Foreign Affairs Can the Rights in France Unite? Sovereigntism and liberalism may find an accommodation in the face of a more aggressive left. France is at a crossroads: The nationalist party Rassemblement National is entering next year’s presidential election in a commanding position. According to some polls, the RN candidate could garner 70 percent of votes against a left-wing contender. The RN’s long-time boast of being France’s largest political party is now an incontrovertible fact. But France’s right has failed to march behind one banner. Rather than form an alliance with the RN, the Republicans (LR)—the heirs of Charles de Gaulle’s postwar movement—have lent grudging support to President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist bloc, enabling the Macronists to maintain a tenuous hold over the parliament and the country’s political life.  The press often depicts this as an affair of clashing personalities or electoral tactics, but the divide runs much deeper. The traditional right of the LR and the nationalist right of the RN are beset by a centuries-old problem: the unresolved divorce between liberals and conservatives dating back to the French Revolution.  The conservative tradition, attached to social order, historical continuity, cultural cohesion, and national sovereignty, and the liberal tradition, extolling individual freedom, economic openness, and constitutionalism, remain at odds. In the Anglo-American world, these traditions developed in tandem; in France, liberalism and conservatism are the Jacob and Esau of the right-wing mind.  Despite the legacy of Constant and Tocqueville, liberalism in France is frequently perceived as an Anglo-Saxon import. It resonates as a byword for moral permissiveness and ruthless laissez-faire. The term is hurled as a pejorative at figures who in the Anglo-American world would rate as social democrats—see Nicolas Sarkozy and Emmanuel Macron.  France’s “liberal imagination” features not moderation of limited government, but market tyranny and social abandonment. In a society in which the idea of the state as protector cuts across the political spectrum, many conservatives deplore liberalism as a force for individual atomization and social dissolution.  Mapping these philosophical distinctions onto partisan labels can prove arduous. That said, Marine Le Pen’s RN, embracing the welfare state and robust social protection, comes down on the “conservative” side of the economic equation, while LR has adopted a more “liberal” bent.  The electorate of each party reflects and reinforces this obstacle to a  “union of the rights.” The RN has won over “peripheral France”: lower-middle and working-class populations outside major metropolitan areas affected by deindustrialization, declining public services, and cultural invisibility. For decades, the mainstream right has maintained a wide berth from this down-at-the-heel electorate, often derided as ploucs (“rednecks”) or petits blancs (“little whites”). The RN’s burgeoning electoral appeal has pushed it to endorse economic policies associated at times with the left. Jean-Marie Le Pen once claimed inspiration from Ronald Reagan, but four decades hence, the party has donned the same statist and protectionist garb as its disadvantaged base. Marine Le Pen often recalls that her electoral stronghold of Hénin-Beaumont, in northern France, was long a socialist-communist bastion. The RN has largely abandoned social conservatism, embracing abortion rights and same-sex marriage—a point in its favor for the liberal right—while developing an economic program closer to social democracy than to market liberalism—a demerit for free-market advocates. But the landscape is changing. In an ironic twist for a France that sees itself as the center of the world, succor has come from abroad. The victories of Donald Trump, Giorgia Meloni, and Javier Milei have forced the French right to look outward again—not to imitate blindly, but to recognize that ideological renewal is occurring elsewhere. This coincides with a genuine