The Left
Story Stream
Bonfire of The Vanities October 31, 2024
In the summer of 1789 Louis XVI called the États generaux or Estates General, an old, pseudo-parliament, that had not been assembled in over a 150 years. The Third Estate, representing the majority of the population, took the occasion on 17th of June...
Sally Rooney’s Literary Mob October 28, 2024
Although some say we’ve passed peak woke, the modern left’s authoritarian impulse to push other people around is alive and well. It’s just that a memo must have gone out to the faithful that the agenda has switched, and now instead of black lives mat...
Why Hollywood Is Terrified of Horror Fatigue October 28, 2024
In 2022, Parker Finn’s Smile became one of the most profitable movies of the year, bringing in more than $217 million on a $17 million production budget. Paramount quickly greenlit a sequel, a no-brainer in an era in which horror is one of the only s...
All Education Is Political October 28, 2024
The Left has spent the better part of the last century marching through our institutions, and among its greatest victories have been in education. Many conservatives have responded to Left hegemony by protesting that “politics” and “indoctrination” h...
What Hillary Left Out About The Garden October 27, 2024
Donald Trump is planning to hold one of his legendary rallies at Madison Square Garden this Sunday. Taking place only 9 days before Election Day, this event will be one of the last in the former president’s career as a candidate.Even if you have neve...
A Joke Too Far? October 25, 2024
Note: The following essay contains spoilers.On 22 December 1984, four teenagers, all of whom had previously been arrested, boarded a New York subway train with the intention of robbing a downtown arcade. Two of them cornered a mild-mannered loner nam...
Punk Rock Feminist Has Revelation While Stripping October 24, 2024
A striking passage from Rebel Girl: My Life as a Feminist Punk, the recently published memoir by musician and political activist Kathleen Hanna offers some insight into why I think serious conservatives ought to shed their resistance to familiarizing...
Why 'Mad Men' Is the Show You Should Be Rewatching October 22, 2024
In the late ‘90s, the writer Sarah Vowell did a piece for This American Life about rewatching Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather. I don’t mean “rewatching” in the “Hey, it’s been years, let’s see how it holds up” sense—Vowell watched The Godfather ...
This College Football Season Is Anarchy October 18, 2024
There’s half a college football season left to play, and among the wide range of possible story arcs is this fun one: Alabama and Notre Dame could miss the playoff, while BYU and James Madison could make it.College football is not a sport where anyth...
Bookselling Out October 17, 2024
My daughter and I were the only browsers in a small bookstore when a woman entered to ask how to find a nearby donut shop. “So I’m in the wrong place altogether,” she replied to the bookseller’s instructions. “Unless you’d like to buy a book,” said t...
The Mystic of Silicon Valley October 17, 2024
What do libertarian Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, Republican vice-presidential candidates, staunchly left New York playwrights, writers for HBO prestige dramas, Catholic bishops, and the top academic institutions in France have in common? All have ex...
The Plot to Manage Democracy October 16, 2024
What T. S. Eliot said of humankind, that it “cannot bear very much reality,” must be doubly true for Americans. It’s a feature of being a providential nation, protected by two oceans and mostly spared the harsher existence that habituates other socie...
'Detroiters' Is One of the Best Sitcoms of the Decade October 16, 2024
Tim Robinson’s ascent to the highest echelons of comedy stardom is one of the more unexpected and gratifying cultural developments of recent years. Robinson’s Netflix series I Think You Should Leave premiered in 2019 and became an out-of-left-field, ...
It's Time To End Normal Trade Relations With China October 15, 2024
After more than 20 years of so-called "normal" trade relations between the United States and China, the consensus on the desirability of that trade relationship has shifted dramatically—and for good reason. After China received Permanent Normal Trade...
Blind, but Not Mute October 14, 2024
Progressivism is a mental disorder—that, at any rate, is the verdict one is tempted to reach upon finishing Emily Witt’s striking new memoir, Health and Safety: A Breakdown.Witt is a reporter for The New Yorker. She lives in Brooklyn. Somehow, she is...
The NFL’s Newest Superstars Are Kickers October 11, 2024
With two seconds left in a tied game against the Buffalo Bills on Sunday, it was time for Houston Texans kicker Ka’imi Fairbairn to step on the field. In front of him, a span of 59 yards stretched from the spot of the kick to the goalposts. Not long ...
God Bless the Misfits October 10, 2024
Both those who oppose populism and those who look at it with favor seem to broadly agree that populism is engendered by rapid and deep changes in a society. One way or another, change is supposed to trigger a sense of insecurity. This is the common g...
Blue Walls Falling Down October 09, 2024
An Excerpt from Blue Walls Falling Down: A NovelStella Tęsknota was ready to marry Blake Yourrick, the troubled if earnest protagonist of Infinite Regress. In this stand-alone novel (and loose sequel), set after Blake abruptly—and inexplicably—breaks...
Author & Aviator October 08, 2024
In the last days of the 1960s, James Salter, a pilot who had left the US Air Force to try to make it as a writer, was living in Aspen, subsisting on piecemeal writing gigs: screenplays, stories, essays, profiles. As a celebrity interviewer for People...
On 'Megalopolis' October 07, 2024
After three decades occupied with for-hire work, viniculture, handcrafted “little” films, and experiments in live cinema, Francis Ford Coppola is swinging for the fences. Megalopolis, his paid-out-of-pocket, decades-in-gestation passion project, and ...
The Fantasy World of Ta-Nehisi Coates October 04, 2024
Ta-Nehisi Coates is one of those journalists treated by the left-of-center establishment more like a prophet than a writer. There are few accolades he hasn’t been granted, few prizes he’s yet to win. He’s received a “Genius Grant” from the MacArthur ...
What I’ve Learned: Ina Garten October 02, 2024
Ina Garten, seventy-six, is one of the most beloved and successful figures in American culinary history. It all began in 1978, when she left her role writing nuclear-energy budgets at the White House to purchase Barefoot Contessa, a specialty food st...
