Last Friday, there was a day-long event at Princeton: the Aaron Friedberg Retirement Colloquium. Participants included a range of the professor’s colleagues and students (present and past). Friedberg has had a full, busy career.

He is a professor of politics and international affairs. Among his books is A Contest for Supremacy: China, America, and the Struggle for Mastery in Asia. As I say in my introduction, he has had a stint or two in government, including two years in the office of Vice President Dick Cheney.

In our Q&A, we talk about some personal things. Friedberg is from Pittsburgh, and he grew up in an academic family. He went to Harvard, for college and graduate school, studying with Samuel P. Huntington, Stanley Hoffmann, Ernest R. May, and others.

(You could learn a lot from those fellows—and Aaron did.)

We talk about people and events from history. The Holocaust, of course, must be reckoned with, to the extent it can. Friedberg is a great admirer of Churchill. He was not perfect—who is?—but we were lucky to have him (“we” the world).

In due course, Professor Friedberg and I talk about life on campus. Has he experienced a Wokistan? (No.) And we talk about “where we are”: where international relations stand.

The United States, Russia, China ... It has been a good run since 1945, despite conflagrations: a U.S.-led international order. With America turning its back on that order, apparently, what might come next?

Will it be “might makes right,” “the law of the jungle,” and “spheres of influence”?

It is a good time to talk with Aaron Friedberg, and I’m glad I have done so. I think readers and listeners will be too.

Q&A is the podcast of this site, Onward and Upward. The site is supported by readers and listeners. To receive new articles and episodes—and to support the work of the writer and podcaster—become a free or paid subscriber. Many thanks to you.

This is an important moment in Iran: people are out in the streets, demanding change; the dictatorship is murdering them by the thousands. I definitely wanted to talk with Marina Nemat, a woman I have known and admired for many years.

She is a dissident from Iran. Since 1991, she has lived in Canada. You will see, in our podcast, that she is in a picture-perfect Canadian setting—like from a movie. But her thoughts are with Iran.

Marina was 13 when Khomeini’s revolution took power. At 16, she was arrested. For more than two years, she was kept in Evin Prison, one of the most horrific places on earth. I have heard Marina describe it as “the high school from hell.”

In exile, she has published two books: Prisoner of Tehran and After Tehran: A Life Reclaimed. This summer, she will publish another book, a historical novel: Mistress of the Persian Boarding House.

In our podcast, she remembers the revolutionary times of the late 1970s. And she relates those times to today. “Déjà vu,” she says. The end of the Islamic Republic may be at hand. Then again, it may persist, on and on. Who knows?

Marina Nemat does know this: there needs to be a transition to democracy. Whether she will ever be able to return to her native country—even for a brief visit—she can’t know.

“My grandmother escaped the Russian Revolution in 1917,” she says. “She died when I was seven. So, this is 53 years ago.” Marina continues:

“I remember, before her death, before she got sick, she always said, ‘The communist murderers will be gone and I will go home one day.’ And she never did. She was buried in Tehran.”

Over the years, at various turns, I have done several podcasts with Marina Nemat. I have always found a conversation with her not only informative but moving, too. I bet you will find the same. Grateful for Marina.

Q&A is the podcast of this site, Onward and Upward. The site is supported by readers and listeners. To receive new articles and episodes—and to support the work of the writer and podcaster—become a free or paid subscriber. Many thanks to you.

I have known Linda Chavez for many years, and have read her for even longer. Do you know I had a hard time introducing her? I really did. This is what I wound up saying:

... our guest is Linda Chavez—whose life has been so multifaceted, it takes a while to sum up.

She has held several governmental positions. She ran for the U.S. Senate. She is the founder and chairman of the Center for Equal Opportunity. She is the vice-chairman of the Renew Democracy Initiative.

She is a policy analyst. A columnist. A book-author. Her autobiography, An Unlikely Conservative, is outstanding. She has now written a novel: The Silver Candlesticks. It has a subtitle: A Novel of the Spanish Inquisition.

The Silver Candlesticks tells the story of the author’s family—her father’s side. A fascinating story it is.

