FROM THE MAGAZINE

December 2024

Campaign 2024

Democracy on the ballot

Will this election be a lesson to anyone?

By Spectator Editorial

From the Magazine

Diary

Drea de Matteo’s Italian-American Christmas

We invite everybody over that doesn’t have a place to go

By Drea de Matteo

From the Magazine

Campaign 2024

The three reasons Trump won

Kamala Harris was a horrible candidate. He, on the contrary, was superb 

By Roger Kimball

From the Magazine

Campaign 2024

The realignment election

Harris lost ground in all demographics except one. Where did Democrats go wrong?

By Amber Duke

From the Magazine

Campaign 2024

The end of NeverTrump

It turns out that just employing the enemy of your enemy isn’t enough

By Ben Domenech

From the Magazine

Campaign 2024

How podcasts swayed the 2024 election

A new generation armed with microphones and little else takes center stage

By Aidan McLaughlin

From the Magazine

Middle East

Trump could temper tensions in the Middle East

Above all, he is a dealmaker

By Paul Wood

From the Magazine

Law

How the lawfare campaign against Trump backfired

Will the president-elect rain down the same firestorm on his adversaries that they unleashed on him?

By Joseph Moreno

From the Magazine

Politics

The two final battles of the culture war

Do conservatives have the edge with moderates in the trans-rights argument?

By Charles Lipson

From the Magazine

Culture

The death of the American museum

The drive to inspire has been overtaken by the gratuitous need to moralize

By Marc Oestreich

From the Magazine

Culture

Ta-Nehisi Coates, the DEIty

Ten years in an America enslaved to race recrimination

By Ben Domenech

From the Magazine

Science & Tech

My AI boyfriend turned psycho

It’s horrifying how large and how fast-growing the robot companion market is

By Mary Wakefield

From the Magazine

Culture

Why I quit poker

The game had consumed my brain

By Neal Pollack

From the Magazine

Culture

In praise of American charity

People living in the United States have traditionally been pretty philanthropic, but the trend is changing

By Teresa Mull

From the Magazine

Campaign 2024

How the Democrats Bud Lighted their brand

You can’t be openly hostile to men for two decades and expect to retain the male vote

By Bridget Phetasy

From the Magazine

Ukraine

A prayer in Ukraine

At the National Prayer Breakfast, religious and political leaders unite to pray for an end to their people’s suffering

By Dylan Colligan

From the Magazine

Policy

Panicking over the planet and population is pointless

We have to look at history and give careful thought to the world’s complexity

By Daniel McCarthy

From the Magazine

Russia

Meet the Western conservatives moving to Russia

‘People are traditional and normal here’

By Owen Matthews

From the Magazine

Education

Boris Johnson is no Pericles

The former British PM’s memoir imagines him, like Cincinnatus, leaving his plow, saving Rome, and returning to it. But perhaps Alcibiades would fit him better

By Peter Jones

From the Magazine

International

South Africa’s international decline

From beloved country to rogue democracy — and back again?

By Benji Shulman

From the Magazine

Books

The Spectator’s 2024 Books of the Year

Our writers weigh in

By The Spectator

From the Magazine

Books + Arts

Book Review

John le Carre’s son resurrects George Smiley

Karla’s Choice plays out as a clever, loving, sporadically tongue-in-cheek addition to the very best of John le Carré’s work

By A.S.H. Smyth

From the Magazine

Books

Reassessing Jerzy Kosinski

Why did the Being There writer’s life come to resemble a fairground rollercoaster?

By Alexander Larman

From the Magazine

Books

The life and legacy of Mavis Gallant, an American in Paris

The author skewered the pretensions of would-be intellectual travelers

By Tomoé Hill

From the Magazine

Art

Why Alice Neel remains a vital presence

The artist’s path to success was long and arduous, paved with heartbreak and poverty

By Saffron Swire

From the Magazine

Film

The ups and downs of making Chaplin

The biopic made its star Robert Downey Jr.’s name. But its production was as eventful as any Chaplin picture

By William Boyd

From the Magazine

Film

Memories of David Niven

I recall nothing of our lunch conversation, which has evaporated after fifty years. But I do have a clear memory of the icon of cinema

By Algy Cluff

From the Magazine

Books and Arts

This month in culture: December 2024

What to watch this December

By The Spectator

From the Magazine

Film

Barcelona turns thirty

Revisiting Whit Stillman’s sophomore picture

By Peter Tonguette

From the Magazine

Life

Life

The war against slovenliness

As a father you are part prison guard, three parts beat cop

By Billy McMorris

From the Magazine

London Life

Is it better to be posh or cool?

The tribes have a lot in common

By Cosmo Landesman

From the Magazine

American Life

An ode to six-on-six

The wonderfully idiosyncratic sporting variant achieved extraordinary popularity in rural Iowa

By Bill Kauffman

From the Magazine

Prejudices

The climate ‘calamity’

The road to hell, as they say, is paved with good intentions

By Chilton Williamson, Jr.

From the Magazine

Life

The Spectator’s 2024 Holiday Gift Guide

Our staff and regulars help you spread goodwill to all men

By The Spectator

From the Magazine

Place

Place

A pilgrimage to St. Francis’s holy sanctuary at La Verna

There’s a fairytale quality that permeates this land

By James Jeffrey

From the Magazine

Place

The majesty of Siena’s Palio

The city’s horse race is as mad as it is old

By Orson Fry

From the Magazine

Food and Drink

Food

How to host the perfect Christmas party

Things going wrong are an opportunity for the magic to happen

By Jane Stannus

From the Magazine

Food

Catching my breath in Paris

The trip ended with oysters, scallops and steak tartare at Le Stella, a cozy neighborhood bistro, and a peaceful train ride home

By Lara Prendergast

From the Magazine

Drink

Cocktails for a merry, tipsy Christmas

Yule regret it in the morning

By Ross Anderson

From the Magazine

Drink

The secrets of Super Tuscans

What if I told you that some of the most spectacular wines in Italy were made from the Cabernets (Sauvignon and Franc) and Merlot?

By Roger Kimball

From the Magazine

Food

Casa Bonita, the greatest restaurant in the world

How the South Park guys rescued a local icon of their childhoods and mine

By Stephen L. Miller

From the Magazine

And Finally

And Finally

Crossing the Atlantic at Christmas

The first hurdle: how to get the sleep right to avoid jetlag

By Matt McDonald

From the Magazine

And Finally

There’s nothing rude about the word ‘titbit’

Kingsley Amis, in a letter to The Spectator in 1995, attributed to ‘fastidiousness’ the rise of tidbit in preference to titbit

By Dot Wordsworth

From the Magazine