The Three-Party Problem

By Yascha Mounk

Monday, October 05, 2026

 

The smart money in American politics has always bet against the rise of third parties.

 

The reasons are both obvious and numerous. The two-party system has been firmly entrenched for 200 years. America’s electoral system makes it very difficult for candidates who are neither Democrats nor Republicans to gain traction because voters are rightly worried about “wasting” their votes. And while many people are deeply unsatisfied with the current offerings, they don’t necessarily agree on the alternative they would prefer: Just because Jane and Jill might both like the idea of a third party doesn’t mean they will ever agree on the same candidate.

 

That helps explain why third-party candidates usually fail, often helping to elect candidates who are ideologically very different from those third parties in the process. Ralph Nader’s third-party run likely helped put George W. Bush in the White House in 2000. Jill Stein may have rendered the same service to Donald Trump in 2016. Even Ross Perot, the most successful third-party candidate of the past decades, ultimately helped Bill Clinton win the White House in 1992.

 

The supposedly smart money is often based on conventional wisdom. But the problem with the conventional wisdom is that it is usually right for a long stretch—before suddenly proving to be disastrously wrong. Take, as an example, the longstanding conviction among political scientists studying the American primary system that party insiders ultimately decide who gets the presidential nomination, a supposed certainty that blinded large parts of the field to Trump’s rise in 2016.

 

When it comes to third parties, we may now be approaching a similar paradigm shift. Both in the United States and around the world, structural conditions once favored a duopoly of incumbent parties. But these structural conditions have since eroded to such an extent that the old certitudes no longer apply. A successful third-party bid is much more likely now than it was in the past.

 

***

 

Throughout the history of France’s Fifth Republic, two political parties dominated the country’s politics: the socialist left and the moderate right. These two movements drew the vast majority of votes, occupied the lion’s share of seats in the National Assembly, and won every single presidential election.

 

Support for these two parties had been eroding steadily for years. In 2002, for example, Jean-Marie Le Pen, the far-right candidate, surprisingly edged out Lionel Jospin, the candidate of the center-left, in the first round of the presidential election (though Jacques Chirac defeated Le Pen in a landslide in the second round). In 2017, lightning struck: Emmanuel Macron founded an upstart centrist movement and rose to power on a wave of discontent with the established parties. His star has faded since then—but the traditional parties have failed to recover: Opinion polls suggest that neither the leader of the traditional left nor the leader of the traditional right has any realistic chance of making the runoff of next year’s presidential elections.

 

Germany is undergoing a similar political metamorphosis. For much of the country’s postwar history, Social Democrats and Christian Democrats split the lion’s share of the vote. Between them, they usually took 70, 80, and at times even 90 percent of the vote. But support for these so-called people’s parties has cratered in recent decades. At the last federal elections, Social Democrats and Christian Democrats received markedly less than 50 percent of the vote, a record low. They have fallen even further in recent polls, to about 33 percent.

 

What is true in France and Germany also holds in scores of other democracies around the world, from Austria to Australia. In all of them, two parties once dominated politics. In all of them, these long-established parties have shrunk or altogether disappeared. The number of countries with effective duopolies is vastly smaller now than it once was.

 

In each of these countries, a similar set of causes has driven the gradual demise of the political duopoly: Voters are unhappy with the direction of their country, making it harder for traditional parties to retain their loyalty. The public sphere is increasingly fragmented, making it harder for a couple of catch-all parties to speak to most voters. Social media favors charisma and authenticity, making it much easier for new political entrants to storm the stage.

 

All of these factors are just as strong in the United States—which helps to explain why popular support for both Democrats and Republicans is rapidly eroding. The easiest way to see how much worse the two main American political parties have become at satisfying their voters is to look at partisan self-identification over time.

 

 

As recently as 20 years ago, the number of Americans who identified with either Democrats or Republicans was about double the number who thought of themselves as independent. Under these circumstances, third-party candidates would have needed to win over a large share of voters with strong partisan identities to be competitive—an all but impossible task.

 

Since then, the number of self-identified Democrats and Republicans has shrunk significantly. There are now nearly as many independents as there are Democrats and Republicans put together, creating more favorable conditions for third-party candidates: If a third party candidate can win over a lot of independents, they can, in principle, be competitive with the support of a small fraction of traditional Democrats or Republicans.

 

Third parties are most likely to gain momentum when voters are deeply unsatisfied with the traditional options on offer. And as it happens, discontent with both traditional options is at or near record levels today. Trump is less popular now than he has been at any prior point in his first or second term: Polling averages show that around 60 percent of Americans disapprove of his performance in office, with only about 37 percent thinking he is doing a good job. Trump’s unpopularity has also dragged down support for the Republican Party as a whole. In a recent NBC poll, only 36 percent of respondents reported viewing  the Republican Party positively, with 49 percent viewing it negatively.

 

In a well-entrenched two-party system, one party falling from grace to such an extent would usually boost the popularity of the other party. For much of the second half of the 20^th century, approval ratings for Democrats and Republicans usually moved in opposite directions. Strikingly, that no longer seems to be the case. Even as independents soured on the Republican Party over the past 18 months, they have not become any more enamored with the Democrats. According to that same NBC poll, only 29 percent of respondents saw the Democratic Party positively, with 50 percent viewing it negatively. Net favorability for Democrats is even worse than it is for Republicans.

 

For now, elections remain a choice between two unpopular options. Though Democrats have a worse image than Republicans, the minds of most voters are unsurprisingly focused on the failings of the man in the White House. This year’s midterms are likely to produce a sizable, perhaps even a huge, blue wave. But Democrats would be fooling themselves if they took this to mean that most Americans have a positive view of the party or will necessarily stay loyal to it over the long run.

 

So long as Trump remains toxically unpopular and there are no realistic alternatives, voters will reluctantly flock to the Democrats. There is absolutely no guarantee that these two conditions will remain true forever.

 

***

 

Both Republicans and Democrats are very unpopular. So why has a third party so far failed to materialize? Why does virtually every representative and senator remain affiliated with one of these two parties? The answers have to do with the nature of the American electoral system.

 

In countries with proportional representation, such as Germany, voters can pick a small political party without feeling that they are wasting their vote. Even if a new environmentalist or pro-business party gets only 7 or 8 percent of the vote, it will still send some representatives to parliament and may even enter government as part of a broader coalition.

 

However, in countries with a majoritarian electoral system, such as the United States, a vote for a smaller party is usually “wasted.” If you vote for the Greens or the Libertarians this November, you almost certainly won’t affect the composition of the House or the Senate since those parties are very unlikely to win a plurality of the vote in any district. Even voters who might prefer the ideological profile of a local third-party candidate are therefore likely to “hold their nose” and instead support the major party candidate they dislike the least. (In addition, electoral rules are set by the incumbent parties, and those are unsurprisingly keen to make it harder for third parties to get off the ground; in many states, there are consequently major obstacles to even getting on the ballot.)

 

This helps explain why countries with a majoritarian electoral system have traditionally tended toward especially entrenched party duopolies. In the United Kingdom, for example, Labour and the Conservatives have for the past century split the lion’s share of the vote between them. Even if you liked other parties better, you opted for one of the two main parties.

