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"History repeats itself. We won the First Chechen War. They took their time, rebuilt their army while dividing us, and eventually, they won. They will try the same with Ukraine. You can’t trust Putin. He’s a liar and a murderer.”

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"If the average joe is willing to let his suspicions about 'the system' justify laying aside his qualms about repatriating accused rapists, we’re already very far down the moral slope."

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"'Respectable' conservatives ... don’t get to complain today about the Tates if they spent the last two years working to make America safe for degenerate autocracy. They signed up for a presidency unrestrained by morality," Nick Catoggio writes:

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Malia Obama did not receive "$2.6 million for ‘consulting’ from USAID." The claim originates from a satire Facebook account. Fact check by Peter Gattuso:

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Has Donald Trump’s personal travel cost taxpayers $10.7 million? The claim is partially true, but missing context. The $10.7 million figure is an estimate based on Trump's first term and includes transportation and security. Fact check by Peter Gattuso:

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"Oil and gas has become coded right-wing, the same way Silicon Valley was—until about five minutes ago—coded progressive. That isn’t great for oil and gas. More importantly, it isn’t great for the country," Kevin Williamson writes:

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Trump’s program isn’t really ideological and certainly not “conservative” in any traditional sense, Jonah Goldberg writes. "This is the faux-ideology of one person, one person’s vanity, grievances and personal glory." https://thedispatch.com/newsletter/gfile/donald-trump-motives-actions-military-2/

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Pro-Palestinian protests that too often played like pro-Hamas protests are, or were, yet another progressive cultural excess that ended up scaring the horses on Election Day, Nick Catoggio writes:

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"MAGA at its best is a pretext, and more often it’s not even that. This is the faux-ideology of one person, one person’s vanity, grievances and personal glory," Jonah Goldberg writes:

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No, Biden did not steal "FEMA money that was meant for American hurricane victims" to house illegal immigrants. The funds are appropriated by Congress separately from FEMA’s disaster relief funds. Fact check by Alex Demas:

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Social media, partisan polarization, and politicization of institutions have fueled an erosion of trust across society, writes Jonah Goldberg. "This is an ideal milieu for a president who cares not for facts or truth but only about his own vanity and glory."

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For the first time in years, Congress may finally fund the government for a full year rather than fund it with a series of short-term continuing resolutions that extend the status quo, Charles Hilu reports:

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Nearly four months since Trump defeated now-former Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party still lacks a strategy for recovering lost ground among young men. https://thedispatch.com/article/young-man-theres-no-need-to-feel-down/

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The real reason Republicans in Washington have made peace with an American-led authoritarian project to demolish the liberal order is simple, I think. In the end, you’re either Marco Rubio or you’re Nikki Haley, writes Nick Catoggio:

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Marco Rubio himself has been converted into a spin doctor muttering apologias for the very sort of amoral authoritarian power politics that he despised as a senator, Nick Catoggio writes:

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"When Trump and his cronies treat government like a literal joke and pay little or no price for it among the population, one can’t help but feel that resistance to idiocracy is futile."

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Giving Ukraine what it needs to prevent the expansion of a Russian-Iranian axis is not charity; it is simply the most effective lever of Trump’s maximum pressure campaign.

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For a young, ambitious politician seen as a likely successor to Trump and inheritor of the Make America Great Again movement, the vice president of the United States seems to spend a large amount of time posting. https://thedispatch.com/article/jd-vance-vice-president-job-elon-musk-x/

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"Don’t feed the trolls" has been good online practice since the internet began; it’s now become an issue for international diplomacy thanks to the United States, Nick Catoggio writes:

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Kevin Williamson: It is obvious that Musk and his disreputable little gaggle of pudwhacking throne-sniffers simply do not know what they are doing.

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"I've got to believe that somebody in the White House has to be concerned by that image of" Elon Musk wielding a chainsaw at CPAC. -- Joe Scarborough with Jamie Weinstein on The Dispatch Podcast:

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"The Resolute Desk is not a throne. And those who wish to refashion it into one are not the inheritors of the Founders’ vision. They are its betrayers."

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“Musk and his army of angry nerds have a duty—a professional and patriotic obligation—to be less stupid than they have been. They are creating chaos and damaging worthwhile government programs.”

