In this edition of The Stakes, Michael Anton, lecturer in politics and research fellow at Hillsdale College’s Kirby Center, and a Claremont senior fellow, is joined by Michael Millerman, founder of the Millerman School. The two discuss Strauss' complicated yet rewarding book, Thoughts on Machiavelli. Other topics include: whether and to what extent Machiavelli is a philosopher, how to read Machiavelli's writings effectively, and what wisdom Machiavelli had to offer that is still helpful in our current political climate.

This week, truckers in Ottowa took to the streets in protest of Trudeau’s newest vaccine mandates. Trudeau responded by promptly catching COVID himself, and accusing the truckers of every imaginable evil. Meanwhile, stateside, Whoopi Goldberg thinks Jews are just white, which got her suspended by ABC--should we care? Plus: Peachy Keenan joins the show throughout and answers your mailbag questions!

Jordan Peterson announces his resignation from his tenured academic post, and Justice Breyer’s retirement is leaked. The reverse renaissance in the West accelerates with deadly speed in the arts and sciences marked by the destruction of merit and high art and the celebration of deceitful propaganda. Will the ruthless and world historic Lady MacBeth finally will her way to power? Our editors make their predictions about a possible Breyer-Kamala-Hillary parlay and encourage the creativity of a pirate radio approach in this new world. 

At the World Economic Forum, led by International Supervillain Klaus Schwab, Moderna has announced its plans to get absolutely everyone vaccinated against everything (or else) with its new omni-jab. While the big pharma CEOs bathe in their piles of cash, Biden is trying, poorly, to brag about his supposed “accomplishments”—all while skirting foreign policy issues like Russia’s moves to annex Ukraine. Our editors have thoughts.

Project Veritas has released documents suggesting that COVID-19 is the product of U.S. taxpayer funds through EcoHealth Alliance. If true, this would confirm what the editors have been thinking out loud on The Roundtable for months. Realizing that now is the time to pivot away from COVID hysteria, the regime now faces the monumental task of talking down the very people it spent three years traumatizing. Plus: President Biden’s voting rights demagoguery is both amusing and horrifying at once—is there a quantum pill to be had?

New year, same old headlines. Legacy media figures, desperate for ratings, haven’t stopped talking about January 6 since it happened. But the polls are damning for the media’s narrative. Democrats, quietly aware of the president’s unpopularity, are flailing about for alternative options. Plus: progressive men are getting vasectomies for an amusing reason.

It’s the end of a long and frankly, a surreal year. After one hundred episodes of the Round Table, our editors look back on a cascade of demoralizing events and articles to ask: is there cause for optimism? Through all the inflation, the gender madness, and the school board wars, one theme emerges—the ruling class wants you feeling hopeless. But you’re not: the editors look ahead to a future of based local action in pursuit of virtue.

America’s economy continues to crumble, but don’t worry! the ruling class is here to fix everything by spending trillions of dollars we don’t have. Inflation is only the newest symptom of their long train of abuses. COVID politics roll endlessly on as the US fights its cold civil war online and off.

California is making noise about becoming a “sanctuary state” for abortions. Everything that hurts Democrats is “voter suppression.” And Ron DeSantis wants 200 people to help him with vaccinations and natural disasters, which is insurrection or tyranny or something. Our editors spend some time in bizarro world parsing the woke lies.

Populist and nationalist Éric Zemmour has announced his candidacy for president of France with a stirring anti-woke speech reminiscent of Charles de Gaulle’s speech from exile in WWII. Meanwhile, on the home front, Fauci has declared that he is the science. Plus: a murder in Beverly Hills shows the alarming deterioration of law and order in blue states. Our editors examine the battles over wokeness on two continents.