 

But despite the structural obstacles to the emergence of third parties in the United Kingdom, that has started to change in recent years. While Labour and the Conservatives often took more than 90 percent of the vote between them in the postwar era, their cumulative vote share fell to 57 percent at the last general election and was as low as 37 percent in polling averages earlier this year—a development that looks strikingly similar to those in Germany and France. (Labour has somewhat recovered since Andy Burnham replaced Keir Starmer as prime minister, but it is too early to tell whether he can convert his honeymoon phase into lasting support.)

 

These changes are not yet reflected in the composition of the House of Commons. In a majoritarian system with five or six viable political parties, it is often enough to gain 30 percent of the national vote to sweep to a large majority. But by the same token, a new party can gain a majority at astonishing speed if it is able to rise to similar levels of popularity. If the far-right Reform UK party, led by Nigel Farage, recovers from recent funding scandals and gains 30 percent of the vote at the next election, it could well win an outright majority of MPs.

 

Majoritarian electoral systems, like the one used in the United States, create serious structural obstacles to the rise of third parties. But when voters get sufficiently disillusioned with the traditional duopoly that this system creates, these obstacles aren’t insurmountable, as the case of the United Kingdom shows. Could America be next?

 

***

 

America, unlike the United Kingdom, has a president who is directly elected. This means that voters pay comparatively less attention to parties and legislative elections, and comparatively more attention to personalities and presidential elections. It is therefore unlikely that the rise of new political parties would take the same form as in Britain or most other parts of Europe. I don’t anticipate that longstanding third parties like the Greens or the Libertarians will succeed in upending American politics by winning a succession of congressional races.

 

Instead, the most likely scenario for a third-party breakthrough would resemble some of the close misses of the past: A charismatic and (probably) rich individual would run for president without the backing of either the Democratic or the Republican Party, possibly succeeding in electing a number of senators or representatives on the candidate’s coattails.

 

To beat the odds, this kind of candidate would need to start with high name recognition and have tremendous financial resources at their disposal—in short, a celebrity who is famous for something other than politics. Billionaires are the obvious possibility, since they can finance their own campaigns. But a sports or movie or music star with a base of fervent supporters and a strong network of high-net-worth friends is also an option.   

 

These conditions constrain what a successful third-party bid would look like. But they are hardly insurmountable. In a country as large, rich, and raucous as the United States, there is no paucity of charismatic celebrities with outsized ambitions and access to money.

 

In this respect, Trump proved to be the model. But while he staged a kind of hostile takeover of an existing political party, his spiritual successors may choose to assail the traditional parties from the outside. In part because Trump for now retains a sufficiently large fan club to block the way to any competitor on the populist right, future third-party candidates may choose to challenge the MAGA movement from outside the structure of the Republican Party.

 

Many readers will think that the fading hold of the duopoly is a good thing. Since most Americans now feel disaffected with both Democrats and Republicans, many of them understandably hope for a third party. I should in theory feel the same way: While I don’t have any difficulty choosing between the existing options, I don’t feel especially well represented by either. Surely, I should be giddy with excitement at the prospect of having more choices!

 

But that anticipation may prove to be premature. The views of independents are highly heterogeneous, and many of the people who now long for the day when they have a third option may find themselves deeply disappointed when the day comes. While I personally would love to have a political option that has moderate views on cultural issues and recognizes the danger posed by authoritarian regimes like Russia’s, I fear that it is much more likely that a successful third-party candidate would combine extreme cultural views with deeply isolationist tendencies.

 

And then, of course, there are the perils of celebrity politics. Given the nature of America’s political system, a third party is likely to be led by a charismatic leader with little prior experience in politics. Even if I should find the program on which they run to be congenial, it is far from clear whether the candidate would, should they succeed in entering the White House, enact a principled political alternative to the status quo or simply use the office as a vehicle for self-aggrandizement.

 

Sooner or later, the day of the third-party candidate is likely to be upon us. But when it comes, many who now find that idea to be exciting may be in for a rude awakening.

 

 

Miracle on FlyDubai

National Review Online

Wednesday, September 30, 2026

 

Weeks after we commemorated the 25th anniversary of the September 11 attacks, an eerily similar attempted terrorist assault was narrowly avoided.

 

On Wednesday morning, on a FlyDubai flight destined for Tel Aviv and carrying around 170 people, the copilot stabbed the captain and the airplane plunged 17,000 feet in under two minutes. All indications are that the copilot intended to take over the airplane and crash it in what top Israeli officials are publicly calling an attempted terrorist attack. But his plans were thwarted by heroic passengers and crew.

 

Several Israelis on the flight entered the blood-soaked cockpit, subdued the terrorist, tied him with headphone cables, and took back control of the plane. According to testimony, the captain of the flight opened the cockpit door before he fell to the ground from his wounds. One passenger, Yaniv Hayoun, said during a televised meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that he managed to take control of the plane’s controls and stop its dive, joking that he was lucky he had watched a documentary series on airplane disasters. Then two off-duty pilots took over and managed to safely land the plane in Saudi Arabia. An Israeli dentist stopped the bleeding of the head pilot, an Indian national who was transported to a hospital after landing.

 

The quick thinking of the passengers in frightening circumstances not only saved hundreds of lives but also prevented a terrorist attack that would have roiled a region that is already embroiled in the unsettled Iran war. The United Arab Emirates was the first nation to join the Abraham Accords with Israel, and just this week Netanyahu traveled to Abu Dhabi to meet with UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan. It’s possible that the copilot terrorist behind the attack, an Omani national, was trying to drive a wedge in the relationship and/or possibly discourage other Arab nations, notably Saudi Arabia, from joining the accords.

 

In addition to the averted disaster, the fact that everybody survived will allow for a thorough investigation. For now, Israeli security officials have said the indications are that it was a “lone wolf” attack and that there was no evidence it was tied to Iran or any other foreign actor.

 

As much as we celebrate today that the scary scenario was averted, we cannot rest easy. The incident shows that terrorists are still coming up with creative ways to exploit vulnerabilities — in this case, an extremist was able to become a pilot on a major airline in a region with a long history of terrorism. And the terrorist would have succeeded were it not for an incredible series of events. It should serve as another reminder that though 9/11 is but a historical memory, the threat of terrorism has not gone away.

We Need More Regret in Our Politics

By Andy Smarick

Friday, October 02, 2026

 

Forget everything negative you’ve read about Nikole Hannah-Jones’ viral essay about knowingly sending her daughter to bad schools in the name of social justice. This is actually a moment for optimism. For the time being, put aside the treatment of a child as an interchangeable widget in a political struggle, put aside her daughter’s justified hurt and anger, put aside the examples of classroom malpractice. Focus instead on one word: “regret.”

 

Jones writes, “But now I felt overcome with regret. Najya deserved better. They all did. But she was mine. This girl, my only child, looked to me to protect her, to give her what she needed to thrive. And I had not chosen her.”

 

Jones now knows she did wrong. All children should be able to trust that their parents will be their most tenacious advocates and protectors. All parents should know that their most solemn duty is tenaciously advocating for and protecting their children. Yes, Jones should have sensed regret was coming when she wrote a few years back, “My daughter is not worth more than any other child.” No, it should not have taken example after example of her daughter falling behind academically. It should not have taken her daughter’s heartfelt protests or repeated complaints about chaotic lunchrooms and poor instruction.

