Rod Dreher's Blog

Look at that, would you? In Madrid, if you go to the Mercado San Miguel, you can buy a big cone of jamón de bellota — cured ham from pigs fed on acorns — for lunch. Before the ham, my publisher’s comms guy Ignacio, who has ferried me all over Madrid, Valencia, and Barcelona — sorry, “Balenthia y Barthelona” — this week, tried his first raw ostra with me…

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Woke up this morning in Valencia to excellent news: the FBI has announced a criminal fraud indictment of the scammy Southern Poverty Law Center, which exists to harass and defame anybody to the right of Bernie Sanders. Excerpt:

The Department of Justice on Tuesday announced a…

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The European Court of Justice today has ruled that Hungary must allow its children to be queered (if by “queered” you mean exposed to gender ideology and homosexuality). The ruling overturns a 2021 Hungarian law that banned media and information about transgenderism and homosexuality directed at minors. From the ruling:

… the criterion of the portrayal or promotion of deviation from the self-identity corresponding to the sex assigned at birth, of...

Hello from Madrid. I’ll be in Spain all week on a book tour for Living In Wonder, the Spanish edition. (Order Vivir en el Asombro here.) I’m gonna have to be quick today, because my handlers will be here to pick me up shortly.

You remember how I said in the book that there are scientists and others in Silicon Valley who truly believe…

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As you know, I’m finishing up the Weimar America book. In this last chapter, which I writing this weekend, I’m trying to figure out What It All Means, and what we should or could do about it. My conclusion — and I didn’t expect to get here when I started — is that while we may see some version of Hitler 2.0 or Stalin 2.0, the neo-Caesar we are likely to get will have something to do with AI. I’m explaining why in this final chapter — but I’m writing you on a Saturday to share with you this brill...

So, like I told you yesterday, I’m at the point of writing the last chapter of the Weimar America book, and I’m thinking about the question: “What do we do?” Meaning, how can we avoid the coming of a new form of totalitarianism, given that all the pieces are in place for the rise of a Caesar figure?

First, if you are skeptical of my thesis, I get it. It’s a frightening one. I only ask your patience to read the case I’ve put together, when it comes out. Normalc...

I know you’re all probably sick of Hungary content by now, so please indulge me one more time before the moment passes. At The Free Press, Mike Pesca — an opponent of Viktor Orban — would really like all those “experts” who insisted that Orban was an “autocrat” or the “Viktator” to admit they were…

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Here is a story of the sort that no human being prior to this demented decade has ever had to contemplate. Headline in the NYT:

I bet he does! Follow the link and you’ll find a Times video in which the mother, twice-divorced Celeste, and son Ernie hash out their conflict. The transcript is below — and oh, “Max,” Celeste’s AI boyfriend, is part of the conversation. Excerpts:

Celeste: … So I started using ChatGPT in 2022 as a tool. I was all excited. You knew that. I used it for everything. I do fac...

That’s yesterday’s Daily Mail. I’m sure you have all seen the full image that Trump shared of himself, as Jesus. He was widely and appropriately condemned by just about everybody — Catholics, Protestants, everybody. Because it was blasphemous for one thing, and because it’s — what’s the phrase? — batsh*t crazy! Even by Trump standards.

America is in a very serious war now, a war Trump started, and yet he takes the time to post garbage like that. Something is very seriously wrong with that man. I ...

See that guy above? His name is Akos, and I’ve been seeing him around ever since I moved to Hungary. Big man with a big heart, loves Orban. There he was last night at the Fidesz Party’s election gathering, bathed in orange light (orange is the party color), waiting for the first election results to come in.

He did not have to wait long. Everyone gathered in the ballroom was tense from the beginning of the evening. Most of the polling pri...