[View Article at Source]The sights and sounds this time of year point beyond the world of the senses. The post Finding Peace Amid the Christmas Luminaries appeared first on The American Conservative.

[View Article at Source]The economy is the arena where the president must win hearts and minds. The post Can Trump Convince America of His Domestic Agenda? appeared first on The American Conservative.…

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Culture On James Garfield, Netflix Prints the Legend A new miniseries looks at the life and times of the assassinated president. As we’re still receiving updates about last year’s two attempted assassinations on Donald Trump, Netflix has a new miniseries about the second assassination of a U.S. president. “This is a true story about two men the world forgot” reads the opening text—an accurate description of both President James A. Garfield and his killer, Charles J. Guiteau. Adapted from the book Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine, and the Murder of a President by Candice Millard, in four episodes Death by Lightning intertwines the lives of Garfield and Guiteau—the only president and assassin to meet in person prior to the fateful event—as it chronicles the presidential election of 1880, the opening months and difficulties of Garfield’s administration, and his slow death which reset American politics. At the dawn of the decade, the Republican Party was aching from incumbency; a Reconstruction of the South that was widely acknowledged as a failure, a stolen presidential election in 1876 that renewed partisan bitterness, and a divided base within the party.  The split was between the “Stalwarts,” led by New York’s Senator Roscoe Conkling, who believed in patronage and machine politics, and “Half-Breeds,” led by Maine’s Senator James G. Blaine, who favored more meritorious appointments. (Blaine himself suffered from charges of bribery, and it’s easy to make the case that it was more a battle of ego than principle.) The series is not kind to the former President Ulysses S. Grant, the Stalwart’s choice for a then-unprecedented third term, recognizing his “grift and corruption.” Although he did not enter the Republican convention in Chicago as a candidate, the former Union general and Ohio Congressman James Garfield emerged as a compromise between the two factions to break a deadlock and after an electrifying speech. “In a profession with the lamentable tendency to attract show ponies instead of workhorses, and a period favorable to partisan grandstanding, Garfield had embraced undramatic efficiency in the driest fields of lawmaking imaginable, obsessively tending to the vital, oft-neglected inner clockwork of American government,” writes his biographer, C. W. Goodyear, in President Garfield: From Radical to Unifier. Narrowly defeating Democratic nominee Winfield Scott Hancock “the Superb”—who does not appear in the series—in the popular vote with only a 2,000 ballot difference, Garfield spent his four conscious months as president navigating appointments and struggling with Conkling over dominance in Washington. When he finally seemed to have outmaneuvered his erstwhile party rival, Garfield was shot by Guiteau on July 2 in a Washington, DC train station. “Assassination can no more be guarded against than death by lighting. It’s best not to worry too much about either one,” Garfield had written in a letter the previous November, which inspired the series title. After two and a half months of painful incapacity, he died on September 19, 1881, thanks in no small part to the gross incompetence of his doctors. The Academy Award–nominated actor Michael Shannon brings a decency and demonstrable strength to the late president, introducing an admirable, self-made leader to an unfamiliar audience. Matthew Macfadyen’s presence is delightful, and his performance so light and humorous it almost garners sympathy for Guiteau, who’s portrayed more as delusional than the deranged man he was in real life. Nick Offerman is well cast as Garfield’s vice president and successor, but the choice to make Chester A. Arthur, a notorious dandy known for his iconic afternoon naps, a bruiser and inebrient is an odd one. The series’s language is anachronistic, mostly for the benefit of swearing—the modern profanity is prolific, making the contrast with authentic speeches from the era feel even more incongruous. Although billed as a drama, it’s actually quite funny, making many of its significant departures from the historical record more forgivable, either for entertainment or service to narrative. (Although falsely portraying Guiteau as Catholic at any point of his life is a gross addition.) Death by Lightning, just as contemporary clean-government advocates did in real life, lionizes Garfield as a martyr for civil service reform, helped by Guiteau’s claim to be a rejected office-seeker. In actuality, his middle-of-the-road record demonstrates “his softness on specifics, his preference for meeting bosses halfway rather than antagonizing them,” writes Goodyear. But this is always the case with assassinated presidents, whose memories become glossier than their records: Lincoln on civil rights, Kennedy on Vietnam, and Garfield on civil service. The current historical rankings—which I’ve covered previously in The American Conservative—put Garfield and Arthur at 27th and 30th, respectively. Unfortunately, despite positive reception the miniseries suffered from a weak opening, charting fifth among Netflix original series its first week with only 3.2 million views. The wider public is not accustomed to historical dramas, but hopefully Hollywood executives see that kept under a reasonable budget, there is societal benefit to chronicling these undertold stories in American history. The post On James Garfield, Netflix Prints the Legend appeared first on The American Conservative.