 

Jones’ acknowledgment of her regret is a sliver of a slice of a silver lining. Regret can be a powerful change agent: Realize your error, admit its costs, and then commit to doing better.

 

Jones is not alone. In fact, regret seems to be in the air on America’s political left. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez recently laughingly conceded that “Woke 1.0 was crazy.” Rahm Emanuel, a potential contender for the Democratic presidential nomination, describes his party as “toxic,” “weak,” and “woke.” A major left-leaning think tank created a long list of words, including “privilege,” “othering,” and “safe space,” that Democrats need to stop using. More and more Democratic officials and writers admit that their side went haywire in recent years. Even Malcolm Gladwell regrets being forced by the left to adopt insensible political positions.

 

We’re witnessing the kind of contrition seldom seen in public life outside of infidelity press conferences and courtroom allocutions: Figures freely admitting, “I’m the problem.”

 

Why did this mass mea culpa become necessary? How did the most influential thinkers and officials on the political left simultaneously, over an entire decade, make the same decisions that many now regret? Ferocious idealism. They embraced a crude but compelling view of society, and it turned them single-minded and excessive.

 

Ideology isn’t all bad. It’s easier to make political choices when you have a simple, coherent view of your surroundings. Whether it’s “personal freedom must be maximized!” or “justice requires the collective ownership of property and means of production!” or something else, a crisp scripture can be a terrific guide. But ideology can also curdle the mind. When real-life events don’t fit your framework or progress comes too slowly for your liking, you start to believe brash reforms are obviously necessary. Deliberateness and half measures become intolerable. Obstacles to your vision become villains. Dramatic action becomes warranted because only dramatic action will deliver justice. This is why extremism so often follows ideology.

 

Parts of the left came to believe that systemic oppression of marginalized groups defined American society. Radical proposals followed naturally. For instance: Prisons and police should be abolished. Property crimes should not be prosecuted. Homework and standardized tests should be ended. Defenders of oppressive colonial states should be named and shamed. Rules regarding bathroom use and sports participation should be rewritten. Public statements that hurt the underserved should be censored. Language should be policed. Media outlets should advance social justice, not “objectivity.”

 

Ideologies should be held lightly. They should encourage us to ask probing questions, not force us to accept pat answers. They should nudge us in a general direction, not demand we follow a dubious path. If you allow any ideology to hold too much sway, it will almost always lead you toward unreasonable conclusions. This is why principle and prudence—not ideology—have generally been the standard of American leaders. We want officials who stand for something and possess a coherent vision of governing. But we also want them to exercise good judgment and address issues pragmatically. We don’t want leaders who follow a dogma mechanically and ruthlessly.

 

The left is now recognizing the costs of following a dogma, and the resulting regret could lead to better decisions ahead. In fact, it probably explains why less ideological Democratic officials, like governors Andy Beshear of Kentucky, Wes Moore of Maryland, and Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, have seen their stocks rising. Those of us on the right should be encouraged by the left’s possible new direction. But we should also recognize that some regret is in order for our camp.

 

Corners of the right also fell victim to ferocious idealism—and its consequences—over the last decade. Angered by the direction of economic and social change, the left’s aggressive agenda, and the belief that some conservative officials hadn’t fought hard enough, a tear-it-all-down, anti-institutional ideology took over. It would’ve been one thing had that ideology been lightly held. But it became a kind of creed and led to the support for, or at least the toleration of, extremism.

 

Consider all of the shocking anti-institutional behavior we have seen. From the president to members of Congress to state and local officials to advocates and commentators, we’ve witnessed bashing of the courts (and specific judges and justices), unsubstantiated claims about the insecurity of elections, threats to the stability of NATO, whitewashing of the events of January 6, and attacks on the credibility of the intelligence community. Unqualified, inexperienced individuals with poor temperaments have ascended to top positions in governing institutions, and tech-industry whiz kids with no or little governing experience were put in charge of DOGE, which, unsurprisingly, ended up as a massive impairment of government functions without meaningful changes to federal spending.

 

An equally corrosive aspect of the era has been the degradation of behavioral institutions—-honesty, civility, and integrity. The casual cruelty, insults, mendacity, carelessness, self-dealing, and nepotism have damaged our capacity to govern well and torpedoed citizens’ faith in public life. The resulting aura of unseriousness can be seen in a Congress full of wannabe pundits and pundits entirely more concerned with personal fame than the public good.

 

Just like test scores showing your daughter hasn’t learned what she should have, public life is now full of evidence—inept domestic governing bodies, a bevy of foreign-policy errors, stubborn inflation, growing distrust in institutions, a terribly unpopular president, perpetual populism—that some on the right made bad decisions with awful consequences. And just like those test scores, you can’t ignore the results and just hope things get better. You need a course change.

 

Just about everyone on the right can play a constructive role in this rehabilitation project. First, we need to stop empowering those trafficking in over-the-top rhetoric and proposals. That means firmly mentoring the young professionals engaging in extremism (e.g., no antisemitism, no sexism, no flirting with authoritarians), telling advocacy organizations to tone it down (e.g., if your language sounds like a Marxist revolutionary, you’re not behaving conservatively), and encouraging those with platforms to behave responsibly, not chase renown (e.g., you have a republican duty to put our shared institutions above your media hits).

 

Second, we need to strengthen our institutions through action. We need more people working honorably inside key organizations instead of making a living commenting on them from the outside. So our work includes encouraging good people to serve, developing a generation of young professionals who think in terms of public service instead of personal brand-building, stopping selfish people from using institutions for their own purposes, and backing board members who protect their longstanding institutions from unwise, destructive fads. But we must also recognize that customs and norms are institutions, too. That means we all have a duty to act right: Cut out the personal insults, watch your language, tell the truth, don’t cheat.

 

Third, high-ranking public officials set the tone. Their words and behavior are taken seriously by millions of people; party loyalists often form their views based on their leaders’ pronouncements. “Reaganism,” “Nixonian,” “Jeffersonian,” “Jacksonian,” and “Lincolnian” became not just policy agendas, but ways of seeing the world. Theodore Roosevelt’s “Big Stick” influenced how millions understood foreign relations; Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal and Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society shaped how millions saw the role of Uncle Sam. To change course, change those at the helm. Sincere personal regret means having a hard conversation with the person in the mirror. Sincere political regret means finding new leaders.

 

Indeed, we’ll know that we’ve begun to put this dreadful decade behind us once we see public support coalesce behind leaders who prioritize sober-mindedness, service, and statesmanship and swear off rigid ideologies and the ferocious idealism and extreme politics they beget.

Another Flight 93, Averted

By Jeffrey Blehar

Wednesday, September 30, 2026

 

While you were sleeping, the fate of the Middle East (and, frankly, the world along with it) teetered along one of the most tragic fault lines imaginable — and miraculously held together, thanks to the quick thinking and unflappable heroism of the Israelis whose lives were in the balance. For those only shaking the sleep out of their eyes: Overnight, passenger jet FlyDubai airlines flight FZ1073, en route from Dubai to Tel Aviv, was subjected to a truly horrifying terrorist attack — one eerily reminiscent of 9/11.

