newsletters and blogs

No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money. —Samuel Johnson

Since 2002, I have regularly self-published work of mine in a variety of formats. From 2002 through 2007, I published a first-wave blog on political and cultural topics. In 2007, I was asked to join the group blog, The American Scene, which was a home for many now-prominent writers, including Ross Douthat, Reihan Salam, Conor Friedersdorf, Peter Suderman and Alan Jacobs. I wrote there for four years, and made intellectual friendships that have lasted to this day. You can find an archive of my posts for The American Scene here.

In 2012, The American Conservative asked me to join as a senior editor, and to host my blog on their website. I had numerous political differences with the magazine as well as numerous areas of common interest, so my one condition for joining was that I be allowed to write about whatever I wanted without having to toe an editorial line, a condition to which the then-editor Daniel McCarthy readily agreed. I wrote happily for them through 2017. You can find an archive of my work for The American Conservative here.

In 2021, I struck out on my own again on a new platform with Gideon’s Substack. There I once again write about whatever I want, from Trump’s foreign policy moves to the plays of Christopher Marlowe. The name was a conscious throwback to my original solo blog, but also an allusion to the biblical hero, whose career I have an idiosyncratic take on. You can read all about that take here, and find an archive of my posts — and subscribe to the Substack — here.

HIGHLIGHTS FROM GIDEON’S SUBSTACK

  • Steel-Manning the Tariffs

    APR 04, 2025
    Even after engaging in the exercise, I think they're a fiasco. Read

  • The Democrats Have Met the Enemy

    OCT 03, 2025
    And, unfortunately, it's them. Read.

  • Biden Gives Up On America

    DEC 02, 2024
    The emotional subtext of the president's nepotistic pardon. Read

  • Manliness Is Next To Godliness?

    NOV 18, 2024
    Complicating Damon Linker's assessment of conservative moral decline. Read

  • The End of Allyship

    OCT 24, 2023
    A concept whose time has finally gone. Read

  • Do the Neo-Bundists Know What Country They Live In?

    APR 10, 2026
    An idea whose time has definitively passed tries for a new lease on life. Read.

  • Revisiting the Thucydides Trap

    FEB 05, 2025
    Are we better off if we hang together? Or might we avoid hanging altogether by separating? Read

  • The End of the Cordon Sanitaire

    JAN 28, 2025
    Without a broad and stable center, everyone has no choice but to work with the extremes. Read

  • The New New Class?

    NOV 27, 2024
    Is Trump the vanguard of a new class competitor to the meritocratic mandarins? Read

  • Fertility Free-Fall

    DEC 05, 2023
    It's not just South Korea -- and it's not just the developed world either. Read

  • What Is a Zionism For the Palestinians?

    MAR 17, 2026
    A response to Alana Newhouse. Read.

  • Do the Democrats Know What Time It Is?

    APR 07, 2026
    If not, how will they govern if they win? Read.

  • Are We In an A.I. Bubble? I Suspect So

    SEP 26, 2025
    But if we are, what should we do about it? Read.

  • Prolegomenon to an Aristotelian Liberalism

    MAY 27, 2025
    In memory of Alasdair MacIntyre. Read.

  • One Damned Thing After Another

    OCT 21, 2025
    Paul Thomas Anderson cosplays with real guns. Read.

  • The Injustice Is the Point

    APR 15, 2025
    Hobbesian thoughts on the Kilmar Abrego García case. Read

  • Is Retribution Illegitimate?

    SEP 14, 2023
    Or is it actually foundational to the very idea of criminal justice? Read

  • A Tale of Two Peters

    DEC 02, 2025
    Hegseth and Beinart are opposites with a common view about ethics and power. Read.

  • Trump Himself Is the Trump Movement's Iraq War

    MAR 20, 2026
    Regime change in America was also a bad idea. Read.

  • Ten Thoughts on Zohran Mamdani's Victory

    JUN 25, 2025
    He's shown how strong he can run. What's to come won't be a walk. Read.

  • Dedicated to the Proposition

    SEP 06, 2025
    Can any nation so conceived long endure? Read.

  • If You're Going to Nuke Vienna, Nuke Vienna

    MAR 04, 2025
    My best guess as to the method in the administration's apparent madness. Read

  • The Widening Gyre

    JAN 20, 2025
    A post I've been avoiding writing. Read

  • Eyeless in Gaza

    OCT 09, 2023
    Reflections on a catastrophe (perhaps too soon). Read

  • Altruism Wrap

    NOV 13, 2022
    The California ideology meets the boiler room. Read

  • Rights Are Merely Reciprocals of Duties

    APR 01, 2026
    A response to Shadi Hamid on Israel's "right to exist" -- plus thoughts on a Passover tradition. Read.

  • What Happens When There's No Job To Learn On?

    MAY 09, 2025
    My current A.I. worry. Read.

  • Is It Better To Believe In Anything Than In Nothing?

    FEB 28, 2025
    Wrestling with Ross Douthat's book, "Believe." Read

  • The Biden Drama Is Over but the Fallout May Linger

    JUL 21, 2024
    The Democrats need to restore trust in their own honesty if they want to win back a winning majority of the voters. Read

  • A Killing For Our Time

    DEC 16, 2025
    Rob Reiner, z"l. Read.

  • A Revolution That Has Run Out of Gas

    JAN 02, 2025
    Reflections on a trip to Cuba. Read

  • The Future Requires a Usable Past

    JAN 31, 2024
    And nostalgia is not the right way to find one. Read

  • Crooked Timber Is What We Have To Work With

    OCT 23, 2023
    A drash on parshat Noach. Read

  • Antisemitism and Conspiracy Theories

    NOV 08, 2025
    You can't fight the former with the latter, because antisemitism is the greatest conspiracy theory of all time. Read.

  • The Most Important Story In the Whole World

    MAY 29, 2026
    Is it really a battle over a grocery store in Brooklyn? Read.

  • Fertility, Fear and Futurity

    MAY 12, 2021
    Elizabeth Bruenig's motherhood on the lip of apocalypse. Read

  • Genghis Khan vs. George Washington

    JUL 24, 2024
    Who was more consequential, the great conqueror with the enormous genetic legacy, or the childless man who declined to become an emperor at all? Read

  • Robert Hur Just Gave Democrats An Off-Ramp

    FEB 08, 2024
    Will they take it? Read

  • Break the Barrel To Get Rid Of the Serpent?

    JUL 26, 2023
    Tisha B'av thoughts on the conflict in Israel. Read

  • Are "Movies For Grownups" On Their Way Out

    DEC 13, 2022
    On the verge of making my own, my confidence that they aren't begins to waver. Read