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Summer is usually a sleepy time in American public life. Not so in 2025. The United States have careered from crisis to crisis, from the 12-Day War with Iran to the buildup of military assets around Venezuela to the assassination of Charlie Kirk in Orem, Utah. 

The last of these is the subject of this issue’s cover story from our associate editor, Joseph Addington. While so much of coverage has been devoted to the motives and connections of the killer, Addington brings a fresh angle: This tragedy happened in a particular place among particular people. What are they like? How could this happen there?

The 20th anniversary of another tragedy occupies Bradley Devlin: Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath. Devlin skillfully recounts the disastrous response and even worse public relations that overshadowed the remainder of the failed George W. Bush presidency, and observes how the current administration has clearly taken lessons from it. 

Rounding out this issue’s features are two reports about the world abroad: Jude Russo on the United Nations General Assembly at New York and William Collins on migrant workers in one of the most immigration-restrictionist countries in Europe, Hungary. The world abroad has a way of intruding into American public life, for better or worse. Evie Solheim reports on assisted suicide in Canada and what it presages for the United States. Sumantra Maitra examines the troubles tearing apart the United Kingdom’s social fabric, and Nic Rowan reviews a book on Saudi Arabia, the ambivalent power of the Middle East. Saudi Arabia’s history is of course closely linked with that of Islamic extremism and terrorism, which set off the 20-year American adventure of the Global War on Terror. Andrew Day reviews Seth Harp’s blockbuster book on the destruction that war brought home, The Fort Bragg Cartel. 

This is our final issue dated to 2025. We are enormously grateful for the support you have given us through this momentous year; The American Conservative is blessed with a loyal and generous readership. If you like what we’re doing, please subscribe, and please consider making a tax-deductible donation. We do it for you, and we can’t do it without you. Selah.