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“If we are skeptical of unchecked concentrations of power, why place even more of that regulatory authority in the hands of a single elected official?” Bobby Miller for The Monday Essay: https://thedispatch.com/article/trump-executive-power-agencies-conservatism/

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"We need to look to the past, to figures like Margaret Heckler. We need courageous leaders who are not afraid to challenge their party’s status quo."

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Elon Musk "is de facto exercising authority that cannot properly be delegated to an unaccountable 'special' federal employee acting in secrecy in order to evade oversight and accountability. The consequences have been both chaotic and destructive."

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As Edmund Burke said, “To make us love our country, our country ought to be lovely.” Likewise, to make us honor our country, our country ought to behave honorably, Jonah Goldberg writes:

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Aryana Petrosky: Margaret Heckler’s life shows why we need to tell the stories of bipartisan political icons.

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"Transactions are what willing parties with roughly equivalent bargaining power engage in. When Trump makes draconian demands of weaker powers while going easy on stronger ones, that’s extortion. Gangsterism," writes Nick Catoggio:

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"American Impresario is a wholesome memoir that gives us a glimpse at Buckley not as an icon of American politics, but as a man, a friend, and most of all, a fan of classical music," Alec Dent writes:

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"You can think honor is for suckers, as so many seem to do when it comes to everything from marriage vows to election results, to international alliances. But behaving dishonorably has a price," Jonah Goldberg writes:

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"Reducing the future of the liberal international order and the credibility of U.S. commitments overseas to how many bucks we can squeeze from a bleeding ally is gangsterism to the core," Nick Catoggio writes:

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"If America behaves dishonorably on the world stage—and that dishonor is celebrated as glorious strength—it will change American character as well," Jonah Goldberg writes:

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Congress has abdicated. The U.S. federal government will be a gangster’s paradise until 2027, possibly longer. The only political restraints on the president and his deputies will be those that Trump chooses to place on himself, Nick Catoggio:

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"Day by day we’re finding out what it would look like if we handed the federal government over to the same slimy alt-right blowhards who have colonized Twitter and let them have their run of the place," writes Nick Catoggio:

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From Steve Hayes: The president’s dogged determination not to address the real drivers of our debt will actually exacerbate the public misunderstanding of the country’s fiscal outlook and make meaningful reform more difficult.

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How The Dispatch is diversifying beyond its subscription model: Our new president, Mike Rothman, walked through his decision to join The Dispatch and why brands are suddenly interested again in sponsoring political media (with Simon Owens):

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"Trump wants Putin at G7 summits. He wants to visit Moscow. He wants Putin’s strongman musk to rub off on him in photo ops. There’s no grand strategy behind it," writes Jonah Goldberg:

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Ukraine versus Russia is basic, basic good-versus-evil stuff. The president is asking Americans to take sides with evil—to help make the world safe for autocracy, writes Nick Catoggio:

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"Every American knows what it’s like to be governed by a regime whose agenda is foolish and whose ambitions are hubristic. What’s new is being governed by a regime whose intentions are, transparently, malign."

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"Allies are tools, means to practical ends—and intelligent leaders know how to use them as such. Trump and Vance are engaged in grandstanding as a form of therapy for themselves and their social media audiences."

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The purpose behind Nixon’s and Trump’s bullying of news outlets is the same: to intimidate the outlets into self-censorship, creating a chilling effect on negative news to the administration’s benefit. The strategy is working again, writes Paul Matzko:

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"Insinuating that you crave crises to maximize your power makes people less likely to trust you with the power to deal with an actual crisis." Jonah Goldberg on Trump and his Napoleonic Era:

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From Paul Matzko: Trump is not just mirroring the executive abuses of Richard Nixon. He is surpassing them in every way.

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A bully acts where he has maximum power over his target. That isn’t a brilliant negotiating strategy—it ensures that you get your way only in those matters in which it is easy to get your way, Kevin Williamson writes:

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Can SNL, the show created to spoof live TV, survive in an age of streaming and short video?

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We’re losing our shared experience of TV and, with it, the reason for Saturday Night Live to really exist, writes Michael Warren. Can SNL, the expensive product of a major media company with 50 years of legacy behind it, keep adapting to this world?

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"There is a problem when every Hollywood romance is reduced to something bordering on fantasy, not reality—it sends the depressing and destructive message that love is at best unrealistic and at worst, toying with death." Joseph Holmes:

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There is no evidence Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum called for a boycott of U.S. goods. Fact check by Alex Demas:

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