 

This time the threat didn’t come from terrorists disguised as passengers — in fact, quite the opposite. The plane’s co-pilot, an Omani national whose identity has not yet been disclosed, was the attempted terrorist. He stabbed the pilot multiple times, yelled “Allahu Akbar!” and then steered the plane directly toward the ground, in an obvious attempt to kill everyone on board. (According to data readouts, the plane, cruising at an altitude of roughly 30,000 feet, dropped 17,000 feet in 29 seconds.) Several passengers, even as they were being tossed about the plane’s cabin, rushed the cockpit in a desperate attempt to subdue the madman.

 

I know what you’re thinking, because it’s what I thought too: This was Flight 93 all over again. All the horrifying beats, leading to the only possible fated end. Only, this time . . . it didn’t end that way at all. In what can only be described as a cross between an authentic miracle and a tribute to never-say-die competence, everyone is alive and unharmed — except for the poor pilot (himself from the UAE), whose life was apparently saved by a well-trained Israeli dentist.

 

Instead, the passengers and remaining aircrew forced open the cockpit door, yanked the terrorist violently from the controls, and re-righted the plane in mid-dive. Tom Cruise couldn’t have done it better — because he’s an actor, and these men were dealing with deadly reality. But understand both the improbability of all this (two spare pilots as passengers, ready to take over and make emergency maneuvers?) as well as the frankly hilarious truth that, to quote one proud Israeli commentator, “Overall, the probability that a plane full of Israelis will contain a trained assault team, two additional pilots, and, statistically, at least one cardiac surgeon, psychologist, lawyer, and diamond dealer is substantially higher than 50%.”

 

It’s easy enough (and right) to celebrate this sort of unexpectedly exhilarating outcome. But think for a moment if the more likely outcome had happened. Think about what kind of situation we would be waking up to in the Middle East, with the core of the Abraham Accords suddenly up for question. Think about the endless conspiracy theorizing we’d be getting from the Candace Owenses and Dave Smiths of the world. Think about the simple human tragedy of it all.

 

All avoided, because of quick thinking, solid training, and a blunt refusal to ever accept the fate others designate for you. Here’s to the passengers of FZ1073, who have provided us with something more than a grateful headline during dark times: They have given us a lesson on how to live life and never quit.

Benjamin Netanyahu Turns the Tables on Zohran Mamdani

By Noah Rothman

Thursday, September 24, 2026

 

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani rarely misses an opportunity to criticize Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, to accuse him of various crimes, and to allege that he is the font from which so much Israeli perfidy springs — at least the sort that’s not endemic among the Jewish people.

 

During his address to the United Nations General Assembly on Thursday, Netanyahu gave as good as he got:

 

 

Speaking directly to the “antisemitic mayor of New York,” Netanyahu issued a prolonged indictment of Mamdani’s character, judgment, and associations — establishing a pattern of behavior that fits the charge.

 

Netanyahu scolded Mamdani for praising “criminals convicted of supporting Hamas.” He attacked him for counting among his friends Hasan Piker, dwelling for a moment on the streamer’s belief that Americans deserved the 9/11 attacks. He wondered why it was that Mamdani welcomed into his home a Palestinian journalist who subsequently admitted that he not only filmed Hamas’s atrocities but covered the footage up so as to avoid embarrassing the terrorist group. Netanyahu even criticized Mamdani’s wife for having “liked a post praising the October 7 massacre” and another post that contended that the Israeli city of Tel Aviv “shouldn’t exist.”

 

Contrary to the New York Times’ preemptive effort to throw itself in the path of the barbs Netanyahu hurled at the mayor, it’s all true. Mamdani did heap praise on the Holy Land Five, “who were blamed by a jury for the killing of a 17-year-old Jewish boy from New York City outside Jerusalem,” the Free Press reported. Mamdani did pal around with Piker during his bid for mayor despite — or because of — the streamer’s penchant for anti-American and anti-Israeli radicalism. He did embrace Motaz Azaiza, a gadfly Palestinian journalist who recently confessed to filming the events of October 7 and burying the footage. “I didn’t want to ruin the lives of the people filmed,” Azaiza explained. Mamdani’s wife did like those posts, although she has since apologized for her “harmful” social media habits.

 

Prior to his attack on Mamdani, Netanyahu addressed the foremost allegation against him and his country to which the mayor and his comrades are partial: the charge of genocide. With exasperation, Netanyahu described Israel’s efforts to protect civilian life. He described the “millions” of texts, calls, and leaflets sent out to alert Palestinian populations of impending Israeli action — an independently verifiable account, if any of Israel’s critics were to develop an interest in verification. “What genocidal regime gives one million polio vaccinations to the enemy’s population? What genocidal regime enables the distribution of two million tons of food into Gaza? That’s one ton for every person,” Netanyahu asked. “Accusing Israel of genocide is the greatest lie of the century.”

 

Netanyahu went on to accuse Mamdani of his own criminal negligence: “Mr. Mamdani, since you were elected mayor of this city, many Jews no longer feel safe in New York.” The city, he said, has become a place where the visibly Jewish are harassed, assaulted, and even stabbed — not at random but amid a growing campaign of anti-Jewish violence. “This isn’t the city we remember,” he said. “It changed so quickly.”

 

There’s truth to that, too. While anti-Jewish violence in New York started from an intolerably high baseline when Mamdani took office, the problem has only gotten worse under his tenure. “Antisemitic hate crimes are up 8% so far this year and make up more than half of the incidents in New York City,” CNN reported early this month.

 

“Mr. Mamdani, you tried to stop me from coming here,” Netanyahu concluded. “You tried to silence me. Well, you can’t silence me. You can’t silence the truth.”

 

Mamdani often contends that the Israeli prime minister must answer the allegations that the mayor so regularly hurls at him. Don’t hold your breath waiting for Mamdani to hold himself to the same standard.

Young People Need to Know the American Dream Isn’t Dead

By Emil Barr

Thursday, September 24, 2026

 

I grew up with a simple understanding of what America was supposed to offer: If you worked hard, took risks, and built something people valued, you could create a life better than the one you started with.

 

I got that opportunity. I started my first company from my dorm room, sold it in a multimillion-dollar deal, and by 22 had accumulated a net worth of more than $25 million. Becoming a deca-millionaire in your early 20s doesn’t happen in a country where opportunity has dried up. It does happen in one where it’s still wide open—if you’re willing to take the risk.

 

This isn’t unusual. It’s happening more than at any other point in this country’s history, but we’ve stopped telling the story. Instead, young people today hear increasingly dangerous rhetoric from both the left and the right, equally reminiscent of dictatorships throughout history: that the system is rigged and that someone (the government) should step in to fix things.

 

That should concern anyone who believes in the American dream.

 

I’m 23 years old, and I’m seeing this shift among my own Gen Z peers, including many who consider themselves conservative: According to one poll, 27 percent of young voters who backed Trump in 2024 now say they’d want a democratic socialist president in 2028, and only 39 percent of Americans my age support capitalism, down from 45 percent just five years ago. When people stop believing that hard work and ownership can change their circumstances, socialism starts to look less like a radical alternative and more like an answer.

 

Zohran Mamdani won 78 percent of voters under 30 in the 2025 New York City mayoral election, and while I disagree with much of what he proposes, I believe conservatives should pay attention to why his message resonated so strongly. Affordability was central to his appeal, and that appeal was a warning about what happens when an entire generation feels the economic system has stopped working for them.