liberal awakening in France. On social media, a new generation of influencers promotes market liberalism, entrepreneurship, deregulation and fiscal discipline, often drawing on Anglo-American references and rejecting French statism. Investment-focused influencers in particular have introduced liberal ideas to younger audiences previously untouched by political theory. Slogans inspired by Milei’s “Afuera!” would have been unthinkable a decade ago. This intellectual shift is beginning to translate politically. While still electorally marginal, figures such as Éric Zemmour and Sarah Knafo of the Reconquête party have blazed a path for liberal conservatism in public discourse. More discreet but equally telling is the Nouvelle Energie initiative launched by David Lisnard, mayor of Cannes and president of the Association of Mayors of France, who proposes a presidential primary extending to all the parties of the right, including Reconquête. At the same time, the RN itself is evolving as the return of unapologetic American power politics has validated some of its long-standing intuitions. During the Obama years, RN’s calls for sovereignty and protectionism were dismissed as reactionary. Today similar themes are echoed across the spectrum. Macron himself now advocates protectionist measures in response to Trump’s statements on Greenland. Recent American positions on Venezuela, Greenland, and trade have reinforced a broader realization: Alliances do not vitiate interests. This has been accompanied by an effort to rethink sovereignty and liberalism together. Essayists such as Julien Rochedy, formerly a leader of the RN’s youth movement, now articulate a critique of liberalism from within, rejecting both progressivism and authoritarian temptations while insisting on civilisational continuity. The RN also faces pressure on its right flank. Zemmour’s liberal tack is gaining traction in influential milieus. A recent municipal poll in Paris even places Reconquête ahead of the RN—a striking signal in a city long impermeable to Le Pen’s party. This has accelerated the RN’s outreach to business circles, with meetings multiplying and private-sector figures entering its leadership. The party has refined its program for small business owners, among whom it now polls at around 40 percent. Internationally, the RN has distanced itself from its erstwhile ally in the Kremlin. Rather than substituting one foreign model for another, it has adopted a selective approach: learning without allegiance. It does not align itself with Trump, but draws a lesson from him—that political movements are judged less by moral posture than by their ability to defend national interests. This doctrinal evolution is embodied by a new generation. Pierre-Romain Thionnet, a 32-year-old RN member of the European Parliament and head of the party’s youth movement, embodies this trend, insisting on a sovereignty-based conservatism that eschews illiberalism. France’s traditional right is relaxing its policy of a cordon sanitaire around the RN. LR and the liberal right no longer entirely rule out rapprochement, as seen in recent actions by Nicolas Sakorzy and LR chief Bruno Retailleau. For its part, the RN understands that welfare state reform and economic freedom are prerequisites for governing credibility.Signs of an emerging liberal-conservatism à la française already exist at the intellectual level. For them to break through into full public view, there only needs to be one inciting factor—a shared enemy in the form of La France Insoumise (France Unbowed). Hostile to the market economy, aligned with left-wing authoritarians, supportive of mass immigration and profound social transformation, the radical left party raises the hackles of the right’s liberal and conservatives alike. In a second round of the presidential election pitting the RN against La France Insoumise, yesterday’s adversaries might well seal the long-awaited alliance to fend off their common nemesis. The post Can the Rights in France Unite? appeared first on The American Conservative.