That family has been in the United States—or what became the United States—for many, many years. How many? Well, Linda puts it this way: By the time the colonists got around to signing the Declaration of Independence, her family had been here for almost 200 years.

Beat that, as Bill Buckley would say.

So, is Linda Chavez a “Heritage American,” to use the new nativist jargon? She is an American, and she loves this country’s heritage: the principles and ideals embodied in our founding.

She has spent a lot of time on the issue of immigration, and we discuss it a bit in our Q&A. We also discuss the phrase “equal opportunity”—as in the name of her organization, the Center for Equal Opportunity. She is eloquent on that phrase, that concept, as on everything else.

At the end of our podcast, I ask her an embarrassing question—but not so embarrassing that I don’t ask it. It is a question that has been asked in every generation: “Are we losing America?”

We never have. But—is some worry in order? Linda is, again, darn eloquent.

Every time she talks, it’s like a civics lesson. I will now stop typing so you can listen to her.

Q&A is the podcast of this site, Onward and Upward. The site is supported by readers and listeners. To receive new articles and episodes—and to support the work of the writer and podcaster—become a free or paid subscriber. Great thanks.

When it comes to questions of U.S. foreign policy—when it comes to questions of world affairs in general—there are certain people I always want to hear from. One of them is Nick Burns—R. Nicholas Burns—the veteran U.S. diplomat.

Let me quote from my introduction to this new Q&A:

He is what you might call a “generalist.” He has served in many capacities and many places. He has studied, and worked on, a wide range of issues.

When he was a new Foreign Service officer, he was in Africa and the Middle East. At the White House, he worked in Soviet, then Russian, affairs. He was State Department spokesman. He was ambassador to Greece, and ambassador to NATO. He was an undersecretary of state. Most recently—from 2022 to 2025—he was ambassador to China.

Before going to China, he taught at Harvard’s Kennedy School. Where he is once more.

In our Q&A, we range widely, with Burns speaking crisply and analytically and me kind of sputtering and emoting. But I very much enjoyed our conversation—and learned from it—and I believe others will too.

We talk about China: the government’s aims, the persecution of the Uyghurs, the shackling of Hong Kong, the fate of Taiwan.

We talk about Ukraine and Russia. And about NATO and Europe.

And, of course, we talk about the United States: our character, our choices.

Maybe I could paste a few samples, paraphrasing Mr. Burns. At the outset of our conversation, I ask whether China aspires to be a global hegemon, in addition to a regional one.

Burns:

I don’t think the Chinese, in their heart of hearts, believe that they can be the world’s greatest power in five to ten years. But I do think that’s an aspiration. You know, they’re very fixed on anniversaries. And 2049 will mark the centennial of the takeover of China by Mao Zedong and the Communist Party.

So, to be a global hegemon—or the global hegemon—by that year is one of the Party’s ambitions.

“But even sooner than that,” Burns continues, “there’s no question in my mind that China wishes to become—aims to become, is determined to become—the strongest power in the Indo-Pacific.” And “that means overtaking the United States.”

Charles Krauthammer used to say that decline is a choice—for us Americans, that is. Does Burns agree? Yes, “because there’s human agency,” he says, “and we determine, in a democracy, what our priorities are.”

At times, the United States has been outward-looking, and at other times, inward-looking. We had better be careful where, and how, we look.

Burns became U.S. ambassador to NATO in August 2001. On September 12, members of the alliance invoked Article 5—which says, in essence, “An attack on one is an attack on all.” President Bush’s national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, remarked to Burns, “It’s good to have friends in the world.”

In our Q&A, Burns says,

We are so powerful—and I’m proud that we’re powerful, I love our country, I want us to be strong—but we often need friends in the world. If we try to go it alone, against Putin or Xi Jinping ...

Burns continues,

China is a peer power, in all senses. Russia is a peer power in the nuclear-weapons realm. But if you add our allies—the European allies and NATO, the East Asian allies—we democratic countries are stronger. We can keep the peace through deterrence. And that’s probably the most important lesson I’ve learned since I started as a lowly intern for the State Department in West Africa in 1980.

