Say what you will about Ayn Rand — and there is a lot to say — she emphasized an important truth: People, full of resentment and envy, want to tear the successful down. I believe I have seen this in the case of public attitudes toward Caitlin Clark, the basketball star, in recent weeks. Earlier this year, she was the toast of the town — an American sweetheart. And now . . .

People speak of her “white privilege.” I like what an editorial in the Chicago Tribune said: She really has a “talent privilege.”

You know the expression “to take someone down a peg”? Well, one player took this literally. I will quote the Tribune:

The foul committed by Chicago Sky guard Chennedy Carter was egregious. Outside of a sporting contest, it would have been seen as an assault. Even within a sporting context, it was bad. Before the ball even was inbounded, Carter came up from behind Clark, shoving her at the hip and knocking her over. Lip readers simultaneously construed a five-letter epithet dancing on the Sky player’s lips. She should have been ejected from the game.

She was not ejected. She was not fined. She was not anything.

A couple of days ago, word got around that Caitlin Clark would not be selected for the U.S. Olympic team. Maybe this is a right call. (About women’s basketball, I know little.) But some people pumped their fist over this, which was interesting.

There is something nasty in people that just can’t stand a person who’s at the top of her game and enjoying life. She must be taken down.

Six months ago — something like that — there was great resentment directed at Taylor Swift. A reader wrote to me, “You know what her greatest sin is? She’s happy. A lot of people can’t stand that.”

• Ayn Rand and William F. Buckley Jr. had an interesting relationship. When they first met, Rand said to WFB, “Young man, you are far too intelligent to believe in God.” When WFB related this to Wilfrid Sheed (the writer), Sheed said, “That was a helluvan icebreaker.”

WFB writes about Rand and her movement in his novel Getting It Right.

• I thought of something when reading about Harvard and DEI. (Those initials stand for “diversity, equity, and inclusion.”) The university will no longer require a “DEI statement” in its hiring of faculty. This is what I thought of: Sometimes, when you take a step back, you take a step forward.

• Larry Hogan, the former governor of Maryland, is running for the U.S. Senate. He is a Republican. (Some people don’t think so.) After the verdict in Donald Trump’s Manhattan trial, Hogan wrote,

Regardless of the result, I urge all Americans to respect the verdict and the legal process. At this dangerously divided moment in our history, all leaders — regardless of party — must not pour fuel on the fire with more toxic partisanship. We must reaffirm what has made this nation great: the rule of law.

A senior adviser on Trump’s campaign, Chris LaCivita, immediately fired back at Hogan: “You just ended your campaign.” Somehow, Hogan is soldiering on.

Lara Trump, the co-chairman of the Republican National Committee and the candidate’s daughter-in-law, said of Hogan, “He doesn’t deserve the respect of anyone in the Republican Party at this point, and, quite frankly, anybody in America.”

You know, I almost admire the Trumpers — because they have standards. When Republican voters nominate someone who is really far out, such as Herschel Walker, “normal” Republicans such as Mitch McConnell support that nominee — because they want more Republicans in the Senate (let’s say). But the Trumpers are different. They are purer. If you don’t toe the line, you’re dead.

You know?

• Trump was once a foe of TikTok. In the last year of his presidency — his first term? — he said, “As far as TikTok is concerned, we’re banning them from the United States.” Charlie Kirk, the young Republican leader, was once a foe of TikTok too. “It’s way past time to ban TikTok,” he said. “It is a cancer on America.”

These guys are singing a much different tune now:

My question: Will the Right in general follow Trump and Kirk on this matter? I wouldn’t bet against it.

• Below is an example of the Trump style. Millions — tens of millions — thrill to it. This tells us something important about our society.

• I was listening to Dwight D. Eisenhower, speaking on the 20th anniversary of D-Day. That’s my idea of an American leader.

