“‘Kamala’ and the self-deluding ‘left.'”
The semiology of flowers. Many commentators have attempted to describe the astonishing devolution of Democratic Party politics into sheer marketing: Kamala Harris as product, “new and improved” like a laundry detergent or a frozen dinner. Vanessa Beeley comes up with…
Patrick Lawrence: Gaza: Kamala Harris and the Disgrace of Denial
Outrage is a very fine thing. So is indignity. They are good for the circulation and keep one alert, I have always found. This is why I read The New York Times as diligently as I do. The once-but-no-longer newspaper…
Patrick Lawrence: The Sound of Enforced Silence
Is there some connection, — not quite official but it may as well be— between censorship and presidential politics? I pose the question as a survivor of the Russiagate years, when illiberal liberals started talking about “free-speech absolutists,” and when…
Patrick Lawrence: Zelensky’s Misadventures in Kursk
It has been three weeks since ground units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine crossed into the Kursk province in southwestern Russia, surprising — or maybe not surprising — the U.S. and its clients in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization….
PATRICK LAWRENCE: James Baldwin at 100
Things got lost in our remembrances. James Baldwin would have celebrated his 100th birthday on Aug. 2, had he lived so long. He didn’t: He died young. He was but 63 on Dec. 1, 1987, the day he slipped away at…
Patrick Lawrence: Israel Runs the U.S. No, the U.S. Runs Israel. No, Wait …
That deranged speech Bibi Netanyahu delivered to a joint session of Congress last month: I cannot get it entirely out of my mind. It did not change anything — neither the Israeli prime minister nor his hosts seem to desire…
Patrick Lawrence: The Murder of Ismail Haniyeh
Some reflections, written urgently in response to the urgency of the moment, on the assassination early Tuesday of Ismail Haniyeh. The 62–year-old chairman of Hamas’s Politburo, murdered during an official visit to Iran, was the organization’s chief negotiator in talks…
PATRICK LAWRENCE: The Wreckage Biden Leaves
A lightweight when it came time to prove himself as a statesman and a leader, the White House has simply defeated him. “BIDEN DROPS OUT OF 2024 RACE” was the banner headline across The New York Times’s digital front page Sunday….
Patrick Lawrence: Gaza, We Cannot Remain Silent Any Longer
I do not know how it is in your household, but in mine we have developed the practice over the past nine months of reciting to one another the most appalling of the news bulletins from Gaza that come our…
PATRICK LAWRENCE: ‘Vote Joy’ — a Delusion of Nostalgia
Those populating the vice president’s joy-and-vibes crowd can pretend to celebrate a state of elation while acquiescing to their candidate’s approval of mass murder. Many commentators have attempted to describe the astonishing devolution of Democratic Party politics into sheer marketing: Kamala…