Culture Finding Peace Amid the Christmas Luminaries The sights and sounds this time of year point beyond the world of the senses. When I remember the Christmases from decades gone by, I sometimes think of the din and racket of the day. I recall with fondness—and not a little sadness—all the sounds that gave the morning its verve and excitement for the youngster I once was: the drip of the coffee pot, the shredding of the wrapping paper, the exclamations of surprise or delight by the assembled family members, the voices of the choir of King’s College, Cambridge, as heard annually on public radio in their recitation of Lessons and Carols.  Those sounds are so much like the one referenced in the title (and opening lines) of John Updike’s lovely poem “A Sound Heard Early on the Morning of Christ’s Nativity”: “The thump of the newspaper on the porch on Christmas Day, in the dark before dawn yet after Santa Claus has left his gifts . . .” Although it is likely to make little sense to people raised in a post-print and, indeed, post-literate world, Updike’s remembered sound—like my remembered sounds—is an indication of the stimulating freshness that so often accompanies the morning on which we celebrate the birth of Christ. Yet, just as often, I find my mind drifting back to those Christmases in which peacefulness prevailed over pandemonium—when, to invoke another famous poet of the season, Clement Clarke Moore, “not a creature was stirring.” On the Christmas Eve when I was 13, my parents arranged luminaries along the perimeter of our front yard—a considerable feat since, at the time, we lived in a house on a half-acre corner lot. My father, a nonsmoker and early riser, somehow came into possession of a BIC lighter and willed himself to stay up later than usual to light them. I walked beside him as he lit each sand-anchored sack. I do not remember saying anything: I would not have characterized it this way at the time, but the act of lighting the sacks had an almost sacramental quality that I did not want to interrupt with idle chitchat.  After the task was complete, we went inside to our dark, hushed house. My father’s work was done, but my silent contemplation was not. From my second-story bedroom window, I studied his handiwork: the shimmering lights that seemed at once to beckon visitors and to form a protective shield around our little family. By the time I took one last look before going to sleep, the hour had turned to Christmas. Hours later, I am sure the house was as hectic as ever—but not the night before, when those luminaries flickered. Throughout my life, I have found seeing lights aglow in the dark to not only be hypnotic but calming, especially in an otherwise frenzied season. On Christmas evenings in my childhood and adolescence, my father would always cede to our demand to be driven to area neighborhoods to look at light displays. As a family, we were always amused by the houses outfitted with the brightest lights—the houses whose occupants seemed most clearly inspired by Clark W. Griswold—but I was always fascinated by the houses that had decorated in a subtler key, especially those with candles in their windows. What serenity the inhabitants of such houses must have, I remember thinking. The drive itself was deeply restful, at least for we passengers: all that was heard was the squeak of the steering wheel, the crunch of the street when the car made a turn or came to a stop, and the occasional murmur of appreciation, from my mother, my brother, or me, at an especially beautiful house. But the most silent of silent nights came in 2006, when I, a first-time churchgoer in my early twenties, attended a Christmas Eve service at the Episcopal church where, for better or worse, I learned the rudiments of the faith. That night, though, my objections to Episcopalian doctrine and practice mattered not at all. I remember soaking in the hymns and paying closer attention than usual to the sermon. And, when the service had been concluded, I remember being greeted by the vast quiet of a town that had, except for the services at my church and others nearby, long since shut down for the night.  Because I was leaving church at a time of the evening without any worldly distractions—pedestrians, traffic, restaurants—I was able to focus, more than I ever had before, on what the Gospels were telling us. Many years would pass before I again went to church on Christmas Eve, but when I did, I had the same sensation upon leaving: that the world had stopped talking, leaving me in peace to contemplate our immanent joy at Christ’s nativity. Maybe I feel compelled to remember these moments of Christmas tranquility because the years of Christmas jubilation—the parents and the presents and the attendant commotion—feel so, so far away. But I had all of those things when I was 13, and yet, I was still transfixed by the sublime serenity of those flickering lights in the yard. The post Finding Peace Amid the Christmas Luminaries appeared first on The American Conservative.

