Lately, I’ve been reading more history, mostly to educate myself. But the other night, I opened Lord Acton’s Lectures on the French Revolution and didn’t get far before I sat up in bed. I was reading about France two centuries ago, but I couldn’t stop thinking about the comparisons to Washington today. To be honest, most of what I remember...

As our nation nears its 250th anniversary, an uneasy emotional connection to the past has returned—one rooted in fear, and the question of who gets to define the “real” America. Reading The Murrow Boys, by Stanley Cloud and Lynne Olson—which traces Edward R. Murrow’s journalistic coverage from World War II through the Red Scare of the 1950s—it’s hard not to...

The current American political order is starting to feel like a collision between the films Seven Days in May and All the King’s Men. One warns us about powerful institutions turning against constitutional democracy. The other shows how a populist leader can take grievance, resentment, and loyalty and turn them into a system of rule. I recently watched both films...

Two voices, both alike in reach and power, Speak into a divided world. One feeds grievance. The other calls for grace. Influence still carries power. What it often lacks now is responsibility. The contrast between Nick Fuentes and Pope Leo XIV makes that clear. Both command attention. Both reach people who feel ignored. But what they do with that attention...

There are moments when events reveal more than they intend. What unfolded Saturday at the Washington Hilton was not simply an isolated act. It was what happens when something deeper begins to intersect—when grievance meets amplification, when suspicion hardens into certainty, and when language that once stopped short of harm no longer does. We often look for a single cause....

Question: How low can Donald Trump go?Answer: Low enough to attack the head of the Catholic Church and, by extension, 1.4 billion Catholics. His latest descent comes in the form of an attack on Pope Leo XIV. Not over policy. Not over governance. But something far more telling: moral authority. In a post on his social media site, Truth Social,...

In 1927, Sinclair Lewis gave America a character it did not want to recognize in the mirror: Elmer Gantry. Gantry is loud, magnetic, insatiable — a sinner with a capital “S.” He does not discover faith; he discovers its usefulness. He learns that fear, properly stirred, can fill a sanctuary. Redemption, properly marketed, can build an empire. Gantry bellows and...

In a letter to the Danbury Baptists in 1802, Thomas Jefferson wrote, “Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God … I contemplate with sovereign reverence … thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.” In my commentary, “When Power Rewrote the Message” (July 17), I opened with this question:...

That title is not hyperbole —it’s a reflection of a reality too many dismiss as over the top. Democracy depends on reason—on the willingness of citizens and leaders alike to engage honestly, argue respectfully, and govern responsibly. It’s the democracy I studied in high school and college, reading The Federalist Papers, Alexis de Tocqueville, and Thomas Paine. It’s a system...

When the pulpit merges with power, does the sword overshadow the Sermon on the Mount? Though I’m no longer practicing, I was raised Catholic. I went through the rituals—Baptism and Confirmation and confession and “eat no meat” Fridays, and I left because it was just too rigid. However, at its heart, Catholic doctrine was about love, mercy, humility, and salvation:...