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4 days ago | 
thedispatch.com | Nick Catoggio
If you’ve followed polling on social issues over the last decade or so, you’ve surely detected a pattern. Support for legalizing marijuana? At an all-time high. Support for making abortion legal in all circumstances? At an all-time high. The share of Americans identifying as LGBT or “other”? At an all-time high. Admittedly, that last one is due less to a population-wide shift than roughly a third(!) of Generation Z women calling themselves bisexual.
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1 week ago | 
thedispatch.com | Nick Catoggio
There are many stories in literature about people making deals with the devil. Weirdly, in most of them the devil is a square dealer. That is, he keeps up his end of the bargain. He offers the protagonist wealth or power in exchange for something ethereal, like their immortal soul, and when they agree he delivers. The Prince of Lies turns out not to be a swindler. Most of the drama happens after he makes good on his promise and comes to collect.
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1 week ago | 
thedispatch.com | Nick Catoggio
Boiling Frogs Trump won't use the court ruling on tariffs to ditch his trade war. Published May 29, 2025 Scroll to the comments section Audio versions are only available to subscribers of The Dispatch. Join Today! to listen to this post. More than once, I’ve heard parents say that it’s silence, not noise, that makes them anxious about what their children might be up to.
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1 week ago | 
thedispatch.com | Nick Catoggio
Boiling Frogs Everything is a trial balloon. Published May 28, 2025 Scroll to the comments section Audio versions are only available to subscribers of The Dispatch. Join Today! to listen to this post. The Trump administration likes to justify illiberal policies with liberal arguments. It does this, I assume, because it’s easier to build public support for an un-American program if it’s presented as a vindication of traditional American values.
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1 week ago | 
thedispatch.com | Nick Catoggio
There’s an old line often (mis)attributed to Nazi leaders: “When I hear the word ‘culture,’ I reach for my gun.”I think of it whenever I stumble across a news story about political consultants brainstorming ways to connect with voters culturally. Nine times out of 10, their suggestions are so cringe as to evoke an almost violent revulsion. On Sunday I came upon this passage in a New York Times article and reached for my gun.
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1 week ago | 
thedispatch.com | Nick Catoggio
General Our staff writer answers your questions. Published May 25, 2025 Happy Sunday. For once, I get to blame you instead of myself for the length of one of my pieces: Readers left no less than 199 comments in my mailbag thread, and I felt obliged to reward the enthusiastic response with thorough replies. Also, what did y’all think “pleonastic” meant? Vibes? Papers? Essays? I suppose it does mean “essays,” actually. Long ones. JohnM: Why can’t we see what you look like?
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2 weeks ago | 
thedispatch.com | Nick Catoggio
This newsletter concerns itself with the great patriotic project to turn America into a banana republic, but something gets lost by doing that episodically. Each day we study some crooked new tree that Donald Trump’s administration has planted; rarely do we step back and consider how large the forest has already become. Here’s Andy Craig at The UnPopulist, stepping back: Since Jan. 20, the United States has been in a state of rapid constitutional collapse.
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2 weeks ago | 
thedispatch.com | Nick Catoggio
As regular readers know, I try to keep things upbeat in this newsletter. So let me tell you what I like about The One Big Beautiful Bill that passed the House (barely) several hours ago. I like the fact that it reflects the degree of seriousness with which Americans now govern themselves. That’s satisfying. In a democracy, representatives are supposed to vote in accordance with the will of the people. If the people demand the policy equivalent of eating out of garbage cans, Congress should deliver.
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2 weeks ago | 
thedispatch.com | Nick Catoggio
Boiling Frogs Why Trump can’t get Putin to bend. Published May 21, 2025 Scroll to the comments section Audio versions are only available to subscribers of The Dispatch. Join Today! to listen to this post. Officials in the Trump White House have sounded friendlier to Ukraine recently than the president ever did last year as a candidate. What gives? Maybe it was that minerals deal they signed with Volodymyr Zelensky that changed their minds.
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2 weeks ago | 
thedispatch.com | Nick Catoggio
The following exchange ended up in my Twitter feed on Tuesday morning. “Genuinely, what happened to QAnon?” one user asked. “They won,” another answered. Funny, true—and intriguing. Why would a mass movement like QAnon lose momentum after its hero won the presidency? Normally, political movements gain strength upon attaining power, no? On Sunday, Kash Patel and Dan Bongino sat down with Fox Business’ Maria Bartiromo for an interview.
