Edward Carson, a history teacher and Dean of Multicultural Education at The Governor’s Academy in Byfield, Mass., recently wrote this on his Facebook page: Cornel West and I are no longer on speaking terms. I am still a fan and […]
2024 presidential election
Cornel West announces his running mate. It’s Melina Abdullah
In case you forgot, the Black intellectual Cornel West is running for president as an independent. Today he chose his running mate. She is Melina Abdullah, a professor of Pan-African Studies at the University of California-Los Angeles. Here is her […]
Franklin Graham praises Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for his “honesty”
In case you missed it, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is running for president as an independent, told CNN’s Erin Barnett that Joe Biden is a bigger threat to democracy than Donald Trump. Watch: Franklin Graham liked what he heard: […]
“The Church of Trump”
Check out Michael Bender’s New York Times piece on how Trump is infusing Christianity into his MAGA movement. Here is a taste: Mr. Trump’s braiding of politics and religion is hardly a new phenomenon. Christianity has long exerted a strong […]
Mike Pence will not endorse Donald Trump. Does it really matter?
Last week Mike Pence announced that he would not endorse his former boss, Donald Trump, in the November 2024 presidential election. It made for an interesting story– but I doubt Pence’s decision will make any political difference. Why? Because I […]
Trump vs. Biden (and don’t forget RFK, Stein, and West)
It’s official. Donald Trump and Joe Biden secured their party’s nomination for president last night. But there are still so many questions that need to be answered between now and November. Here are a few: Will Trump be a convicted […]
“You can’t love your country only when you win”
I am on the road this month so my reaction to news stories has been a bit slower than usual. Today I finally got caught up on the responses to Joe Biden’s State of the Union address: Watch the entire […]
The 19% are still here!
Back in 2018, I wrote Believe Me: The Evangelical Road to Donald Trump. I dedicated the book “To the 19 percent.” This, of course, is a reference to the 19% of white evangelical Christian voters who did not vote for […]
Let a 1000 president-inspired insurrections bloom!
Yesterday, the Supreme Court overturned the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision to remove Donald Trump from the ballot in Colorado. I am not a legal scholar, but doesn’t this decision suggest that Section 3 of the 14th Amendment of the United […]
South Dakota Senator John Thune is the latest evangelical to jump on the Trump train
Yet another evangelical leader has endorsed a candidate for president who instigated an insurrection on the U.S. Capitol, is under indictment on 91 felony charges, and sexually assaulted and defamed a woman in a New York department store dressing room. […]
The Koch network gives up on Nikki Haley
One of the major funders of Haley’s campaign is not spending any more money on it. Here is Natalie Allison at Politico: Americans For Prosperity Action, the powerful conservative group supporting Nikki Haley in the Republican presidential primary, will no […]
Romney: “I must admit that I find sexual assault to be a line I will not cross in the people I select to be my president”
Mitt Romney still believes in the politics of character. What a dinosaur! 😉 Watch: Compare with this: For those who are not on X, here is Graham’s full text: We need to pray for our country and where it is […]
Could we see a Manchin-Romney ticket in 2024?
West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin may be launching a third-party bid for president in 2024 as the candidate of the bipartisan No Labels organization. And he also may be picking Mitt Romney as a running mate. Or maybe none of […]
Damon Linker urges Democrats to pick a new presidential candidate
Writer Damon Linker, a former conservative (he was once editor of First Things), is the latest to claim that Biden’s decision to run again is a selfish act. He makes the case today at The Atlantic: The Democratic Party is […]
February 8, 2024 revealed a democracy about to fall off a cliff and the American people didn’t bother to “get off the couch.”
Here is Will Bunch of The Philadelphia Inquirer: Some night around the year 2064, when the ragtag children of the last historians huddle around a cave fire and mix up some berries and the blood of their groundhog dinner to […]
Is Joe Biden’s decision to run again an act of selfishness?
Biden is running for president again at the age of 81. I voted for him in 2020 believing he would serve one-term, get the country back on track after the disastrous Trump years, and then ride off into the sunset. […]
Akhil Reed Amar: “Let the states decide whether Trump should be on their ballots”
Yale law professor and author Akhil Reed Amar, one of my go-to commentators on all things constitutional, wrote an amicus brief for the Section 3, 14th Amendment Supreme Court case Trump v. Anderson. Here is a taste of his piece […]
“Trump should be thrown off the ballot.” Historians convince E.J. Dionne
When the Colorado–14th Amendment ballot case broke, Washington Post columnist and public intellectual E.J. Dionne was skeptical. He was among those who thought that Trump should stay on the ballot in Colorado and let the people decide whether he should […]
New poll: Haley trails Trump by 26 in South Carolina
Nikki Haley was a two-term governor of South Carolina, but this does not give her a home-field advantage in the 2024 GOP primary scheduled to take place later this month. A new Monmouth University-Washington Post poll has Trump at 58% […]
Ross Douthat on why conservatives are hostile to Taylor Swift
As I wrote last week, “we now live in a world where a narcissistic sociopath wants to be president again and only a global pop superstar can stop him.” Can Taylor Swift influence the 2024 election? It appears that some […]