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Jan 10, 2025 | 
gideons.substack.com | Noah Millman
The signature image from The BrutalistI am struggling to recall a film that made me as angry as The Brutalist did.
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Dec 5, 2024 | 
gideons.substack.com | Noah Millman
What do the assassination of Brian Thompson and the pardon of Hunter Biden have in common? Nothing, apparently. In the one case, an unknown gunman killed a wealthy and powerful man, possibly as a protest against the policies of the company that man ran. In the other case, one of the most powerful men on earth protected his son from the legal consequences of his crimes, both alleged and established. They seem like opposites, right?
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Dec 2, 2024 | 
gideons.substack.com | Noah Millman
I completely understand why President Biden pardoned his son. He loves Hunter, wants to protect him, and feels he has only been pursued by the law because of his connection to his famous and powerful father.
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Sep 5, 2024 | 
nytimes.com | Noah Millman
Since his selection as Donald Trump's running mate, Senator JD Vance has performed poorly on most metrics by which we judge vice-presidential nominees. He has never been noted for his charisma, and his attacks and insults have rendered him exceptionally unpopular. But he was not picked for traditional political reasons, like electoral strength in a swing state or being the ambassador to a needed voting bloc.
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Jul 1, 2024 | 
gideons.substack.com | Noah Millman
I’ve been seeing a lot of sentiment like that since last Thursday.
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Apr 12, 2024 | 
gideons.substack.com | Noah Millman
My friend and fellow-Sub stacker Damon Linker had a piece in The New York Times earlier this week arguing that a key reason why President Biden is suffering from surprisingly low approval ratings given any number of good economic indicators is that there is a pervasive sense that America is “broken.” Beginning with the Iraq War and continuing through the financial crisis and down through COVID, Americans have experienced repeated failures by the country’s leadership, yet that leadership has...
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Feb 20, 2024 | 
rb.gy | Noah Millman
(Please forgive the belatedness of this President’s Day post—I plead the excuse that I’ve been sick for the past week and unable to do much of anything, certainly any writing.)Every few years, the folks at Presidential Greatness Project Expert Survey conduct a poll of academics who study the presidency and presidential politics, asking respondents to rate the “greatness” of all of America’s presidents.
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Jan 23, 2024 | 
sltrib.com | Noah Millman
Intense debate has accompanied the decision by the Supreme Court to review the decision by Colorado's highest court to bar Donald Trump from the state's primary ballots based on Section 3 of the 14th Amendment - about the precise meaning of the word "insurrection," the extent of Mr. Trump's culpability for the events of Jan. 6 and other legal issues. I'm not going to predict how the Supreme Court will rule, or whether its ruling will be persuasive to those with a different view of the law.
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Jan 22, 2024 | 
jewishreviewofbooks.com | Noah Millman
In Joseph and His Brothers, Thomas Mann describes “a woman . . .
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Jan 22, 2024 | 
isi.org | Noah Millman
“What makes a woman?”
This question isn’t precisely the one that has been agitating American society of late. When in her nomination hearings Senator Marsha Blackburn wanted to put now-Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson on the spot, she asked her for a “definition” of a woman, a question that, in a legal context, might have different answers in different contexts.
