You don’t want to think about it, I don’t want to think about it—hell, he probably didn’t want to think about it, either—but, Niall Ferguson, in his recent Spectator feature, is absolutely right about the 2024 US presidential election having just as much potential to repeat 2016 as 2020.

What I most enjoyed about Charlie Foran’s memoir, Just Once, No More (2023), besides the creative vulnerability, was a more thoughtful take on the form itself. Living in the age of the self encourages us to offer up every page of our resume for credentialist approval and completionist triumph—which, of course, makes it easier for us to hide ourselves.

I confess that, having recently enjoyed the Robert Caro documentary, Turn Every Page (2022), I am now wading through The Power Broker (1974), his famous biography of Robert Moses. I can’t wait to discuss it with the three other three people who have finished it.

Here’s an anecdote about Alfred E. Smith, former governor of New York, that ought to make us rethink the current trend of zero-sum idealism in our present politics:

He had no patience for reformers who…didn’t understand the importance of practical politics in getting things done, who refused to compromise, who insisted on having the bill as it was written, who raged loudly at injustice, who fought single-mindedly for an unattainable ideal. Their pigheadedness had the effect of dragging to political destruction politicians who listened to them, of ruining careers men had taken years to build. He had seen it happen. And, more important, what was the inevitable result of their efforts? Since they refused to compromise and operate within the political framework—the only framework within which their proposals could become reality—the laws they proposed were never enacted, and therefore at the end of their efforts the people they had wanted to help, the people who he knew so well needed help, hadn’t been helped at all. If anything, they had been hurt; the stirring up of hard feelings and bitterness delayed less dramatic but still useful reforms that might have been enacted.

Also: for all the talk about the bias and subjectivity of the author, it would be nice to hear a little more talk about the empathy and command of subject of the author, as well.