Politics Can Trump Convince America of His Domestic Agenda? The economy is the arena where the president must win hearts and minds. In the run-up to President Donald Trump’s pre-Christmas primetime address to the nation, it was widely rumored he was going to use the speech to announce some kind of military action in Venezuela. Perhaps an Operation Mid-Advent Hammer of sorts. That didn’t happen, thankfully. Instead, Trump largely sought to defend his second-term economic record and attack the Democrats for their massive contributions to the “affordability” crisis they now promise to solve. You can question whether Trump’s message was effective, and many people did. Clearly, this was a successful Trump pitch last year when Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were the incumbents, but a tougher sell now that he is back in office. But Trump needs to make a version of this argument ahead of the midterm elections. Whether it works or not will depend largely on whether public perceptions of the economy improve, if not by next summer then by Election Day. What would not have helped Trump make his case is if his primetime speech had actually been about war in Venezuela or somewhere else. This would have been true regardless of whether Trump launched a surgical military strike, as is his preference, rather than plunging the country into an extended Vietnam- or Iraq-like quagmire.  Virtually anything Trump talks about other than the economy and his efforts to lower prices will be a niche concern at best. This includes even some good things Trump is trying to do, like seeking an end to the war in Ukraine. Most of the swing voters who cast their ballots for Trump did so because they trusted him more on the economy than the alternatives. They had fond memories of the pre-pandemic economy of Trump’s first term, which featured both low unemployment and low inflation, and decided to give him a pass on the 2020 downturn caused by the lockdowns, which he backed more reluctantly than his opponents. But they haven’t seen much progress on the economy since Trump returned to office, even as he has been ubiquitous. This is where focusing on ballrooms and pageantry can be a bit off-message. And yes, even Trump’s international diplomacy can be made to seem like George H.W. Bush’s indifference to economic issues (and ignorance of grocery store checkout scanners). Since Trump has taken a more hawkish turn in his second term, it has been said that rank-and-file MAGA voters have stuck by him even as self-styled America First influencers have sometimes dissented. While that’s true, Trump being a war president—and particularly a war-without-Congress president—won’t help Republicans in 2026 or 2028.  Here too the elder Bush’s experience is instructive: Neither success in the Persian Gulf War nor the largely bloodless ouster of the Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega did much for the GOP once the 1990–91 recession hit. Foreign affairs were trumped by the economy. The subsequent history of regime change wars is far worse than anything that happened on that front when Poppy was in the White House. War may also be a double whammy with the lower-propensity voters who backed Trump in 2024 but are always difficult to turn out for other Republicans when he isn’t on the ballot, even in the best of circumstances. It is the least conventionally Republican Trump voters who might stay home if they are struggling to pay their bills at the same time the country is involved in a foreign war. And if these voters feel burned by Trump, good luck getting them to the polls to support Susan Collins. Trump needs to appear active and engaged on the economy. It is likely the only thing that can turn Republican electoral fortunes around by next November, though the objective economic conditions will be more important than any speeches he can possibly give. But an America First president not seeming preoccupied with foreign countries is an important first step. It seems that Trump understands, or is at least finally starting to get, this. There is no shortage of things that Trump has done in his second term that I think are good that will still not move the needle for down-ballot Republicans in the next two elections, or will mainly please surefire GOP voters. And yes, he does have to do other things as president than try to convince people he cares deeply about the price of eggs. At the same time, Trump shouldn’t misread his mandate. He was elected to curb inflation, not topple tinpot dictators. The more time he spends trying to do the latter, the less people will think he is interested in the former.  The post Can Trump Convince America of His Domestic Agenda? appeared first on The American Conservative.

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