 

Young Americans have real reasons to be frustrated, but the facts show the American dream is actually easier to achieve than the political rhetoric suggests.

 

When a young person looks at the price of a house, the cost of college, or the difficulty of starting a family and concludes the system is broken, politicians are happy to provide a quick explanation. The left increasingly says the problem is capitalism and billionaires, whereas the new right says the system has been captured by foreign nations or immigrants.

 

Both begin with something real, then turn it into a completely made-up conclusion that points to the American economic system itself as the problem.

 

I don’t believe that. But I do believe we have a storytelling problem. We have become extraordinarily good at telling young Americans what is broken, and remarkably bad at telling them what is possible. We used to look at someone like Bill Gates in his ultra-rare Porsche 959 and think: How do I get there? How do I build something like Microsoft? Now we make a TikTok asking: Who did he exploit to get there?

 

That change in attitude matters because my generation has not lost its ambition. Leading online HR platform Gusto found that Gen Z accounted for 9 percent of new business starts in 2025, compared with 5 percent for baby boomers, the first year Gen Z has surpassed another generation in new business formation.

 

QuickBooks found that 43 percent of Gen Z adults are considering starting a business in 2026, higher than any other generation surveyed. This isn’t a generation being pushed into business ownership because the job market failed them: Only 8 percent of Gen Z entrepreneurs started their business because they or a partner lost a job.

 

So, this is not a generation that has stopped believing in work. It’s a generation looking for a way into the American dream and increasingly finding one through entrepreneurship. A teenager with a laptop can now reach customers worldwide, hire across continents, and use AI to handle tasks that once required deeply specialized consultants.

 

Capitalism has never guaranteed success, and none of this changes that, but what it offers is something more important: the freedom to try.

 

I know what that freedom looks like because I benefited from it. I did not inherit a company. I built my social media and advertising marketing agency, Step Up Social, from the ground up, and required little more than an iPhone and an internet connection. That business went from $0 to $1 million in revenue within six months, and quickly upgraded from a dorm-room idea to closing million-dollar client deals left and right. It’s proof that the door is always open to someone who starts with nothing, not just people who already have money or connections.

 

That is one of the basic mechanisms of a market economy: You create something another person values, and you discover whether the market agrees. There are no guaranteed outcomes, but that’s not the point. Freedom is. And that is the part of capitalism I worry we are forgetting.

 

The government has a real job here: Ease the restrictions that limit more housing, tear out the regulations strangling new businesses, help workers displaced by AI get skills that actually pay. What it doesn’t get to do is use every legitimate frustration as an excuse to take over.

 

Markets give millions of people an incentive to decide what to build, where to invest, and what consumers actually value, rather than concentrating those decisions in the hands of a small number of political officials. That doesn’t mean markets are perfect, but simply that replacing them with political decision-making creates its own problems.

 

Socialism can sound appealing when you start with a genuine problem. Housing is too expensive, so the government should provide it. Healthcare costs too much, so the government should control it. College is unaffordable, so the government should pay. The wealthy have more money than I do, so tax them and redistribute it.

 

Each proposal can sound compassionate in isolation. The problem is that none of them answers the harder question: Who creates the homes, businesses, medicines, technologies, and jobs we ultimately want more of?

 

When the state takes over the economy, politics replaces economics. Millions of people stop deciding what gets built, invested in, and bought, because a handful of officials do it for them instead. Once politicians control who gets resources and opportunity, your success stops depending on what you build and starts depending on who you know in Washington.

 

The fact that housing is too expensive doesn’t tell us who should own the housing market, and individuals upset at an unfavorable outcome do not automatically prove that the government should take control of the process that produces it.

 

The problem, whether it comes from the left hating on billionaires or the right blaming globalization, is that young Americans have learned to see people who create wealth as thieves. That’s not an accident: Blame sells better than economics ever will. If we actually want young Americans to believe in capitalism, telling them socialism is bad isn’t enough.

 

Instead, show them what capitalism builds: the immigrant who opens a restaurant, the teenager who builds an app, the family that turns $100 into something real. We need to tell young people these stories are still available to them.

 

My story isn’t proof everyone becomes a multimillionaire, but a reminder that nobody’s future is locked in by where they started. That’s the American dream I inherited, and I’m not apologizing for still believing in it.

 

A country cannot remain confident in its economic system when the generation set to inherit it no longer believes it can deliver a better future. So this is where we start: not by telling young Americans they’re wrong to be angry, but by refusing to let anger be the only thing we ever hand them.

The Uphill Climb to American Citizenship

By Mindy Belz

Thursday, September 17, 2026

 

For Chebwa Mutombo, the journey to find a new place to call home has been 22 years long. Born in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the 49-year-old mother of three stood on the grassy West Lawn of Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello, ground once leveled by the hands of African slaves. She raised her own right hand, and under the baking sun of the Fourth of July, swore allegiance to the United States of America.

 

Chebwa’s husband, Joseph, who is 56 and confined to a wheelchair, stayed seated but raised his hand to recite the oath, led by senior U.S. District Judge Michael Urbanski.

 

The two wore matching ensembles made by Chebwa, a seamstress, of super wax cotton, a specially dyed Congolese print recalling their roots. Pinned to them were bronze medal brooches with red, white, and blue ribbon given to each of the new citizens, distinctive badges for family, friends, and dignitaries seated in the audience. They included federal and state officials, and Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger, who spoke at the naturalization ceremony. Joseph sported an American flag tie, more evidence of the couple’s fresh start.

 

Public gatherings to celebrate immigrants coming to America are in short supply just now. Yet the Mutombos were among 75 immigrants from 36 countries raising their hands to take the final step of the marathon process that is becoming a U.S. citizen. They completed a process now endangered, as naturalization—even for those who meet the qualifications—has become more complex, more expensive, and more likely to end in failure.

 

Everyone born in America should sometime in their lives watch foreign-born citizens swear allegiance to the United States, to defend its Constitution, to bear arms on its behalf if required by law, and to renounce and abjure all others. It’s like a betrothal, intimate and moving, a choice rather than a birthright. It’s a moment so singular that a nation once formed of immigrants still brings the nations in its train with each newcomer who takes the oath.

 

On July 4, the citizens-to-be rose before dawn to make their way up Jefferson’s mountain. A fife and drum corps awaited their arrival, just as it has done since the Virginia home of the third president, the main author of the Declaration of Independence, began hosting annual Independence Day naturalization ceremonies in 1963. They took their oaths of allegiance before a sellout crowd of about 4,000, who filled rows of seats under a tent despite a suffocating heat wave.

 

Each of them has a story. The Mutombos arrived from Africa as refugees invited by the U.S. government seven years ago. Before that, they spent 15 years living in a camp in Zambia, having crossed the border from their war-wrecked home in Lubumbashi, the Congo’s second-largest city.

 

Nineteen-year-old Omar Basel Bouz Alassal, standing in his gray suit and tie, fled Syria with his family at age 4, all “looking for safety and a better future,” he said.

 

Debee Arvind Bouch came from India’s Tamil Nadu state as a teenager with her family for religious reasons, her father sponsored by a church in nearby Charlottesville. She married an American who runs a local locksmith business and works in the ticket office at Monticello. Her name drew boisterous applause when she received her citizenship certificate. Bouch—like Pei-Che from Taiwan and Frank from Switzerland, whose American spouses were also in attendance—shows that many roads to citizenship begin with love.