• This cartoon, I thought, was both striking and apt:

• A column by George F. Will quoted something that President Biden said last year. It comes in a speech that the president gave in Chicago. Have a listen:

I believe that every American willing to work hard should be able to get a job no matter where they are — in the heartland, in small towns, in every part of this country — to raise their kids on a good paycheck and keep their roots where they grew up. That’s Bidenomics.

He can call it “Bidenomics” if he wants — but haven’t we heard exactly that from people on the populist-nationalist right for many years? Is it not part and parcel of Buchananism?

(This is without regard to what one may think of the sentiment expressed. I am simply noting a commonality.)

• Somewhere on the Internet, I saw a remark from FDR. (I can’t remember where I saw it. I would like to credit the person who drew my attention to the remark.) This is what FDR said: “I cannot picture Uncle Sam as a supine, white-livered, flabby-muscled old man, cooling his heels in the shade of our tariff walls.” Some Googling let me know that FDR made this remark in the 1932 presidential campaign. He was campaigning in Sioux City, Iowa. In his speech, he had a lot to say about international trade. Listen to him:

I have not the fear that possesses some timorous minds that we should get the worst of it in such reciprocal arrangements. I ask if you have no faith in our Yankee tradition of good old-fashioned trading. Do you believe that our early instincts for successful barter have degenerated or atrophied? I do not think so. I have confidence that the spirit of the stalwart traders still permeates our people, that the red blood of the men who sailed our Yankee clipper ships around the Horn and Cape of Good Hope in the China trade still courses in our veins. I cannot picture Uncle Sam as a supine, white-livered, flabby-muscled old man, cooling his heels in the shade of our tariff walls. We may not have the astuteness in some forms of international diplomacy that our more experienced European friends have, but when it comes to good old-fashioned barter and trade — whether it be goods or tariff — my money is on the American.

Great stuff.

• Here is an article from the Associated Press: “National Spelling Bee reflects the economic success and cultural impact of immigrants from India.” I thought of Donald Rumsfeld, and a conversation I had with him more than 20 years ago. He was secretary of defense at the time. He and his wife, Joyce, had just seen the documentary Spellbound, which is about the National Spelling Bee. He said something like the following: “If I had to show someone America in one film, it would be this.”

• The funniest thing I have seen in recent days is this spiel. Be warned that the language is unclean. But man oh man. The young woman talks about the kind of employee she would like to see at Home Depot. “Bring back them grandpas.”

• I was sad to see that Werner Hink had died. He was a violinist, and a concertmaster of the Vienna Philharmonic. I interviewed him once in front of an audience. He was delightful, and interesting.

One of my questions was a standard one: “What is the role of a concertmaster?” I thought he would say something about leading the violin section, or the orchestra at large. Or something about being a liaison between the orchestra and the conductor. You know what he said?

“The most important thing is to play the solos.”

I got a huge kick out of that. Yes, what a concertmasterly privilege!

And who was Mr. Hink’s favorite violinist? Usually, when I ask violinists this question, they name Heifetz or Oistrakh — maybe Kreisler. Mr. Hink named Isaac Stern. Later, I mentioned this to another violinist, who said, “That makes sense. Mr. Hink loves Schubert, and Stern was a great player of Schubert, maybe the best.”

He also loved Mozart, Werner Hink did. In our interview, he said, “I have played Figaros Hochzeit more than 500 times. And I have never tired of it.” (Please note: Mr. Hink was speaking in English but he used the German title of the opera. That opera is Le nozze di Figaro, or, as we say, “The Marriage of Figaro.”)

Figaro is unstalable. And what a gent, Werner Hink.

• Care for a concert review? Jaap van Zweden has completed his tenure as music director of the New York Philharmonic. I reviewed him in the Mahler Second, here. I also made some general remarks about Van Zweden and American culture. My remarks will not be to everyone’s liking — but then, what is?

Oh, I have so much more to tell you. But I have kept you long enough. I’ll catch you on the rebound (as we said in the dark ages). (Odd phrase, I know.)

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