Check out Thomas Edsall’s column today at The New York Times. I was happy to contribute to it. A taste: In recent weeks, for example, the former president posted a video called “God Made Trump” on Truth Social that was […]
2024 presidential election
Does Ron DeSantis really have a chance?
No. As I type I am watching DeSantis on a CNN Town Hall in New Hampshire. On Monday he said that he had a “ticket our of Iowa.” Maybe he meant a plane ticket back to Tallahassee, because there is […]
91 felony indictments later and Trump’s evangelical support is growing
As I noted this morning, evangelicals carried Trump to his Iowa win last night. We now know that Trump did much better with Iowa evangelicals this time around. Here is The New York Times: Evangelical Christian voters moved to Trump […]
Douthat: “It’s absurd that there was no unified opposition” to Trump in Iowa
Earlier today I watched Dana Bash of CNN interview GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley at a New Hampshire diner. I’ll let David Goldiner of the New York Daily News describe what I saw: Nikki Haley feigned ignorance about former President […]
Trump wins Iowa with support of evangelicals
As expected, it was a big night for Donald Trump. He won just over half of the 110,000 votes cast in Iowa. Due to the weather, the turnout was very low. Ron DeSantis finished second (21.2%) and Nikki Haley was […]
A very busy Martin Luther King Jr. Day
I can’t remember such a busy–at least in terms of news–January 15th. I’m on a research trip in a southern city that is treating a few inches of snow as if it was some kind of natural disaster, so it […]
Evangelical theologian Wayne Grudem is backing Ron DeSantis because he’ll pardon Trump and was a college athlete (among other things)
Wayne Grudem is at it again. Late last year the evangelical theologian, defender of a complementarian view of men and women, and 2016 and 2020 Donald Trump supporter called on Trump to drop out of the 2024 presidential race to […]
Will Nikki Haley pull off a Gary Hart-style upset in New Hampshire?
The New Hampshire primary–the first of the primary season–is scheduled for January 23, 2004. Sometimes strange things happen in the New Hampshire primary. Remember when: Henry Cabot Lodge beat Barry Goldwater in 1964? Edmund Muskie beat George McGovern in 1972? […]
“Investments, like saplings, do not yield immediate fruit”: Biden deserves more credit
Binyamin Appelbaum makes the case: President Biden has planted a lot of trees during his first three years in office, pushing through Congress bills that direct the investment of billions of dollars into infrastructure, research and subsidies for domestic manufacturing. […]
The old court evangelicals were mostly silent on the third anniversary of January 6th
Saturday was the third anniversary of the January 6th insurrection on the U.S. Capitol. We continue to deal with the fallout of this dark moment in American history. Next month the Supreme Court may decide if Trump was an insurrectionist […]
The Supreme Court will take up the Colorado-Trump ballot case
Here is CBS News: The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to review a politically explosive decision from Colorado’s top court that found former President Donald Trump ineligible for the presidency and would leave him off the state’s primary ballot, stepping into a […]
David Brooks on populism, Trump, and the “zero-sum mind-set”
Interesting observation from his recent New York Times column: Populism thrives on a zero-sum mind-set. The central story that populists tell is: They are out to destroy us. Populist leaders invariably inflame ethnic bigotry to mobilize their own supporters. America’s populist in chief, […]
Donald Trump’s gut and the fate of American democracy
What will happen to truth if Donald Trump is our next president? Here is Megan Garber at The Atlantic: “I have a gut,” Donald Trump announced in 2018, “and my gut tells me more sometimes than anybody else’s brain can ever […]
Will any GOP presidential candidate take advantage of the recent Colorado Supreme Court decision?
The Colorado Supreme Court says that Donald Trump is an insurrectionist and is thus disqualified from holding the presidency in 2024. This story is not over. Trump will appeal. Some commentators are saying the Supreme Court may have to decide […]
Retired conservative judge J. Michael Luttig says the Colorado Supreme Court is correct in keeping Trump off the ballot in 2024
The Colorado Supreme Court ruled yesterday that Donald Trump will not appear on the ballot in 2024 because he is an insurrectionist and the 14th Amendment does not permit insurrectionists to hold federal office. Some of you may recall our […]
Colorado Supreme Court: Donald Trump is an insurrectionist and must be removed from the 2024 ballot
Early today we linked to a piece asking “when, if ever, can a democracy exclude anti-democratic politicians and parties from democratic elections?” Read it here. Well, it appears that the Colorado Supreme Court has its own ideas on the matter. […]
“When, if ever, can a democracy exclude anti-democratic politicians and parties from democratic elections?”
This is a question that Joe Mathews tackles today in the context of an argument for removing Donald Trump from the ballot in 2024. Here is a taste of his piece at Zocalo Public Square I was in favor of […]
Trump tonight in New Hampshire: Immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country”
Here is CNN: Former President Donald Trump doubled down on language condemned for its ties to White supremacist rhetoric, saying at a campaign event in New Hampshire on Saturday that immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country.” The comments […]
Could a Nikki Haley/Chris Christie tag-team derail Trump?
Whatever you think about former New Jersey governor Christie, he deserves heaps of credit for standing up to the Trump in the way he has done this year. I thought his performance at the last GOP debate (University of Alabama) […]
The U.S. economy is doing very well. Why are some progressive unwilling to accept this fact?
Over at The New York Times, economist Paul Krugman makes a “progressive case for Bidenomics.” Here is a taste: There are two big questions right now about the U.S. economy. One is why it’s doing so well. The other is why […]