 

Each of the new Americans filed paperwork with embassies, passed interviews and vetting, paid fees and hired lawyers, passed a challenging civics test, and waited to be invited to the ceremony.

 

Two hours away, at the home of George Washington, another 150 immigrants from 50 different countries took their oaths of citizenship at Mount Vernon. These two presidential centers, the nation’s oldest, are part of a widening effort to boost appreciation for immigrants and their road to citizenship. This year, 21 presidential libraries and museums will host 40 naturalization ceremonies across the country. The ceremonies began in February at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and will conclude in November at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library in Boston.

 

The planning is largely the work of John Bridgeland, the founder and CEO of More Perfect, a civics-minded nonprofit he describes as “worried about our democracy.” Bridgeland, who served as director of the White House Domestic Policy Council under President George W. Bush, is drawing on years of experience connecting public and private partners, this time around the country’s 250^th birthday. Working with the National Archives, the presidential centers, and immigration groups—plus living past presidents, first ladies, and historians—Bridgeland hopes to give a wider platform to democratic values and the role of immigration through U.S. history.

 

“We think welcoming strangers is something that divides us, when welcoming is something that brings all of us together,” Bridgeland said.

 

The push to showcase immigrants becoming Americans comes while the Trump administration has focused public attention on illegal immigration. But its enforcement operations and executive orders are obstructing legal immigration too—shutting down pathways that lead to days like the one at Monticello. Policy changes along with bureaucratic holdups are making it harder for many to finalize their citizenship status just as it’s within reach.

 

Latest figures show a 74 percent drop in the number of naturalization applications completed by the U.S. government this year. That’s according to an analysis of available data through July 31 from the Niskanen Center, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, and includes both approved and denied cases.

 

Other data points are equally drastic. While the number of submitted immigration forms of all types is down by nearly half (48 percent) from one year ago, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) completed only about half of those—so, just 20,674 naturalization cases completed in July 2026 compared to 80,077 one year prior. Meanwhile, denials of completed naturalization applications have doubled.

 

Trump officials say the slowdown is a needed adjustment as they put in place more guardrails. Those include lengthy interviews, home searches, background checks of social media and community activism. Critics say that approach defines who gets to be a citizen in discriminatory ways that go beyond laws on naturalization, many of them as old as the country. With some changes, even those who qualify will increasingly find themselves blocked from naturalization, a lengthy procedure that takes up nine chapters in the USCIS policy manual.

 

Among the changes are rising application fees that make the cost of becoming a citizen prohibitive for many low-income families. The Trump administration also halted most applications for lawful permanent residency, or green cards, an essential step to naturalization. It banned in January all visa issuance to nationals of 75 countries designated “high risk,” a sweeping suspension that was vacated by a U.S. district court judge on August 21 but will take months and years to rectify. That will delay the path to citizenship for spouses, parents, and children of U.S. citizens, plus workers from the banned countries denied employer-based visas. At the same time, refugee resettlement to the U.S., once a reliable pathway to citizenship, is being zeroed out.

 

Some of the latest executive changes promise more lasting disruption. In a May 22 policy memo, USCIS announced it would end the longstanding practice of allowing lawful noncitizens to “adjust status” within the United States. Instead, applicants in some cases must return to their countries of origin to apply and wait months or years for processing. Many are spouses, parents, or adult children of U.S. citizens—potentially affecting people like Debee Arvind Bouch at Monticello.

 

Immigration groups say, if fully implemented, that change alone has the potential to dismantle legal immigration, with devastating consequences for families.

 

A final rule announced in mid-July and taking effect September 18 requires green card applicants to demonstrate they will not become a public charge. Federal law already stipulates that those seeking permanent residency or legal status demonstrate they will not rely on food stamps, Medicaid, or housing vouchers. But the new rule removes any definition for “public charge,” leaving it to the discretion of immigration officers to determine on an individualized basis.

 

“So now DHS and USCIS can deny people on whatever basis it wants without letting anyone comment on their criteria,” said David J. Bier, director of immigration studies at the Cato Institute. “The harm is that it will lead to more arbitrary denials for legal immigrants.”

 

All to say, one year into a crackdown on illegal immigration, the current policies have so crippled legal immigration that citizenship, and ceremonies like the one at Monticello, may become relics of the past.

 

An estimated 14 million foreign-born residents of the U.S. currently qualify for citizenship. Their stories are similar to those most Americans would find in their family tree, one reason Americans broadly support them. This year, 73 percent of U.S. adults say immigration is a good thing, according to Gallup. That poll also finds 75 percent of Americans favor giving immigrants brought as children to the U.S. illegally a chance to become citizens, while a 2026 Reuters/Ipsos poll finds 64 percent oppose ending birthright citizenship.

 

Immigration was a hot topic in Jefferson’s day too. A Federalist Party majority in Congress passed restrictive new laws amid the slave revolution in Haiti, which stirred fears of Haitian refugees and ex-slaves coming to American shores. In the 1790s, Congress raised the residency requirement for citizenship from two years to five years to 14 years.

 

Jefferson, who spent five years as a diplomat in France before President George Washington appointed him the first secretary of state, saw immigration as a tool for securing America’s standing in the world, its security, and its economic interests. As the country’s third president, he called on Congress in 1801 to reconsider the recent restrictions.

 

“Shall we refuse the unhappy fugitives from distress that hospitality which the savages of the wilderness extended to our fathers arriving in this land? Shall oppressed humanity find no asylum on this globe?” he said. A new Congress agreed, passing into law in 1802 a standard that continues today: Lawful permanent residents must reside continuously in the United States for five years to apply for citizenship.

 

Monticello’s July 4 naturalization ceremony comes brimming with tradition. The home’s East Lawn is the historic entrance Jefferson designed to welcome dignitaries and strangers, but the ceremony takes place on the West Lawn, the back entrance Jefferson reserved for family and friends. From there, the candidates for citizenship take their seats facing his iconic rotunda, the same view captured on the U.S. nickel, a familiar emblem of American democracy and civic belonging.

 

Jane Kamensky, the Harvard historian who became president and CEO of the foundation that runs Monticello in 2024, has steered the public narrative around Jefferson toward what one exhibit at the house called “the paradox of liberty.” Jefferson, by his rhetoric and his writing, established human equality and individual liberty at the core of America’s ideals, but by his practice enslaved hundreds of people, helping to set the United States on a course where racism and discrimination would play central roles. A tour of Monticello highlights the role of slaves on the plantation, and Jefferson as a flawed figure who fathered six children by slave Sally Hemings.

 

Kamensky sees the nation’s 250^th anniversary as an opportunity “to hold courageous conversations that look to the past to understand a vexed present and anticipate a more perfect future.” She welcomed the soon-to-be Americans in the front rows, saying, “We have always been a nation of immigrants. One of the very first printings of the Declaration in Philadelphia was in German.”

 

Under her direction, Monticello has partnered with civic organizations like Bridgeland’s More Perfect, along with immigration advocates and religious organizations. After the ceremony, one such group, Welcome.US, launched a citizen guide program to link volunteers with lawful permanent residents working toward citizenship. Volunteers help with citizenship test tutoring, interviewing skills, and English-language practice.

