary and unmanageable in the conduct of the affairs of the political community.” (12/30/25)

https://lawliberty.org/the-politics-of-civility-and-tact/

Source: The Dispatch
by Greg Lukianoff

“For most of my career, the biggest threat to free speech on campus came from inside higher education: the on-campus left (students, yes, but more importantly administrators) using the power of investigation and discipline to punish ‘wrongthink.’ The right pushed, too, but those pushes overwhelmingly originated off campus. This makes sense, given that there simply aren’t that many conservatives in the student body, on the faculty, or — least of all — among administrators in higher education. In 2025, what changed was the balance of power and the source of the pressure. The federal government and state governments, using the levers of state power, are now the leading forces behind attempts to punish campus speech.” (12/30/25)

https://thedispatch.com/article/campus-free-speech-threats-left-right-backlash/