Here is Burns on Taiwan: “I do not believe that the takeover of Taiwan by the government of the People’s Republic is inevitable.” He elaborates.

Here is Burns on the war in Europe:

It’s disheartening to see the United States position itself as some kind of neutral mediator between the aggressor, Putin, and the victim, Zelensky; the aggressor, the Russian state, and the victim, the people of Ukraine. We have to be on the side of the people of Ukraine, because Putin has crossed the most important red line in global politics: You cannot go into someone else’s country and overtake it by force and get away with it—especially given Russia’s history and Soviet history over the last 100 years or so.

These days, the U.S. State Department acts like a branch of the Republican National Committee. Last month, the department issued the following pronouncement:

This Thanksgiving, we’re grateful for President Trump. Because of his bold and visionary leadership, our nation commands respect on the world stage.

Six days later, the department issued another pronouncement:

This morning, the State Department renamed the former Institute of Peace to reflect the greatest dealmaker in our nation’s history.

Welcome to the Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace. The best is yet to come.

Nick Burns has served under six presidents and nine secretaries of state—Republicans and Democrats. And he knows you take an oath to the Constitution, not to a party or man. He is stirring on this subject, in our Q&A, as on all the other subjects.

Which include the U.S. Agency for International Development and our “radios”—including Radio Free Asia, which meant a lot to people in China, among other countries. Says Burns,

I don’t get it. We’re in a competition with China, and we have just basically destroyed the institutions that were helping us to compete.

At the end of our conversation, Burns puts in a word for immigration—one of the things that have “made us a great, great nation.” Nick’s paternal grandparents came from Ireland, poor as hell. Teenagers, both. Their grandson has represented America in capitals all over the world.

If I had my way, he’d be secretary of state. But his students at the Kennedy School are lucky to have him, and we in podcast-land are lucky to have him too. I could edit this podcast to make it sleek(er)—but I have left in my fumblings and ramblings and interruptions. There are technical glitches, too—some “freezing,” some inadvertent self-muting. Moreover, the podcast could be shorter, tighter.

But I am presenting it “as is,” and I will now stop typing and let you listen, when you have the time.

Q&A is the podcast of this site, Onward and Upward. The site is supported by readers and listeners. To receive new articles and episodes—and to support the work of the writer and podcaster—become a free or paid subscriber. Great thanks.

Gambling on sports is as old as sports, no doubt. Cavemen must have gambled, somehow, when it came to tossing sticks or what have you. Jumping to the 20th century, we in America had the Black Sox scandal of 1919.

In recent times, however, sports gambling seems to have swept the nation. It is ubiquitous—and as easy as flicking a finger on your phone. FanDuel and other such companies are raking it in. And gambling takes a terrible toll: on individual gamblers and on sports itself.

This is the opening topic of this new sportscast, featuring my main gurus, David French and Vivek Dave.

We move on to the issue of college conferences. Do you know which schools belong to which conferences at this point? Does it make sense for UCLA and Rutgers to be in the same conference? The one school is in southern California and the other is in New Jersey, some 2,800 miles away.

Even in the jet age, that’s a haul.

We also talk about the “coaching carousel.” A head coach jumps from one school to another—one team to another—even before post-season play begins. Is that any way to run a railroad? Is it ethical, admirable?

Other topics include the downfall of the Michigan football coach, the reaction of Notre Dame to its exclusion from the playoff, and the increasing irrelevance of bowl games.

Often, sports issues are societal issues. This point came to mind as I was listening to David and Vivek today.

They are endlessly knowledgeable and a pleasure to listen to. I have decided to open the comments section to everyone (not just paid subscribers). So, if you’d like, weigh on in.

Q&A is the podcast of this site, Onward and Upward. The site is supported by readers and listeners. To receive new articles and episodes—and to support the work of the writer and podcaster—become a free or paid subscriber. Great thanks.

In my introduction to this Q&A, I say,

... our guest today is David Frum, the writer. What does he write? Books and articles, about history, politics, culture, and so on. He is almost the definition of a generalist.

He works for The Atlantic and hosts The David Frum Show. He can be found at DavidFrum.com.

