At Harvard, a Clash Between Democracy and Monarchy

At Harvard, a Clash Between Democracy and Monarchy

Curtis Yarvin, the computer engineer turned neo-monarchist blogger, seems to be everywhere these days. His argument that American democracy has exhausted itself and needs to be replaced by a form of one-man rule has made him a star on the right, reportedly catching the ear of powerful figures like Marc …

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Trump’s Judicial Defiance Is New to the Autocrat Playbook, Experts Say

Trump’s Judicial Defiance Is New to the Autocrat Playbook, Experts Say

President Trump’s intensifying conflict with the federal courts is unusually aggressive compared with similar disputes in other countries, according to scholars. Unlike leaders who subverted or restructured the courts, Mr. Trump is acting as if judges were already too weak to constrain his power. “Honest to god, I’ve never seen …

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Trump’s Embrace of Russia Leaves Europe in Emotional Shock

Trump’s Embrace of Russia Leaves Europe in Emotional Shock

For decades a core objective of the Soviet Union was to “decouple” the United States from Europe. Decoupling, as it was called, would break the Western alliance that kept Soviet tanks from rolling across the Prussian plains. Now, in weeks, President Trump has handed Moscow the gift that eluded it …

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A Europe in Emotional Shock Grapples With a New Era

A Europe in Emotional Shock Grapples With a New Era

For decades a core objective of the Soviet Union was to “decouple” the United States from Europe. Decoupling, as it was called, would break the Western alliance that kept Soviet tanks from rolling across the Prussian plains. Now, in weeks, President Trump has handed Moscow the gift that eluded it …

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Next Likely Chancellor Promises a Tougher Germany

Next Likely Chancellor Promises a Tougher Germany

Friedrich Merz, the man favored to be Germany’s next chancellor after elections on Sunday, is a conservative businessman who has never been a government minister and was forced out of party leadership years ago for challenging Angela Merkel. As a Christian Democrat and committed trans-Atlanticist, he has been considered a …

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Trump Is Leading a Global Surge to the Right

Trump Is Leading a Global Surge to the Right

At the start of his second term President Trump has positioned himself at the crest of a global wave of hard-line conservative populism, offering fuel and inspiration to surging nationalist parties in the European Union and beyond. Those parties are generally united by tough stances against immigrants, support for what …

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‘The Interview’: Curtis Yarvin Says Democracy is Done

‘The Interview’: Curtis Yarvin Says Democracy is Done

For a long time, Curtis Yarvin, a 51-year-old computer engineer, has written online about political theory in relative obscurity. His ideas were pretty extreme: that institutions at the heart of American intellectual life, like the mainstream media and academia, have been overrun by progressive groupthink and need to be dissolved. …

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Venezuela’s Autocrat Detains U.S. Citizens As He Tightens Grip on Power

Venezuela’s Autocrat Detains U.S. Citizens As He Tightens Grip on Power

He is an autocrat condemned inside and outside his country as having stolen the nation’s last election. Yet on Friday, Nicolás Maduro, the Venezuelan president who has overseen his country’s dramatic decline — including runaway inflation, blackouts, hunger, mass migration and the unraveling of the nation’s democracy — is set …

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