Our Best Stuff on Politics as the Midterms Draw Near

Turn any article into a podcast. Upgrade now to start listening. Members can share articles with friends & family to bypass the paywall. You’re reading The Weekly, a Saturday morning recap of the best Dispatch content of the week, with some additional commentary from Managing Editor Rachael Larimore. Hello and happy Saturday. Last week I wrote about polling showing that we could be in for a blue wave in the midterms. This week we gained some insight into how that forecast is already having consequences, and we looked ahead at the ramifications of a Democratically controlled Congress. In short, Republicans are turning on President Donald Trump, even conspiracy theories aren’t working for him, and the president and some of his Cabinet could find themselves in very uncomfortable positions come January. On Wednesday, the New York Times reported that Texas Attorney General and Senate nominee Ken Paxton, in a speech to donors, blamed the GOP’s midterm convention for driving down his poll numbers. In Boiling Frogs, Nick Catoggio was skeptical of the notion that “Trumpapalooza” is the source of Paxton’s problems, but he was also surprised that Paxton spoke against the president. He wrote: It would be shocking to hear any Republican on the ballot this fall admit that Trump is a liability for the party, of course, but Ken Paxton? A man who would have been removed from his office as state attorney general by his own party if not for the president’s intervention? Who may very well have lost his Senate primary this year to John Cornyn if not for the president’s endorsement? Who’s being bankrolled right now to the tune of millions of dollars from the president’s super PAC to keep him in the game against Talarico? For him to declare “Trumpalooza” a major unforced error feels like an act of “disloyalty” on par with Jeff Sessions recusing himself from the Russiagate investigation. Trump, whose MAGA Inc. super PAC has more than $400 million on hand, has begun airing ads in which he vows that “America will never be a communist country,” that he will “expel the warmongers,” and yet another that touts the accomplishments of … the Iran war. Rather, I should say that the U.S. government is airing those ads, as taxpayers are the ones footing the bill. Let’s turn to Jonah for a review of the ad promising to defeat communism: The ad transcends mere “campaign” rhetoric to become quite simply pure propaganda of the sort that in another era would require traditional conservatives to be medicated to avoid vomiting at the spectacle, and even then most could only endure watching it with the assistance of the Ludovico technique made famous in A Clockwork Orange. The ad’s soundtrack is a choir singing, “Love me.” In Friday’s Morning Dispatch, we wrote that even some Republican lawmakers find the ads inappropriate, and they are likely illegal. But FCC Chairman Brendan Carr seems disinclined to investigate any impropriety, which leaves the matter to Congress. Congress is now recessed until after the midterm elections, but it might have a full agenda when it gets back. It needs to figure out how to fund the government, pass the National Defense Authorization Act, and more. But there is also the matter of impeaching Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Rep. Thomas Massie introduced articles of impeachment against Hegseth last month, which prompted Speaker Mike Johnson to adjourn the House early to avoid a vote. In Boiling Frogs, Nick runs through the various scenarios that could play out if the Democrats take the House. Kevin Williamson looked a little farther out, to January, and he predicted we could see multiple impeachments. He wrote: It is important to keep in mind that Trump has not acted alone in these matters: Consider, for example, that the Trump administration conducted an unauthorized war on Venezuela, kidnapped its president, and is operating a puppet regime in Caracas for the purpose of appropriating Venezuelan oil wealth—and this was in no small part the work of Marco Rubio, whose relatively mild public temperament should not be mistaken for moral distance from the administration and its crimes. Investigations into the administration’s financial corruption are certain to involve scrutiny of Scott Bessent and Howard Lutnick. J.D. Vance’s role as an enabler of the abuse of ICE as a political weapon to be wielded against Democratic cities such as Minneapolis will be of interest. There is plenty of room inside the cordon sanitaire. On that note, thanks for reading and have a great weekend. Don’t miss Arash Ahmadzadeh’s account of trying to get a student visa as an international student, Kimberly Mazzocco Hart’s essay on the death of “Butcher of Bosnia” Ratko Mladić, and Mike Coté’s analysis of the deal between the United States, Denmark and Greenland, all highlighted below. On April 13 of this year, I was teaching Fernando Sor’s Study in B minor to a teenage student at the Conservatoire de Breuillet, just outside Paris, when an email flashed up on my phone. It was from Harvard University’s director of graduate studies. She wanted to know whether I was still interested in studying for a doctoral degree in historical musicology. Of course, I was very much still interested. But even then, five months before the semester was due to start, I did not know whether I would actually be able to attend. That’s because an email like this comes with fine print for a person like me, as rising barriers make American higher education less and less accessible to talented students from less privileged backgrounds. The unfortunate truth is that foreign students, U.S. universities, and American society all lose out as a consequence. Under President Donald Trump’s Proclamation 10998, the United States has suspended or limited entry and visa issuance for nationals of 39 countries. Iran, the country of my birth, is among the countries under a full suspension, with very few exceptions. And so began another series of barriers between me and the next stage of the education I had worked toward since leaving Iran a decade ago to pursue my studies. War is ugly. People die. It’s violent and messy and cruel and sometimes things happen that should not. But Ratko Mladić didn’t just kill as deemed necessary in the course of a war. He ordered the systematic slaughter of more than 8,000 men and boys in Srebrenica—a U.N. “safe zone” for refugees of the ongoing conflict. The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia determined this slaughter to be a genocide. He was also the man responsible for the four-year siege of Sarajevo. Siege feels an inadequate descriptor for the terror, destruction, and carnage of that city and its civilians. As many as 1,500 children alone died there in those four years, out of several thousand civilians. Civilians shouldn’t be targets, yet Mladić never renounced his decisions and orders that caused those deaths. Bosnia and Herzegovina was—and is—at peace. But even now, it’s not the peace of reconciliation and restoration. It’s a negative peace, a state of nonviolence. The tension, fear, and anger remain. With a significant city such as Mostar lacking even mayoral elections for over 10 years, the polarization evident in lead-up to next month’s general elections is drawing warnings from across the U.N. and EU. The 21st century has brought novel dangers to the Arctic, perhaps the most profound and complex of the post-WWII era. The adversaries we face—primarily Russia and China—are focusing heavily on the region, intending to exploit it for strategic and economic gains. This has always been the case for Moscow, a natural polar power given its geography, but the involvement of Beijing is new and disturbing. China has often sought to gain foreign influence and control through economic means, like building critical infrastructure, providing telecommunications technologies, or investing in resource extraction, notably of rare earth minerals. These sensitive sectors all have dual-use potential, possibly serving both military and civilian purposes, with the former largely camouflaged by the latter. But too many European governments, including Copenhagen, have been slow to recognize the threat from China. This is a problem for American security. Greenland is ripe for investment, has abundant natural resources worth extracting, and serves as a potential weak point in the northern defenses of the American continent. It sits astride key maritime routes, ones that will only become more crucial as the climate changes and formerly ice-bound waterways open up. The Chinese and Russians have already partnered on routing trade through the Arctic, protecting their cargoes and easing the route with modern icebreakers, some nuclear-powered. Greenland also lies in the direct path that most enemy ballistic missiles targeting the population centers of the eastern seaboard would take, making it a perfect location for early-warning systems and interceptors—as well as a clear sabotage target for our foes. Best of the Rest Unstatesmanlike Statesmen Benjamin Netanyahu in New York and Donald Trump with Xi Jinping both forgot that a leader represents his country, not himself. Rachael Larimore is a managing editor of The Dispatch and is based in the Cincinnati area. Prior to joining the company in 2019, she served in similar roles at Slate, The Weekly Standard, and The Bulwark. She and her husband have three sons.