Also, he and I are old colleagues and friends. And yet, I learned something, during our latest Q&A. He went to the National Music Camp, in Interlochen, Michigan, in the summer of ’76. I myself am an Interlochen kid. (My first summer there was ’77.)

David was at camp on July 4, 1976, America’s bicentennial day. That was also the day of the raid on Entebbe—the military operation in which Israeli commandos rescued hostages at the airport in Uganda. David’s mother called him at camp, to tell him this news.

Barbara Frum, let me say, was one of the most prominent newscasters in Canada (where David was brought up).

Our subject in this latest Q&A is both a timely one and a timeless one (unfortunately): antisemitism. (Isn’t that a dumb word, by the way, for Judenhass, or hatred of Jews? And yet, David explains, it is a useful one in our time.)

Earlier this week, David tweeted,

Republicans are having a big, public argument about the antisemitism that has contaminated their party. Democrats aren’t.

He added,

“Their antisemites are vile neo-Nazis. Our antisemites bring exciting new energy to our party!”

In our Q&A, we talk about Nick Fuentes and the Right, and Zohran Mamdani and the Left. (I do not mean to equate Fuentes and Mamdani, let me quickly say.) We talk about how Left and Right draw near to each other, or blend. We talk about what antisemitism is—its nature.

Can there be anti-Zionism without antisemitism? In theory, sure. Populism without antisemitism, nationalism without antisemitism? Of course. But in practice ...

The world is lousy with conspiracy theories. Not all of them relate to Jews, needless to say. But funny how conspiracy theories tend to veer, before long, in one direction ...

In this conversation, David Frum talks both intellectually and personally. One can learn a lot. And though our subject is deadly serious, there are streaks of humor.

I am grateful, as always, to and for David.

Q&A is the podcast of this site, Onward and Upward. The site is supported by readers and listeners. To receive new articles and episodes—and to support the work of the writer and podcaster—become a free or paid subscriber. Great thanks.

For many years, a favorite guest of Q&A has been Daniel Hannan, the British writer and politician—since 2021 a member of the House of Lords. In this new Q&A, Dan is sitting in the Royal Gallery, in Parliament. (I am sitting at home.)

Bill Buckley taped some episodes of Firing Line in the Sistine Chapel. I can’t see myself podcasting from that room; but I enjoyed looking at Dan in the Royal Gallery, via Zoom.

My conversation with Hannan is wide-ranging, as usual. We talk about the British monarchy, and its meaning to the United Kingdom. (Of course, it has different meanings to different Brits.) We talk about the nature of democracy, in its multiple forms (constitutional monarchy being one of them).

Many countries are seeing the rise of populism, and worse. Hannan wonders whether “the tide is going out on the culture of democracy.” People will accept the results of elections if their side wins, of course. And if their side does not?

We touch on Nigel Farage, Nick Fuentes, and others. We talk about antisemitism and philosemitism. The Ukraine war, too. Brits as a whole have been foursquare behind Ukraine and against Putin. This makes a contrast with the United States.

Our conversation is leavened by poetry: Philip Larkin and Robert Conquest—and Shakespeare. Dan closes with some lines from Richard II. A joy and a privilege, and an education, to sit with Daniel Hannan.

Q&A is the podcast of this site, Onward and Upward. The site is supported by readers and listeners. To receive new articles and episodes—and to support the work of the writer and podcaster—become a free or paid subscriber. Great thanks.

In my introduction to this Q&A, I say,

... our guest today is a college student—a senior at Stanford—and a journalist already, believe it or not. We have known each other for some time. He is John R. Puri—more formally, John Raj Puri.

Isn’t that a great moniker?

John comes from Des Moines, where he has seen the Iowa caucuses up close. Early on, he was drawn to politics and public affairs. When he was in elementary school, he learned the names of the presidents, in order—their full names, including middle names. When John was eight, his brother and his parents dressed up as Batman characters for Halloween. John dressed up as Richard Nixon.

You think I’m kidding? Photographic proof, thank you very much:

Later, when John learned more about Mr. Nixon, he decided that, if he had been a voter in 1972, he would have voted for John Ashbrook in the Republican presidential primaries.

