Notes from the Middleground

Eyes on the Right Of Western civilization Upgrade to paid to play voiceover U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaks at the Pnyx hill, where ancient Athenians held democratic assemblies, with the ancient Parthenon temple atop the Acropolis seen in the background, in Athens on October 7, 2026.

Above the Fray An alleged gang rape on an upstate New York campus has left me distraught—and about far more than what may have happened to one young woman Upgrade to paid to play voiceover This photo taken on October 2, 2026, shows the Chi Pi fraternity house on the campus at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.

Above the Fray I give my own version of the recent New York Times list Upgrade to paid to play voiceover (L-R) Actors Jessica Pare, Kiernan Shipka, January Jones, creator/writer Matthew Weiner, actors Christina Hendricks and Jon Hamm attend the launch for Matthew Weiner's Book "Mad Men" at TASCHEN Store Beverly Hills on February 23, 2017 in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images) It’s been a rough week here at Chez Linker.

I’ve written two previous posts about my first-year seminar at Penn called “Conservatism in Theory and Practice.” I’m teaching the class a third time this fall, and on this most recent run through the material I’m seeing things quite a bit differently than I did the first two times. In sum, it seems to me that American political history from the time of the founding on down to the New Deal is largely a debate among competing factions of conservatives.

The midterm elections are now less than six weeks away—and I think we’ve seen more than enough to conclude that, short of systemic polling error on a scale surpassing anything we have seen before, Republicans are going to get their asses kicked. Here’s what that means in practical terms: Democrats are almost certainly going to take control of the House.

Get more from Damon Linker in the Substack app Available for iOS and Android

We’re all so doomed. So, so doomed. That’s a quote from a friend of mine who, like me, devotes a lot of his life to following the news and commenting on it. We have a habit of texting each other throughout the day when news breaks, to try and figure how bad the event really is in American and global context. More and more often, one or the other of us will close out the discussion by saying something like the quote above.

Check out this extraordinary original art the Times worked up for my review! My second post this week is actually published elsewhere. It’s my New York Times review of Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor’s End Times Fascism: And the Fight for the Living World, which was posted online on Tuesday of this week. It will run in the paper edition of the Book Review at some point within the next two to six weeks (!!), but this seems like the right time to share it with you, my loyal readers.

Upgrade to paid to play voiceover A screenshot from Francis Fukuyama’s recent appearance on the Ezra Klein Show at the New York Times. Here is a Gift Link to the podcast. Though I haven’t confirmed it by counting, I’d be willing to guess that I’ve written more posts about the ideas of Francis Fukuyama than about any other single topic (besides Donald Trump, of course). I think that makes sense.

Upgrade to paid to play voiceover View, looking east across the Hudson River, of smoke rising from World Trade Center in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks, New York, New York, September 11, 2001. (Photo by Rodney G. JeanBaptiste/Getty Images) This is the second part of a two-part post. Part 1 can be read here.