TLP Weekend Edition (July 26-27, 2025)
What we're reading and checking out.
🇨🇳 The Party's Interests Come First: The Life of Xi Zhongxun, Father of Xi Jinping, by Joseph Torigian. This biography, the first written in English, tells us so much about not just Xi Jinping’s father—an incredible character in his own right—but also the history and development of the Chinese Communist Party and state in the 20th century and, of course, Xi himself. As a companion to the book, Jordan Schneider’s fantastic China blog, ChinaTalk, features a lengthy interview with Torigian, “Xi's Father: Torigian's Epic New Biography,” that will whet your appetite for the book. Both are highly recommended if you have even the slightest interest in China.
Joseph Torigian’s The Party’s Interest Comes First: The Life of Xi Zhongxun, Father of Xi Jinping is a monumental scholarly achievement—easily a contender for one of the best China books of the decade. Joseph’s goal, in his own words, was to “shine as much light into the darkness of the past as possible” to understand the nature of authoritarian politics, and he succeeds beyond my wildest expectations.
This biography gives me a feel for Chinese politics that I honestly thought I’d never have. It does an incredible job of digging deep to shed light on some of the most consequential moments in CCP history, as well as conveying what it was like to live as a senior official under Mao and Deng. Reading it was a powerful experience at both an intellectual and human level.
We get memorable vignettes, like 15-year-old Xi Zhongxun attempting to assassinate a teacher, or General Peng Dehuai using his shoe to silence Xi Zhongxun’s snoring in their shared bunk.
In this interview, we discuss:
What we can learn about authoritarianism, the CCP, and China’s future from studying Xi’s father,
Torigian’s methodology for uncovering hidden Party history,
How the Party became an existential source of meaning, and how it weaponized suffering to paradoxically deepen political loyalty,
The arc of Xi Zhongxun’s life — from a young revolutionary to key advocate of reform — and his role during Tiananmen,
The interplay of family, love, and career under the all-encompassing shadow of the Party,
The role of “Surrogate fathers” and patronage in navigating political ascent,
How literature shaped China’s early revolutionaries, and even impacted the Party as we know it today.
📰 “Like Trump, Obama Has Immunity,” in The Wall Street Journal. This week, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, a former Democrat, released a batch of documents purporting to show “a treasonous conspiracy” in which she implicated former President Barack Obama, a weighty charge to lob at any president. President Trump has hinted he may want to pursue charges against his predecessor. However, the WSJ Editorial Board reminds the current president of a recent Supreme Court ruling that helped shield him from his own post-presidential prosecution:
Has Mr. Trump so quickly forgotten his victory at the Supreme Court in Trump v. U.S.? The Justices held 6–3 that a President can’t be prosecuted for exercising “core constitutional powers,” and he has “presumptive immunity” for “official acts.” This surely includes Mr. Obama’s supervision of spy agencies.
Critics accused the Court of bowing to Mr. Trump, but the decision applies equally to Mr. Obama and President Biden. As Justice Neil Gorsuch put it during oral arguments: “We’re writing a rule for the ages.”
The Journal, no friend of Democrats, also notes that Gabbard seems to be overstating the case against Obama. Read the full thing here.
📊 “June 2025 Omnibus Multi Party and Quadrants,” by Echelon Insights. We’ve recommended the top-notch work of our friends at Echelon several times over the years. They are back with a super interesting new survey featuring elaborate details and explanations about the famous “four quadrants” of American politics—adding an axis for “establishment” and “anti-establishment” sentiments among voters.
Check out the full slide deck for more information on the issues and attitudes that make up the quadrants and this interactive chart showing demographic trends
🇬🇧 Double Cross: The True Story of the D-Day Spies, written by Ben Macintyre and narrated by John Lee. Looking for an excellent audiobook for a long morning/evening summer walk? Check out this insane and entirely true tale of how British intelligence turned the Nazi spy operation into a web of deception covering up the true landing spot for the D-Day invasion.
On June 6, 1944, 150,000 Allied troops landed on the beaches of Normandy and suffered an astonishingly low rate of casualties. A stunning military achievement, it was also a masterpiece of trickery. Operation Fortitude, which protected and enabled the invasion, and the Double Cross system, which specialized in turning German spies into double agents, tricked the Nazis into believing that the Allied attacks would come in Calais and Norway rather than Normandy. It was the most sophisticated and successful deception operation ever carried out, ensuring Allied victory at the most pivotal moment in the war.
This epic event has never before been told from the perspective of the key individuals in the Double Cross system, until now. These include its director (a brilliant, urbane intelligence officer), a colorful assortment of MI5 handlers (as well as their counterparts in Nazi intelligence), and the five spies who formed Double Cross’s nucleus: a dashing Serbian playboy, a Polish fighter-pilot, a bisexual Peruvian party girl, a deeply eccentric Spaniard, and a volatile Frenchwoman. Together they made up one of the oddest and most brilliant military units ever assembled.
With the same depth of research, eye for the absurd, and masterful storytelling that have made Ben Macintyre an international bestseller, Double Cross is a captivating narrative of the spies who wove a web so intricate it ensnared Hitler’s army and carried thousands of D-Day troops across the Channel in safety.
The book and narration are both superb.
🎸Live at Copenhagen Opera House, Copenhagen, DK April 5, 2025, by Father John Misty. Josh Tillman and his crack band put on a show for the ages in Copenhagen this past spring. The songs on the setlist mainly come from his highly enjoyable latest record, Mahashmashana, and offer a mix of styles that work very well live. TLP saw this Father John Misty tour in Nashville over the winter and caught another show last night at the Greek Theatre in L.A. with the legendary Lucinda Williams and Hamilton Leithauser. Enjoy this silky opener for a taste.
As to the Trump administration prosecuting Obama, they can’t and shouldn’t, but Obama, et al should be exposed for their corruptive chicanery and expose the greediness of political parties and the narcissistic extremes they will go to for power.
Russia-gate makes it apparent that a lot of people within the federal government, from the highest office on down, are virtually outside the law; and this raises the question of what should we do about it. Setting up one’s successor, the newly elected president, to fail is apparently not illegal, according to many. But to do so is obviously wrong, rather than right; and is certainly damaging to America - and could even be catastrophic for our nation.
Even if Obama, et al can’t be jailed because of how immunity is interpreted; we can’t allow immunity to morph into impunity for vile political acts.
At a minimum, situations like the R/gate collusion, when discovered, must be thoroughly investigated, publicly exposed, and tried in a court of law (no plea deals) - how else can we, as a people, prevent and repair the resulting damage. Such actions can be condoned as “just politics”, and become part of the democrat (or GOP) party play-book. Just suppose this had happened to Eisenhower, Kennedy, Nixon, or Clinton?