Peggy Noonan does what we try to do every day at The Free Press: tell the truth, make sense of things plainly and without pretension, frame the news in a way that helps the reader make sense of things, and put things in a historical context that gives the day-to-day depth and meaning.
The very annoying thing about Peggy Noonan is that she makes the thing that we know is so very hard look so very easy. And she does it week after week after week in The Wall Street Journal—which adds up to more than 400 columns over the last 25 years.
In her newest—and ninth—book, A Certain Idea of America, she collects 80 of her best columns published over the last eight years. Now, the idea that old newspaper columns might be good fodder for a book sort of seems like a weird idea, given that newspapers are most famous for being the next day’s fish wrapper. But somehow this book feels urgent and timeless. Which means that Peggy Noonan’s old columns are better than most people’s brand-new ones.
That’s probably because she knows a thing or two about rhetoric and American politics. She was a speechwriter for President Ronald Reagan. She helped President George H.W. Bush get elected. She consulted for the TV show The West Wing.
In today’s conversation, we talk about how Peggy understands Trump’s win and the political revolution that we’re living through, what it feels like to lose in a values war, and what it feels like to defend things like civility and decency in 2024. We also talk about Trump’s appointments so far, Peggy’s first meeting with Trump, and how, despite our troubles, America remains a good and great country—and why it’s so important for young people to know that.
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Sorry, Bari, thinking of canceling my subscription. I fear you and TFP are turning into the very thing that you disavowed at the NYT. This may be the nail in the coffin. So far, I look mostly forward to Douglas Murray's ' Things Worth Remembering', Peggy is so blind she does not even hear herself and hence, her elitism. Oh, the arrogance. It was palpable.
PN is right that we ultimately need to build something. But, sometimes you have to demolish the old buildings to make room for new ones. As long as the existing institutions have power over the stakeholders on an issue, we can’t have a free discussion about what comes next. The biggest stakeholders are under the thumb of the institutions. The institutions have to be disempowered enough to leave people free to build the next thing.
And, I know that’s not easy, and there are huge risks involved. But, I don’t see any alternative to starting by reining in the institutions.