In due course (a Buckley phrase), John found, well, William F. Buckley Jr., Milton Friedman, Thomas Sowell, George F. Will, and others.

Doing this Q&A, I ask John about politics on campus, to the extent that politics plays a part in campus life. (How big a part, really, is the question.) I also ask him what concerns him the most, in the arena of politics. His answer: the durability of our “constitutional design.” He is a man of 1776 and 1789, he says (alluding to the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution).

John R. Puri, it seems to me, is a throwback of a conservative—a wonderful throwback—and he may well give you hope for the future, as he does me.

“I’m glad you exist,” I tell him at the end. I sure am.

Q&A is the podcast of this site, Onward and Upward. The site is supported by readers and listeners. To receive new articles and episodes—and to support the work of the writer and podcaster—become a free or paid subscriber. Great thanks.

Jeff Jacoby is now part of the furniture—part of the furniture of American journalism, certainly of opinion journalism. Since 1994, he has written a column for the Boston Globe. That is extraordinary longevity in the media. You can also find him at (where else?) jeffjacoby.com.

Though Jeff is a fixture in Boston, he comes from Cleveland. He regards himself as an Ohioan in Boston (as I regard myself as a Michigander in New York).

Jeff is a conservative, of the pre-2016 variety. To a degree, he has held down the conservative fort in New England these past 30 years.

With the regnant Right today, he has many differences, obviously. Maybe the biggest has to do with immigration—which he regards as a boon to our country.

... on a personal level, I’m the son of an immigrant, and I’m the father of an immigrant, and I’m the father-in-law of an immigrant. And I grew up in a community where I was surrounded by immigrants. I have a feeling for the value and the contribution of immigration to American society.

Not long ago, words such as those were standard-issue. Now they are fighting words.

In our Q&A, Jeff and I talk about various subjects, including the media, the Ukraine war, and music. At the end, I ask him to tell one of my favorite stories—a story he told me long ago, about a trip he took with his father to Auschwitz.

An adornment to our scene, a blessing on it: Jeff Jacoby.

Q&A is the podcast of this site, Onward and Upward. The site is supported by readers and listeners. To receive new articles and episodes—and to support the work of the writer and podcaster—become a free or paid subscriber. Great thanks.

This new Q&A has two guests. With me gabbing too, it is a three-way convo. My guests are Bill Kristol and David French, those sharp and experienced political writers, and two of the people I most value.

You are, by now, familiar with “the Politico story”—the report from Politico about Young Republican leaders and what they say in their private (formerly private) chats.

This is dark, obnoxious stuff—to call it illiberal would be kind.

I have written a column about this matter, here. In it, I ask some questions that I have now put to Kristol and French: Was it ever thus? Can you draw a straight line from Reagan conservatism to Trumpism and today’s GOP?

(I say no—firmly, vehemently no.)

In our Q&A, we talk about our experiences in college and grad school. We ask: Was the “Reagan Right” a “real Right”? Or was it an exceptional, ephemeral Right, a classical-liberal Right, now engulfed by nationalism, populism, and worse?

In 2002, not long after 9/11 and the beginning of the War on Terror, Michael Walzer wrote a famous essay, famously titled: “Can There Be a Decent Left?” Well, can there be? Can there be a decent Right?

We address those questions, too.

Between the wars, in 1935, Sinclair Lewis wrote his novel It Can’t Happen Here. I always resented this book, starting with its title (an ironic one). My former resentment aside: Can it? Can Americans be seduced by fascism and other dark isms, same as other peoples?

David French, in particular, notes the rising popularity of Nick Fuentes. I mention Fuentes in my column today. He is more popular, more influential, than should make any of us comfortable.

A free society, an open society, is a relative rarity in human history. We wonder—French, Kristol, and I—whether we can “keep” this republic (to borrow Franklin’s word).

You can learn a great deal from Bill Kristol and David French. I long have. Make time for this meandering, meaty discussion. I think you will find it worthwhile.

Q&A is the podcast of this site, Onward and Upward. The site is supported by readers and listeners. To receive new articles and episodes—and to support the work of the writer and podcaster—become a free or paid subscriber. Great thanks.