October 11, 2026

ROGER KIMBALL: The West at a Crossroads: Excellence or Mediocrity?

Remember when, just a few years ago, our cultural commissars celebrated the career criminal George Floyd and The 1619 Project? The unhappy anti-American beneficiaries of America took to the streets to desecrate our monuments and defile our heritage. It was in this context, Rubio observed, that “‘nationalism’ became a dirty word. . . . [W]e taught our children to be ashamed of the countries they would inherit. In the process, we opened our borders and outsourced our industry and allowed our militaries to wither and to decay.” At the same time, we began to outsource not only our industry but also our sovereignty, “transferring our decisions to global bureaucracies far beyond the reach of our control.”

It is here that Rubio’s speech reaches its denouement. Both the United States and Europe are at a crossroads. Do we endeavor to recover the values we have inherited from the Greeks or do we go quietly into the not-so-good night of spiritual flaccidness? Rubio’s answer caused panic among the low-testosterone denizens of academia and the media. “Under President Trump,” he said, “the United States has made its choice.”

We choose the unapologetic pursuit of national power: to take back control of our critical supply chains, to reindustrialize our economy, to rebuild our defense, to fight for dominance of the technologies and industries of the future.

We choose to reach for new frontiers: in advanced manufacturing and super intelligence; in drones, weapons, and warfare; in chips, minerals, cyber, and every other domain of human possibility. To unleash our energy, to rebuild our factories, to return our astronauts to the moon and launch a new age of exploration in space.

Much more like this please, it’s a polar opposite worldview to when then-President Obama cynically declared in 2009 that “I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.”

Posted at 12:45 pm by Ed Driscoll

THAT’S RACIST AND SOMETIMES VIOLENT MORONS:

Posted at 12:15 pm by Stephen Green

FEMINISM’S DREAM:

Related:

Helen found this in her interviews with young men.

Posted at 12:11 pm by Glenn Reynolds

DOMINIC GREEN: France’s insane student protests are really about a growing radical Muslim population that wants to get rid of democracy.

The disorder is backed by the far-left La France Insoumise (France Unbowed) party. Its leader, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, is second in the polls for next year’s presidential elections.

* * * * * * * *

Long before Mayor Mamdani came to America and the DSA took out their student loans, the French saw the emergence of an Islamogauchiste (Islamo-leftist) alliance between the old radicals of the left and the angry youth of the banlieues, the peripheral housing estates.

The same strategy created the voter base of the ruling Labour Party in the UK. In September, the strategy swung Sweden’s national elections and Berlin’s mayoral elections to left-wing parties that cultivate ethnic bloc votes. It has reshaped the Democrats’ ground game in states such as New York and Michigan.

Mélenchon may be happy to see the schools burn, but he knows his electoral math. The Immigration and Demography Observatory, a French think tank, predicts that on current trends, French citizens with no immigrant parent or grandparent will become a minority around 2050.

Mélenchon, a 75-year-old ex-communist, is an old leftist but also a new immigrant. Born and raised in Morocco, he came to France in 1962, one among the millions who crossed the Mediterranean as Europe’s empires folded.

He calls French democracy a design for “white privilege” and “part of an already obsolete present.” He wants a “citizen’s revolution” to create a “new France.” He calls the right-winger Marine Le Pen, who leads the polls for 2027, a “fascist.”

Isn’t everyone, these days?

Posted at 12:00 pm by Ed Driscoll

YOU WANT WEAPONIZATION? WE’LL SHOW YOU WEAPONIZATION. Just the News is reporting that the DOJ confirmed an investigation against legacy media for antitrust violations.

“The investigation follows a move last month by the five broadcasters in the White House television pool to stop pool coverage of Trump after the administration restricted CNN, MS NOW and Politico’s access to the White House.”

You wait here, I’ll go make popcorn.

Posted at 9:28 am by Charles Glasser

IF YOU’RE GOING TO BE IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA IN NOVEMBER:  On November 17th, the Wall Street Journal’s (and the Manhattan Institute’s) Jason Riley will be at the University of San Diego to deliver the annual Bowes Lecture. (This is the same lecture that our own Glenn Reynolds delivered last year.)

Thanks to the late Joan Bowes, a fiery redhead,  we’ve been able to host a distinguished conservative speaker every year for the last 20 years or so.  Thanks, Joan!

Posted at 8:31 am by Gail Heriot

QUESTION ASKED AND ANSWERED: “I am surrounded by 20 year old girls in my life that are smart, capable, hard working and cute. Nobody is dating them. Not sure what the deal is, but I don’t get it.”

Perhaps this is why:

Amy’s tweet concludes, “She can divorce him and take half of everything. That’s why.”

Posted at 7:14 am by Ed Driscoll