 

The ceremony closed with remarks from Welcome.US CEO Nazanin Ash, whose parents came to America from Iran. “We remember the names of the founders and presidents and legislators because these are the names history delivers,” she said, “but most of this story has been written by names history never records—ordinary Americans, like all of us, motivated to right wrongs, care for neighbors, and take on challenges in our communities.”

 

Once the citizens took the oath of allegiance, the ceremony adjourned to another Fourth of July tradition—free root beer floats on the lawn.

 

“This is a very, very beautiful day,” Chebwa Mutombo exclaimed. “I have waited for many days to see this one.”

 

When she arrived in 2019, Chebwa spoke no English. For two years she took classes in nearby Charlottesville while also working for a business making pillows and curtains.

 

“Was it hard to wait so long for this day?” I asked.

 

“Oh no, because I am an American now,” she said, breaking into a broad smile and fingering the bronze medal at her collar.

The Stiffening Spines of American Jews

By Seth Mandel

Tuesday, September 15, 2026

 

Macklemore, an anti-Israel rapper who once wore a fake hooked nose on stage while dressed like an anti-Semitic Jewish caricature, was dropped as the opening act for Ed Sheeran’s tour.

 

The important part of the story, however, is what came after that.

 

First, a brief recap of the drama. Macklemore has enthusiastically jumped on the “Palestine means relevance” bandwagon and sought to rebrand his public persona accordingly. Even before Israel’s incursion into Gaza in response to the Hamas invasion and slaughter of innocents, Macklemore accused Israel of “genocide.” He repeated the Big Lie at every opportunity. Then he wrote a song in which he proclaimed Israel’s existence as an injustice that needs to be corrected.

 

Were Macklemore’s dream to come true, millions of Jews would be murdered and the rest banished from their homes. Many Jews did not find this charming, but Macklemore’s core audience ate it up.

 

Then recently, he was asked to be the opening act for Ed Sheeran, who plays a very different kind of music from Macklemore and doesn’t share Macklemore’s genocidal feelings toward Jews. Opening for the artist that the fans actually come to see can be tricky; it’s important that openers avoid making the shows all about themselves. For Macklemore, that would’ve meant maybe dropping the Hamas propaganda.

 

Macklemore didn’t want to adjust. So for a couple of shows, he let the Jews have it. This put Sheeran in a difficult position.

 

An upcoming show on the tour, however, was scheduled to take place at a venue owned by Robert Kraft, the New England Patriots owner who has directed a fair amount of his philanthropy toward combating anti-Semitism. Kraft didn’t want Macklemore using his venue to incite against Jews, so he told Sheeran to get a new opener.

 

One more detail: The artist Pink, who is Jewish, reposted a social-media post criticizing Macklemore for turning Sheeran’s shows into anti-Zionist war-porn spectacles. Pink took some heat for this online.

 

After Sheeran decolonized his tour and liberated his fans from Macklemore’s occupation, Macklemore responded exactly as expected: He and his fans and his defenders pretended he was being fired for simply supporting Palestinian rights.

 

It is at this point that Jewish advocates usually recede into the background and let the anti-Semites spin the incident as one in which they just said some nice “pro-Palestinian” stuff and then the oversensitive Jews came along and ruined everybody’s fun. But this time the Jewish figures involved didn’t recede. They didn’t let themselves get smeared as “anti-Palestinian,” because they are not. They had specific objections to what Macklemore had said and done, and they were happy to explain those objections in detail.

 

“This decision is not about diminishing the suffering of innocent Palestinians or denying anyone the right to advocate on their behalf. Their pain and loss are real,” Kraft said. “But that advocacy should not come at the expense of the Jewish community.”

 

He then said something that is obviously true but to which Macklemore and his wider movement don’t subscribe: “Standing with the Palestinian people and standing against Hamas, antisemitism and hate should not be mutually exclusive.”

 

I suspect that, somewhere deep in their hearts, Macklemore and his fans understand this. Otherwise they wouldn’t obscure what Macklemore actually says and does behind self-pitying platitudes. They would just own it.

 

For her part, Pink knocked Macklemore for trying to dictate what Jews think: “he stood in front of a stadium full of music-loving families, with violent images from a war on the screens, dedicated a song to the movement of his choice, and then took the mic to tell all of the Jews in the stadium that it wasn’t about them. You don’t get to decide that for us.”

 

Pink also added this:

 

“Protecting innocent life comes first, everywhere, and nobody should ever celebrate the death of a child. Anybody’s child. I’ve spent a decade as a UNICEF ambassador for kids who didn’t choose the country or the war they were born into, and I have grieved every one of them, on both sides of that fence. I didn’t do it from behind a screen; I went to those children and held them. I’m not going to litigate a complex war in an Instagram caption, and I’m not going to recite anybody’s slogan to earn back a follower.”

 

Which is why I hope American Jews continue following this story after the headline-making part of it. Because there’s an important lesson here: You don’t have to let self-pitying anti-Semites lie about you. The Mideast discourse desperately needs more truth and more spine, and neither are going to come from the Macklemores of the world.

Schools Should Teach the 9/11 Heroism of the American People

By Seth Mandel

Thursday, September 10, 2026

 

The other night, we watched the brief but powerful 9/11 documentary Boatlift with our kids. Made in 2011 and narrated by Tom Hanks, Boatlift is a 12-minute film on the largest waterway evacuation in American history.

 

The story is simple: As the towers fell and people ran through the chaos of lower Manhattan looking to escape the danger without access to mass transit and with roads and bridges closed off, the Coast Guard put out a general call for a volunteer boatlift. The massive response created a civil convoy that surpassed anyone’s expectations and produced one of the better stories of American selflessness and heroism in the country’s history.

 

Yes, in the country’s history. Just to give readers an idea of what this boatlift accomplished: According to Britannica, the Dunkirk evacuation in World War II carried 338,000 British, French and Belgian troops to safety over nine days.

 

The 9/11 boatlift ferried 500,000 people to safety in nine hours.

 

It’s not an apples-to-apples comparison, of course, but hopefully it at least paints a picture of the magnitude of the ad hoc effort.

 

“I saw four businessmen lifting up an old woman with a seeing-eye dog… and they lifted her up like a surfboard and passed her over the handrails” and onto a boat, recalled one official. Sometimes spouses, separated and each unaware of the other’s fate, were reunited on these boats.

 

We talk a lot about the lessons of 9/11, of the changed world that emerged from it, of geopolitical realignment, of domestic security policy, of Islamist terrorism and the War on Terror. For my generation in particular, born after Vietnam but too young to fully appreciate the fall of the Iron Curtain, it was a defining moment.

 

And one unforgettable element of that day was the heroism. Younger Americans have no memory of that day, and what they are missing out on, aside from the terror and the grief and the anger, is the way the civilian response filled one with a deep sense of gratitude for the cosmic gift of being an American.

 

Which is why 9/11 education ought to be mandatory, and young Americans should learn not only the Big Ideas around this earthshattering event but what happened on that day itself at the granular level.

 

Here’s what I mean. The Associated Press this week produced a state-by-state summary of 9/11 curriculum requirements. Much of it is optional or flexible, and much of it misses the point.

