Trevor MacKay

26Feb By Trevor MacKayNo Comments

Opinion

Disagree. Please.

Trevor MacKay reflects on the complexities of discussing the Israel-Palestine conflict on campus and recounts a successful event organized by the Buckley Institute that fostered respectful and meaningful debate on the subject. He emphasizes the significance of maintaining civil discourse and intellectual diversity, highlighting a constructive dialogue as a model for engaging in sensitive issues. Trevor MacKayPresident, William F. Buckley Jr. ProgramWell before the horrific terror attacks of Oct. 7 and Israel’s subsequent war in Gaza, discussing Israel on campus was complicated. Protests and rallies from supporters of either Israel or Palestine in recent months make sincere discussion of the issue sometimes seem off the table an...

25Jan By Trevor MacKayNo Comments

Interview

An Interview with Ilya Shapiro

On September 13, 2022 the Buckley Program at Yale hosted Ilya Shapiro and Robert Leider with Yale Law Professor E. Donald Elliott for a Supreme Court Roundup Discussion on Dobbs, Bruen, and West Virginia. Mr. Shapiro is a senior fellow and director of constitutional studies at the Manhattan Institute. Previously he was executive director and senior lecturer at the Georgetown Center for the Constitution, and before that a vice president of the Cato Institute, director of Cato’s Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies, and publisher of the Cato Supreme Court Review. Mr. Shapiro was interviewed via Zoom by Trevor MacKay ‘25 after the event. Mr. MacKay: In your June 6 Wall Street Journal opinion piece, you said "It’s all well and good to adopt strong free-speech policies, but it...

3May By Trevor MacKayNo Comments

Interview

Interview with Senator Ted Cruz, Michael Knowles ’12, and Liz Wheeler

On Monday April 11, 2022, the Buckley Program at Yale hosted Senator Ted Cruz, Mr. Michael Knowles ‘12, and Ms. Liz Wheeler for a live taping of the podcast “Verdict with Ted Cruz” at the Omni New Haven Hotel. A link to the podcast episode can be found here. The event was made possible by the Young America’s Foundation’s Irving Brown Lecture Series. Mr. Trevor MacKay ‘25 and Mr. Aron Ravin ‘24 had the opportunity to sit down and interview the three guests immediately prior to the event: <When asked permission to record, all three assented.> Mr. Knowles: I assume Bezos is already recording. <Laughter> Mr. Ravin. I'm Aron, this is Trevor. I'm the Editor-in-Chief of the Buckley Beacon. It’s the student publication of the Buckley Program. He's the Public...

16Mar By Trevor MacKayNo Comments

Interview

Interview With Jeffrey Lewis

The Buckley Program hosted Professor Matthew Kroenig and Dr. Jeffrey Lewis on February 3rd, 2022 for a Firing Line Debate on US Nuclear Strategy. Dr. Jeffrey Lewis is the director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at CNS. Before coming to CNS, he was the director of the Nuclear Strategy and Nonproliferation Initiative at the New America Foundation. Prior to that, he was executive director of the Managing the Atom Project at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, executive director of the Association of Professional Schools of International Affairs, a visiting fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and a desk officer in the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy. He is a regular columnist for Foreign Policy, and has published arti...

9Mar By Trevor MacKayNo Comments

Opinion

NATO’s Chamberlain Moment

With the unprovoked Russian invasion of Ukraine, the necessity of NATO for the security of Europe is clear. However, the invasion of Ukraine has also proven (again) that Russia has little regard for geopolitical norms and that our liberal order of sovereign nations is not as secure as originally believed. History has shown that authoritarian leaders with imperialist tendencies and delusions of lost national grandeur, such as Vladimir Putin, are unlikely to stop at one territory or country. Indeed, the Ukrainian people are not the first to be victims of Russian aggression, nor will they be the last. Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania may follow soon. As the United Kingdom and the United States affirmed in the Atlantic Charter, “Freedom and independence are today in jeopardy the wor...

14Feb By Trevor MacKayNo Comments

Opinion

The Pandemic of Bureaucracy

The ongoing pandemic has exposed a variety of fault lines in our society. One such fault line lies within the bureaucratic state. This bureaucracy has always existed to a certain extent, but the existence of COVID-19 has accelerated its influence and reach. I do not mean to suggest that there exists a conspiratorial shadow government, but there is a very real pandemic of bureaucracy infecting all aspects and institutions of society. At the beginning of the pandemic, I was happy to follow along with what I was told by “the experts,” the mostly unelected officials propped up on cable TV or quoted in articles. These individuals had a significant impact on the public policy response to the pandemic, and also on our individual feelings as COVID-19 unfolded around us. “Just two weeks to...