Foreign Affairs For Zelensky, Is Losing the War Better Than Losing the Peace? At Davos, the Ukrainian president scolded European leaders. The biggest progress in the talks between Russia and Ukraine is that, for the first time since the opening weeks of the war, Russia and Ukraine are talking. That’s important. The first time they held direct talks, they were on their way to ending the war—at least before Ukraine’s friends in the United States, the UK, and Poland encouraged an end to diplomacy and a full commitment to war. For weeks, Russia has called negotiations “constructive,” the U.S. has said the talks “are at the end now” and that they are “down to one issue,” and Zelensky has called them “90 percent” complete. Though talks may have progressed through 90 percent of the issues, they are no closer to the end. Ukraine and their American and European partners may have agreed on “possible” security guarantees that Russia will certainly reject, and the U.S. and Russia may have agreed to territorial concessions that Ukraine will certainly reject. While the talks sputter, if not stall, the war goes on. And what Ukraine is refusing to yield at the negotiating table, they are yielding on the battlefield. The media long talked about the 20 percent of the eastern Donbas region that Ukraine still controls and Russia insists they give up. Then they talked about 15 percent. Then 14 percent became the magic number. Last week it was 12 percent, and now some reports are citing 10 percent. And it is not just the Donbas: Some of the Russian forces’ biggest advances are in the other regions Moscow annexed. While Zelensky talks and refuses to surrender territory, the territory is being surrendered. Ukraine is losing the land in the war that they refuse to lose in the peace. But, for Zelensky, losing the war may be preferable to losing the peace. The result will be the same for Ukraine, but perhaps not for its president.  If Ukraine loses the peace, Ukrainians will blame Zelensky. But if Ukraine loses the war, Zelensky can blame the U.S. and Europe. Zelensky nourished the people of Ukraine during the war with promises of maximalist achievements: of reconquering all lost territory, including Donbas and the Crimean peninsula, and of gaining membership in NATO. After all the death and anguish, it will be hard to sell a peace that involves relinquishing more land, and without the promised irreversible path to NATO. The result for Zelensky, both politically and personally, would not be good (the result could involve a variation on a theme of a rope and a tree). The acting commander of the ultranationalist Azov Brigade said there would be no “peace without victory.” He warned Zelensky, “There is only one victory—not a single Russian soldier on Ukrainian territory. We will not leave this war to our descendants, and you will not leave it either, because if you try, it will be bad. Both for you and for them.” It would not be hard for Zelensky to shift the blame for a Ukrainian loss abroad. The U.S. and UK encouraged Ukraine off the path of diplomacy and onto the path of defeating Russia with promises of whatever the Ukrainians need for as long as they need it. Zelensky can tell Ukrainians that Washington broke its promise. The Trump administration has found ways to stop funding Ukraine’s war effort, so losing the war can be blamed on the United States. Europe, too, encouraged Ukraine to fight on and never surrender territory to the Russian invader. They promised to pick up the slack with money and weapons. But, of course, they could not. Europe is out of money and limping on the production of weapons. They are just as poor in troops and influence. The Europeans were not even invited to the talks in Abu Dhabi.  So, the blame for losing the war can be shunted to Europe as well. And that’s just what Zelensky did in his speech at Davos a couple weeks ago. He pounded Europe for its weakness. He castigated Europe for making the same empty promises year after year. “Just last year, here in Davos,” he said, “I ended my speech with the words: ‘Europe needs to know how to defend itself.’ A year has passed—and nothing has changed.” He said that “Europe loves to discuss the future but avoids taking action today.” He charged Europe with impotence in helping Ukraine on economics and sanctions and on a special tribunal on Russian aggression: “Too often in Europe, something else is always more urgent than justice.” Most pointedly, he scolded Europe for its military weakness, its dependence, and for not prioritizing Ukraine. “Europe,” he said, “relies only on the belief that if danger comes, NATO will act.” But “Europe hasn’t even tried to build its own response.” Europe is helpless to provide security guarantees for Ukraine without a U.S. “backstop.” Europe, he said, “looks lost, trying to convince the U.S. President to change,” but Trump “will not listen” to a Europe that is “a geography” but “not a great power.” In a final insult, Zelensky called Europe “just a ‘salad’ of small and middle powers.” By laying the blame for losing the war on the U.S. and Europe, Zelensky can’t be blamed for returning to the negotiating table. While the talks stand still over territorial concessions, those territories are being lost in the war. For Zelensky, though, that may be the preferable option. The post For Zelensky, Is Losing the War Better Than Losing the Peace? appeared first on The American Conservative.

