National Review

Demography is destiny in politics, or so we have heard. In 2004, the growth of the exurbs was said to be generating a permanent Republican majority. Now the strong support for the Democrats by young people, Hispanics, and non-Christians is said to be creating an unstoppable trend toward liberalism.

* This article is adapted from Reihan Salam's and Ross Douthat's Grand New Party: How Republicans Can Win the Working Class and Save the American Dream.

In the 20th century, a global network of colluding activists, institutions, and governments sought to engineer solutions to various real and perceived social problems by, as Matthew Connelly puts it in his new book, planning "other people's families." In its most egregious expression, this movement led to the forced sterilization of millions of people around the world, including many thousands in the U.S., on the grounds that they were -- genetically or otherwise -- unfit.

In the sprawling desert city where Osama bin Laden was born almost half a century ago, last week the Saudis held their first international counterterrorism conference. A couple of days after the conference ended, Riyadh was the first city to vote in the only nationwide elections that have been held since the modern Saudi kingdom was founded three quarters of a century ago.

In Things to Come, Alexander Korda's classic 1936 version of the novel by H. G. Wells, a petty dictator in a war-ravaged corner of Europe is waging a campaign against the neighboring "hill people." The year is 1970. The "Boss," a Milosevic type played by Ralph Richardson, is thwarted by Wings Over The World (WTW), a group of scientists and engineers planning to rebuild civilization along rational and cosmopolitan lines. Their colossal, high-tech aircraft easily best the Boss's primitive planes and humanely neutralize his population with the harmless, sleep-inducing Gas of Peace.