 

Arkansas requires students to learn about the “change and continuity in foreign policy since 2001 after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.” One world history prompt for California 10th-graders states: “Since 9/11, the hopes for a more peaceful world that the end of the Cold War spawned have been displaced by a resurgence of international conflict.” In Idaho, we learn, “High school U.S. history students now must assess government responses to terrorism, ‘including those after Sept. 11, 2001, and analyze the causes, progression and aftermath’ of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.” In Missouri, high-schoolers are tasked with “unpacking post-9/11 foreign policy.”

 

After 9/11, since 9/11, post-9/11, etc. Those are important lessons! So are the ones that require students to talk about what happened before 9/11. But what about on 9/11?

 

I admit I was, at first, rather appalled at the list provided by the AP. But it is just a summary and should not be taken as the full extent of what actually goes on in classrooms around the country, where teachers and administrators have plenty of flexibility to shape students’ understanding of 9/11 and how it should be memorialized. And there is bound to be a range of differences among the 50 states.

 

But I also noticed that some states pretty much nailed it. Here is the AP’s description of Florida’s educational approach to 9/11:

 

A 2023 Florida law requires at least 45 minutes a year of 9/11-related instruction in some middle and high school classes. The statute lists points to cover: historical context on terrorism, the attack timeline, acts of heroism and charity, the ‘importance of respecting civil liberties while ensuring safety and security,’ and more. It notably mentions not only those killed and wounded but also people who fell ill after being exposed to toxins when the World Trade Center’s burning twin towers collapsed. State standards go into still more detail. It’s all intended ‘to ensure this important event in America’s history is not only remembered but also integrated into civics and resiliency education statewide,’ the state Department of Education said.

 

Exemplary. New York’s requirements are a mixed bag with plenty of potential. Pennsylvania’s aren’t bad. Both states were directly affected by the attacks themselves, so it’s no surprise to see their plans include moments of silence on each anniversary.

 

Virginia has the right idea, too. There, middle-schoolers give “special attention to the heroism displayed by passengers on the plane that went down in Pennsylvania. High school juniors analyze 9/11 and other ‘key events and conditions that have given rise to terrorism as an attack on democracy and the United States’ role in defending democracy.’”

 

Children aren’t born knowing what happened on 9/11. We have to teach them. And among the earliest lessons that are appropriate for young students is one that reminds them what that day means for Americans, including the miracles that the American people are capable of in the face of terror and tragedy.

Why We Need to Remember 9/11

National Review Online

Friday, September 11, 2026

 

On a perfectly clear morning 25 years ago, America changed forever.

 

At 8:46 a.m. on that day, a team of Islamic terrorists crashed American Airlines Flight 11, carrying 76 passengers and eleven crew members, into the North Tower of the World Trade Center. It was followed 17 minutes later by United Airlines Flight 175, carrying 51 passengers and nine crew members, which terrorists steered into the South Tower. Less than 90 minutes later, both of those towers had collapsed into a massive pile of rubble.

 

Meanwhile, as Americans’ televisions were tuned to live footage of the burning buildings, American Airlines Flight 77, carrying 53 passengers and six crew members, was slammed into the Pentagon. And shortly after, United Airlines Flight 93, with 33 passengers and seven crew members, crashed in a field in Shanksville, Pa.

 

Today, we remember the 2,977 innocent victims who were the first casualties in what would become known as the War on Terror. We also remember the extraordinary heroism displayed that day, without which the horrific losses would have been far worse.

 

One of the most miraculous facts about that day was that at the World Trade Center, which may have had an occupancy of 19,000 people between the two buildings at the time, 99 percent of those who were below the point of impact of the planes survived. This achievement is owed to the extraordinary evacuation efforts of first responders, who ran into burning buildings, no doubt knowing that there was a good chance they wouldn’t make it out. In the end, 441 firefighters, police officers, and paramedics did not.

 

Then there was the civilian heroism displayed by the passengers on Flight 93, who had heard about what happened at the World Trade Center, overtook the plane, and ensured that it crashed in an empty field rather than into the U.S. Capitol or White House, one of which was believed to be the potential target. Passenger Todd Beamer’s remark to his fellow passengers, “Let’s roll,” overheard from a phone call, became a rallying cry as the nation fought back.

 

At the time, everyone expected another attack in short order. There was a network of highly trained terrorists imbued with radical Islamic ideology and determined to cripple America and bring down the West. There have been a number of subsequent attacks throughout the world (such as the 2004 Madrid train bombings, the 2005 London bombings, the 2015 Charlie Hebdo shooting and other attacks in Paris, and of course, the October 7 attacks in 2023). There have also been smaller-scale jihadi-inspired attacks in the​ U.S., such as the 2009 Fort Hood shooting, the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, and the 2016 Orlando Pulse nightclub shooting. But none of these attacks on U.S. soil were anything close to what happened on September 11.

 

Some argue that the lack of major terrorist incidents in ensuing years proves that the nation overreacted after  September 11. Clearly, though, increasing domestic security, pursuing more aggressive intelligence gathering, killing rank-and-file jihadis as well as their leaders, and disrupting and dismantling terrorist networks made it much harder to pull off a second mass-casualty attack. We know, based on terrorist plots that were foiled, that the failure of Islamists to pull anything off akin to 9/11 was not for lack of trying.

 

On ​September 11, George W. Bush was out of sight most of the day, as he was being safely moved from an event in Florida back to Washington. At the time, it was New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani who filled the vacuum in an exemplary way, soberly conveying the scale of the tragedy, offering practical information on rescue efforts, and delivering a message of defiance. It wasn’t until Bush visited rescue workers at the site days later that he emerged as a wartime leader. In perhaps the most iconic moment of his presidency, the crowd struggled to hear him and he shouted back through a bullhorn, “I can hear you, the rest of the world hears you — and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon.”

 

One thing worth stating about the initial response is that it defied Osama bin Laden’s impression of America when planning the attacks. The terrorist leader had often cited previous examples in which the U.S. had pulled back when dealing with losses, including after the 1983 Marine barracks bombing in Beirut and the 1993 Black Hawk Down incident in Somalia.

 

The invasion of Afghanistan almost surely would have happened in some form or other under any U.S. president and was a matter of near-universal consensus at the time. The Iraq War was more controversial at the outset, but Congress voted to authorize the conflict. The decision-making in the run-up to the war is impossible to understand absent the context of September 11, which made it seem intolerable that Saddam Hussein would have weapons of mass destruction (as we eventually learned, the intelligence on this question was desperately flawed).

 

In both Afghanistan and Iraq, the U.S. got entangled in long engagements in societies we didn’t fully understand. Joe Biden’s disastrous pullout from Afghanistan handed the country back to the Taliban, while Iraq — after the expenditure of much U.S. blood and treasure — has emerged as a flawed democracy and a flawed security partner of the United States. The disillusionment caused by the wars had a large hand in electing Barack Obama and then Donald Trump.

 

Twenty-five years later, Islamism is still a threat, and the moral clarity in the immediate aftermath of September 11 is long gone; in fact, the third-worldist ideology increasingly ascendant in the Democratic Party has significant overlap with the worldview of the anti-Western forces arrayed against us.

 

One antidote to this poison is to remember what happened on September 11, and who did it and why.