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5 days ago | 
thedispatch.com | Nick Catoggio
Usually I wait until morning to propose topics to my editors but sometimes the takes are too hot to sleep on. On Thursday night I pinged them excitedly with ideas for a column about Robert Prevost, native son of Illinois, and as of yesterday the most famous American on Earth.
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6 days ago | 
thedispatch.com | Nick Catoggio
Those of us who dabble in MAGA Kremlinology perked up when the president was asked last weekend who he thought might lead his movement once he’s gone. It wasn’t the fact that he seemed to rule out running for an unconstitutional third term that caught our attention, although that does count as newsworthy in the ridiculous times in which we live. It was who he mentioned when spitballing ideas for a successor. “I think we have a tremendous group of people,” Donald Trump told Meet the Press.
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6 days ago | 
thedispatch.com | Jonah Goldberg |Sarah Isgur |Nick Catoggio
Published May 8, 2025 AEI senior fellow Christine Emba joins Jonah Goldberg to discuss degenerating dating dynamics, the gender divide and its effect on politics, and the roots of the late-stage culture war. Show Notes:—Christine’s AEI page—Order Rethinking Sex: A Provocation
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6 days ago | 
thedispatch.com | Sarah Isgur |Jonah Goldberg |Nick Catoggio
Trump’s transgender military ban goes into effect. By and Published May 8, 2025 David French returns from his other job to discuss President Trump’s transgender military policy with Sarah Isgur. Does the Supreme Court hate transgender people?
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1 week ago | 
thedispatch.com | Nick Catoggio
Some politicians are tragic figures, others are comic ones. North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis is the latter. What’s funny about Tillis has less to do with the man himself than with his predicament. He’s up for reelection in one of America’s most closely divided swing states, is likely to face a top-tier Democratic opponent, and might end up saddled with a recession for which the leader of his party is unambiguously to blame.
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1 week ago | 
thedispatch.com | Nick Catoggio
The problem with running for Senate as a conservative in 2026 isn’t that you might lose, it’s that you might win. I assume that’s what caused former New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu to pass on the race for a soon-to-be vacant seat in his home state last month. Losing would have been embarrassing, spoiling his record of statewide victories as governor and damaging his chances of running for president someday. But winning?
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1 week ago | 
thedispatch.com | Nick Catoggio
The latest tremors to shake American policymaking struck Sunday night in the form of two presidential posts on Truth Social. As interesting to me as the content was the timing: They were published just 23 minutes apart.
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1 week ago | 
thedispatch.com | Nick Catoggio
My editor and I spent a half-hour in Slack this morning trying to tease out some policy salience to Mike Waltz’s dismissal as national security adviser, hoping to deliver an argument crackling with insight for today’s newsletter. We gave it our all. Dispatch subscribers deserve nothing less. The closest thing to a smart policy read on Waltz’s ouster came from The Dispatch’s Mike Warren, who flagged the now-former NSA as a rare example of an old-school hawk in Donald Trump’s inner circle.
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1 week ago | 
thedispatch.com | Nick Catoggio
Published May 1, 2025 Scroll to the comments section Audio versions are only available to subscribers of The Dispatch. Join Today! to listen to this post. Spier & Mackay is a clothing retailer based in Canada that famously provides some of the best value in menswear. I own two suits from them for which I paid $700 apiece. One can get a mediocre suit for less from a hundred different shops, but a fully canvassed suit made with fabric from top-tier mills?
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2 weeks ago | 
thedispatch.com | Nick Catoggio
The most cursed phrase in politics over the last decade isn’t “make America great again,” which, while sleazy and destructive in its application, is at least noble in its aspiration. It’s “do your own research.”Research is a skill. To do it conscientiously requires brain power, intellectual rigor, and ideally a bit of training. The process begins with a question and arrives at a considered answer by weighing the available evidence as dispassionately as possible.
