Wow! Comparing MAGA to “The Strange Death of Liberal England”

 

The Strange Death of Make America Great Again

By Matthew Walther

Mr. Walther is the editor of The Lamp, a Catholic literary journal, and a contributing Opinion writer.

Private equity firms have been struggling to deliver on their core business model of taking on debt, buying companies and selling them for a profit. Several years of high interest rates have made it too expensive for many would-be buyers to purchase companies with debt, and private equity firms are contending with a backlog of more than 31,000 unsold companies, a record amount. Deal activity picked up toward the end of this year, but not enough to make a significant dent in the backlog. Continuation vehicles are providing a short-term solution by allowing firms to sell the companies to themselves, book a paper gain and wait for interest rates to improve.

 

Investors Warn of ‘Rot in Private Equity’ as Funds Strike Circular Deals

Buyout firms have struggled to sell companies they own and have instead found a workaround to get cash back to clients: Selling the companies to themselves.

By Maureen Farrell

Maureen Farrell covers the private equity industry from New York. This article is based on more than a dozen conversations with former and current employees of Clearlake, Wheel Pros and its advisers, many of whom spoke anonymously because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly. It also includes information from private documents.

Dec. 24, 2025

Elon Danziger shows AI just regurgitates in scholarship and Gary Marcus shows if strengths of A.I. are truly to be harnessed, then tech industry should stop focusing so heavily on these one-size-fits-all tools and instead concentrate on narrow, specialized A.I. tools engineered for particular problems.

 

I Asked ChatGPT to Solve an 800-Year-Old Italian Mystery. What Happened Surprised Me.

By Elon Danziger

Mr. Danziger is an independent art historian based in Florence, Italy.

Silicon Valley Is Investing in the Wrong A.I.

By Gary Marcus

Mr. Marcus is a founder of two A.I. companies and the author of “Taming Silicon Valley: How We Can Ensure That AI Works for Us.”

Mathew Iglesias should write an ancillary opinion using Germany’s catastrophic decision under Angela Merkel to eliminate its Nuclear power versus embracing it like France. Adding Windmills was correct but not Solar because Germany is too far North for it to be commercial. The catastrophic result of eliminating Nuclear and depending on Putin’s gas was to suffer a quintupling of the price of gas after quitting it because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and to resurrect in desperation Germany’s use of lignite coal, the absolute dirtiest and least efficient coal for energy.

 

Obama Supported It. The Left in Canada and Norway Does. Why Don’t Democrats?

By Matthew Yglesias

Mr. Yglesias, a contributing Opinion writer, writes extensively about politics, economics and more at Slow Boring.

Klaus Kastner Gmunden, Austria Dec. 17: It is ridiculous to warn that Chile will return to authoritarian rule after 35 years of democracy. For the vast majority of these 35 years, Chile was ruled by a left-of-center government, the last one even very much left. The last 3 elections started with a Right, then a Left and now a Right again. If that is not democracy alive, I don't know what is. Many Chileans, perhaps even the silent majority, have positive memories of the stability and progress during the Pinochet years. That is simply a correct memory and has nothing to do with authoritarian/fascist longings. Andres Velasco, the well-known Chilean economist and former minister, explained why the current government was thrown out and predicted that the same thing will probably happen to the government at the next elections because Kast has made promises which he will not be able to fulfill. So let democracy be alive!

 

Pinochet Is Smiling in His Grave

By Ariel Dorfman

Mr. Dorfman, a Chilean American writer, is the author of the play “Death and the Maiden” and the novels “The Suicide Museum” and “Allegro.”

Before red and blue America, before MAGA and the resistance, before our current blue-collar and white-collar political sorting, there was Archie Bunker and Michael Stivic.

 

As Archie Bunker’s Foil, Rob Reiner Brought Politics Home

Reiner’s “All in the Family” role didn’t just capture the arguments of its time. It gave us a preview of our own.

By James Poniewozik

James Poniewozik is the chief TV critic of The New York Times. In 2023, he wrote an appraisal of the “All in the Family” creator, Norman Lear.

The authors, a group of five American and European economists are morons! To describe Britain lost by electing to leave the Common Market is beyond stupid when considering the EU, particularly Germany, is even worse off with BASF departing for China and the U.S because of it beyond stupid energy campaign of first eliminating nuclear leaving them completely dependent of Putin's gas.

Britain’s Struggles Are America’s Future

By Binyamin Appelbaum

Mr. Appelbaum is an Opinion writer.

European politics in this century have been largely fixated on growth-killing clichés (“sustainable development”); feckless foreign-policy gestures (recognition of a nonexistent Palestinian state); self-destructive environmental policies (Germany’s decision to close its nuclear-power stations); and a virtue-signaling attitude toward mass migration (Angela Merkel’s “We can manage this”) that is the central reason fascistic parties like Alternative for Germany are surging. All this needs to end.

