Best of Twitter, July 2023

The Imjin War, the DeSantis campaign, Italian populism, and more

I’ve started a book review thread on The Imjin War by Samuel Hawley. Follow along here for highlights, as the thread will be continually updated. I’ve been captivated by it, particularly for the insights it gives into the political culture of East Asia at the time. Hawley is an excellent writer, and like many who write great histories, he isn’t an academic historian.

In case you missed my discussion about Barbie and Oppenheimer with Rob, see here, which has links to my Twitter reviews of both movies. If you’re not getting my podcasts with Rob and would like to be, check your settings on the Substack page and make sure you’re subscribed to the Narrative Control section of this newsletter.

There was no discussion with Inez on Thursday, and we’re both going to be traveling the next few weeks, so we’ll be back when we can.

Finally, this is your reminder to once again preorder my book, which has consistently been near the top of multiple best seller categories since I’ve begun promoting it. Let’s keep the momentum going.

Below are the top Subscriber only Tweets of July. Topics include gerontocracy and the regulatory state, a true measure of Russian casualties in the war, the latest from the DeSantis campaign, the TV/reading divide within conservatism, what Jack Smith tells us about the establishment, Italy as a warning about the dangers of populism, the culture war in Israel, natalism, and much more. As always, you can get directly to each tweet itself by clicking on its screenshot.