Politics The GOP Is About to Relive Its Worst Immigration Failure Don’t let “worst of the worst” become the new amnesty. While the left humiliates itself by being unable to define a woman, Republicans are having their own definitional crisis: deciding who has to leave the country under “mass deportation.” There is nothing “mass” about narrowing enforcement to the “worst of the worst.” There is nothing populist about shifting the focus exclusively to criminals. There is nothing honest about pretending that this is what voters meant when they demanded action on immigration. What is unfolding with ICE in Minnesota is a familiar genre in American politics: Republicans try to implement a campaign promise. Then, the media panics, protests erupt, and the Republican establishment starts searching for an off-ramp. We have seen this before. It is the same impulse that produced the RNC’s Growth and Opportunity Project—the so-called autopsy—after Mitt Romney’s 2012 loss. Rather than conduct an honest assessment aligned with the populist direction the party would soon take, establishment Republicans used Romney’s defeat to sell the base two catastrophic falsehoods: first, that the immigration status quo was somehow good for America; and second, that even if it wasn’t, removing millions of illegal aliens was either impossible or politically suicidal. In Minnesota, it looks like that error is resurfacing in real time. At the heart of both moments is the same fundamental misdiagnosis. Illegal immigration is principally a crisis of quantity, rather than quality. Systems buckle under the weight of accumulated foreign populations long before any immigrant commits a headline-grabbing felony. At mass levels, illegal immigration suppresses wages for American workers, especially those without college degrees, overwhelms schools and hospitals, and expands welfare systems quietly and permanently. Worse, it degrades national cohesion. Illegal immigration leaves American culture a third-world imitation of itself. None of this is primarily about violent felonies. Reducing deportations to a criminal-justice framework tells millions of Americans who absorb these costs that their losses and communities do not matter. Unless they can point to a mugshot, their grievances are politically irrelevant. This is why immigration politics for MAGA has always revolved around scale, not individual cases. In 2016, President Donald Trump’s promise to “Build the Wall” was more than an argument for a construction project. Properly understood, it was a declaration that borders matter and enforcement is nonnegotiable. The so-called “Muslim ban” followed the same logic: broad, unapologetic, and focused on outcomes rather than elite approval. In 2024, “mass deportations” became the successor slogan for the same reason. Voters understood that half-measures had failed. There were no asterisks, no consultants’ caveats saying “only the worst of the worst.” Yet these are exactly what are now being introduced. We are going soft on deportations at the precise moment we should be going harder—against illegal alien employers, the NGO-industrial complex that facilitated mass entry, and the Biden-era officials like Alejandro Mayorkas who engineered the crisis in the first place. To avoid repeating this failure, Republicans must confront the logic of the autopsy head-on. The report framed immigration as a perception problem rather than an issue of national sovereignty: “If Hispanic Americans perceive that a GOP nominee or candidate does not want them in the United States (i.e. self-deportation), they will not pay attention to our next sentence.” The conclusion was explicit: soften enforcement rhetoric, signal welcome, and assume electoral gains would follow. The autopsy reiterated this logic elsewhere, warning that “if our Party is not welcoming and inclusive, young people and increasingly other voters will continue to tune us out.” Donald Trump did the opposite—and won. There was nothing “welcoming” about “Build the Wall,” nothing inclusive about mass deportations. Yet Trump took over the GOP by rejecting euphemism, insisting on enforcement, and proving the autopsy wrong on its own terms. He won by clarifying, not by softening. The autopsy’s fear was always misplaced. Illegal immigrants do not vote. “Welcoming” rhetoric caters to elite opinion and corporate labor interests, rather than the concerns of everyday Americans. The autopsy’s most revealing line came when it urged compromise, noting that disagreement on “20 percent of the issues” should not prevent unity. But that allegedly marginal 20 percent is where MAGA took the hard line—and, with it, the victory. Immigration is nonnegotiable and foundational. America First works only if America is clearly defined. As Minnesota becomes the next test case, Republicans should be clear-eyed. They cannot allow deporting the “worst of the worst” to become the 2024 version of “comprehensive immigration reform.” America’s future hangs in the balance.  The post The GOP Is About to Relive Its Worst Immigration Failure appeared first on The American Conservative.

Operation Brave Heart: Bringing Home the Last Hostage From Gaza

Times Are Changing With Regard to Media Bias

Patience, Folks, Patience

Nicki Minaj Is Right. We Need Voter ID.

Grab Your Grammy, Then Get Hammy About Illegal Immigrants

Girls vs. Boys