 

Europe, Too, Is Worth Fighting For

By Bret Stephens

Opinion Columnist

“The fact of Western success does not bring with it any responsibility for Muslim failure,” he wrote in National Review soon after the attacks. “They have to sort that out, and they will too, because it’s a truth as old as mankind that hate ends up destroying the hater.”

 

David Pryce-Jones, Conservative Writer With Clout, Dies at 89

The author of novels, histories, biographies and influential political essays, he approached them all with a droll British wit and a steadfast commitment to Western values.

By Clay Risen

Dec. 2, 2025

in South Korea the incidence of thyroid cancer soared with the introduction of widespread ultrasound screening. But deaths did not increase. It was estimated that 90 percent of the cancers that were discovered and treated in women did not need to be found.

 

Why Some Doctors Say There Are Cancers That Shouldn’t Be Treated

Statistics show a clear spike in eight cancers in younger people, but that has brought a debate over whether many cases ever needed to be found.

By Gina Kolata

Dec. 8, 2025

Take a Stand

 Dear Diary:

When I was pregnant, I rode the subway to work. The closer I got to the birth of my daughter, the bigger I got, but nobody ever offered me a seat.

Then one day, an older woman who must have been about 90 offered me hers.

I insisted that I could not take her seat, but she was adamant. Finally, she stood up, and I sat down.

She then turned to the young man sitting next to me.

“You get up,” she said. “I’m an old lady.”

— Nancy Suppa

Trump is not wrong in killing the EV subsidy and reducing Biden's stricter fuel efficiency standards when you consider the environmental effects of mining rare earth minerals for batteries

 

Trump Returns to Gasoline as Fuel of Choice for Cars, Gutting Biden’s Climate Policy

The president said he would weaken Biden-era mileage standards, which were designed to increase electric-vehicle sales, calling them a “scam.”

By Lisa FriedmanMaxine Joselow and Jack Ewing

Lisa Friedman and Maxine Joselow reported from Washington, and Jack Ewing from New York

Dec. 3, 2025

The schisms underscore the growing fragility of the nascent coalition in the waning days of its founder. But the idea that the party can go back to some kind of status quo that existed before Mr. Trump is fanciful. A year after it decisively reset the national direction, MAGA seems slightly lost.

 

What Happens When Trump Has Left the Building?

Divisions are appearing as we all wonder what a post-Trump MAGA looks like. Or if it will even survive.

By 

Gerard Baker

Nov. 24, 2025 5:13 pm ET

Last winter, the federal government released the results of its semi-annual reading and math tests of fourth- and eighth-graders, assessments that are considered the most authoritative measure of the state of learning in American elementary and middle schools. In nearly every category, the scores had plunged to levels unseen for decades—or ever. On reading tests, 40 percent of fourth-graders and one-third of eighth-graders performed below “basic,” the lowest threshold. A separate assessment of 12th-graders conducted this past spring—the first since schools were shuttered by the COVID pandemic—yielded similarly crushing results. Many graduated from high school without the ability to decipher this sentence. How can I assume that? The test asked them to define the word decipher, and 24 percent got it wrong.

 

How Public Education Failed in the Liberal Enclaves That Care About It Most

Savor the Moment

 Dear Diary:

Late to work on a cold, sunny, spring morning, I decided to take a shortcut through Madison Square Park.

With the sound of traffic and barking dogs behind me, I joined the meeting I was late for via phone and hoped that I would not have to speak.

As it got later, I started to sweat from what had turned into a jog to First Avenue. Dodging the dog walkers, I saw a single white flower petal twirling gently as it fell from the sky.

I stopped and stood still. The sound of traffic, dogs and my meeting seemed to fade away. I was amazed at the beauty of the single, pristine, delicate white petal as it danced through the cool spring air toward the ground.

In my haste to get to work, I had failed to appreciate the beauty of my surroundings: the dogs, the people, the flowers, even the traffic.

The petal landed, and I picked it up. It was clearly a sign that I needed to appreciate the beauty around me, no matter how stressed out I was feeling.

But it wasn’t a flower petal. It was a discarded receipt from the M23-SBS Bus.

And I was late for work.

— David Daniel

Does Mark Gongdolf actually think it would be real for "Landman" characters to talk about the deleterious effect of oil on the climate? Actually this week it had the drilling company's young female lawyer think about it and Billy Bob telling her to grow up

 

Big Oil Hijacked ‘Landman’ for Its Propaganda

By Mark Gongloff

Mark Gongloff is a Bloomberg Opinion editor and columnist covering climate change. He previously worked for Fortune.com, the Huffington Post and the Wall Street Journal.

“We are in trouble in our country. We are not talking about this enough,” Mr. Farley said. “We have over a million openings in critical jobs, emergency services, trucking, factory workers, plumbers, electricians and tradesmen.” He said Ford is struggling to hire mechanics at salaries that Ivy League grads might envy.

 

Why Ford Can’t Find Mechanics

Forget about reshoring manufacturing without more skilled workers.

By 

The WSJ Editorial Board

Nov. 17, 2025 5:55 pm ET