Matt Purple is the online editor of The Spectator's World edition
At first, it sounded like Joe Biden’s 2023 State of the Union address was going to be another snoozer. Out of the gate came clanging all the usual paeans to bipartisanship: ‘To my Republican friends,’ Biden said, ‘if we could work together in the last Congress, there is no reason we can’t work together in
Allow me to set the scene for you. It is the coldest month of the year and also the darkest. The sun sets not long after lunch, ruling out any after-work revelry more exciting than testing your antifreeze. It’s too chilly to go for a walk; even a trip to the gym looms like an
The sting music has blared, the media hype is in, and the midterms are set to be the most important American elections in nearly two years. Now, as normal people head to the polls, it’s time for us political junkies to jumper-cable our brains straight into the vote tallies. You, too, can pretend to know
The year was 2001. George W. Bush had just defeated Al Gore in the infamous hanging-gigachad presidential election from hell. The policy differences between the candidates weren’t actually that substantial, at least compared to how they often are today; what had really distinguished the campaign was its de facto referendum on the personal character of
Washington, DC Amid the recent orgy of violence across America, it was the carjackings that finally got me. Lost amid all the mass shootings and gang slayings of late has been another wave of crime: vehicle thefts. In Washington DC, carjackings in 2021 were up by a third over 2019, while in nearby Alexandria a motorist
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In this week’s episode: Is Biden’s approach to the war in Ukraine more calculating than it seems? For this week’s cover piece, in this week’s cover piece, Matt Purple examines Biden’s response to the situation in Ukraine. The good, the bad and the gaffs. He joins the podcast along with the founder of Political Human
Anyone could see that Joe Biden veered off-script during his big speech in Poland. ‘For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power,’ he said of Vladimir Putin, which sounded a lot like a cry for regime change. Luckily for him, though, and perhaps for world peace, Leon Panetta, a former secretary of defence under
‘We oppose authoritarianism!’ our pundits all cry, before tuning in to watch the American president thunder like a god in front of a room full of clapping animatronic courtiers. Yes, it is State of the Union season here in America, our most North Korean of political traditions. And while hating on the annual address has
Mark Zuckerberg emerged from his walk-in T-shirt closet last week to make a stunning announcement: Facebook will be changing its name. And while we don’t yet know what the new name will be, I think I may be able to help here. How about this: Boomerware? Or in keeping with Silicon Valley’s penchant for trendy
Nicki Minaj weighed in on the coronavirus vaccine this week, and the world hasn’t been this relieved since Katy Perry peer-reviewed that swine flu research. For those even more cripplingly out of touch than I am, Minaj is a Trinidadian-American rapper best known for her filthy 2014 single ‘Anaconda.’ Real country anaconda, let me play
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Is this week’s presidential debate a taste of the chaos to come? (00:55) In defence of ‘wokeness’ (15:10) and are male-only spaces immoral? (30:25) With Matt Purple, Senior Editor at the American Conservative; Karin Robinson, host of the Primarily: 2020 podcast; Sam Leith, The Spectator’s Literary Editor; Andrew Doyle, the writer behind Titania McGrath; and
Tuesday night’s debate between President Donald Trump and Joe Biden was a hopeless mess — a national embarrassment. For 90 minutes, two cantankerous and incoherent old men ignored the rules, shouted over each other and ruined the event. Trump insulted Biden’s intelligence and his children. Biden told Trump to ‘shut up’ and called him ‘a
21 min listen
Joe Biden accepted the Democratic Party’s nomination at their virtual convention last night, bringing his three-day coronation to an end with a well-received speech. Throughout this year’s DNC, speakers have warned that America’s political foundations are at stake in the upcoming election – Barack Obama urged voters not to let the Republicans ‘take away your
Three years ago at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) just outside Washington, I convened in a large room with a small group of mostly British expatriates to watch Nigel Farage rail against the European Union. That was then; this is now, and today Farage is one of the event’s most iconic superstars. His
Next up on America, it’s the season two premiere of The Donald Trump Show. All your favorite characters are back—or are they? Will The Mooch be able to scheme and scream his way back into the White House? Will Steve Bannon, last seen indulging a quaff from his hip flask as a door embossed with
Donald Trump’s speech before the United Nations General Assembly was both an echo of George W. Bush and something original. At times, one expected the president to lapse into a Texas drawl and warn about ‘nuclear weapons’; at others he was distinctly The Donald. Despite the seeming contradiction, it was a fairly cogent and consistent
Here are some of the many insults that Donald Trump has ladled out over the years. On Senator John McCain: ‘He’s not a war hero.’ On Senator Rand Paul: ‘I never attacked his looks, and believe me, there’s plenty of subject matter right there.’ On Jeb Bush: ‘He’s an embarrassment to his family.’ On Jeb Bush’s family: ‘Do we really need another
When I first heard Donald Trump threaten North Korea with “fire and fury,” I immediately despaired—because I’m sick and tired of hackneyed Game of Thrones references. Amongst American pundits, mentioning the hit show has become a desperate way of showing off one’s knowledge of popular culture. To that end, Steve Bannon isn’t Rasputin or Jean-Paul Marat; he’s
Imagine the gale-force political winds that it takes to make Donald Trump do something he doesn’t want to do. Yet that’s what happened earlier this week when the president grudgingly approved a new suite of sanctions on Russia passed overwhelmingly by both houses of Congress. That he signed the bill in private signalled his extreme
How are things in your country? In mine, we’ve spent the last week and a half being governed by a mid-aughts buddy comedy named ‘Donald and The Mooch’. That latter sobriquet belongs to Anthony Scaramucci, Donald Trump’s erstwhile PR man who went on a 10-day profanity-laden bender across Washington proper before even the President realised
