Here is a taste of Brooks’s recent New York Times column: Biden’s cheerful confidence is an unappreciated national asset. As American power has come to be underestimated, especially since the election of Donald Trump, a man like Biden, who has...
Joe Biden
The Times (London) on Trump’s former court evangelicals and the 2024 election
I was happy to help The Times with this piece. Click here for larger context. Here is a taste of David Charter’s article: John Fea, a historian at Messiah College who studies evangelical culture and politics, said: “This is a...
A socialist reminds Charlie Kirk that Joe Biden is not a socialist
The MAGA right, including right-wing pundit Charlie Kirk (he’ll be at an evangelical megachurch near you this weekend) is fond of saying that Joe Biden is bringing socialism to the United States. This is laughable. Ben Burgis of Jacobin is...
Metaxas says Biden and Pelosi are not Catholics and anyone who believes otherwise are buying into a “lie” from the “pit of hell”
Metaxas showed-up at a Trump rally in LaTrobe this weekend. The Biden and Pelosi stuff starts at the 2:38 mark: My “favorite” part of this interview is at the 3:10 mark when the Trump-loving Metaxas says that “when somebody lies...
How the students and alumni of one Christian college are benefiting from Biden’s debt-relief plan
The school is Fresno Pacific University, a Mennonite Brethren university in California. Here is Katherine Knott at Inside Higher Ed: As congressional and state Republicans explore ways to block President Biden’s loan-forgiveness plan, one Christian college is touting its benefits...
Remembering September 11, 2001
Joe Biden gave a great speech today. Watch:...
Was Biden wrong to call MAGA Republicans “semi-fascists”?
Over at The Washington Post a scholar of fascism suggests that the phrase “semi-fascism” makes sense, historically, when applied to Trump. Here is a taste of Federico Finchelstein’s piece: President Biden has taken a firm stance on the modern-day threat...
Is Joe Biden’s student debt relief plan “populist”?
This is an interesting piece by Sebastian Milbank, online editor of The Critic. He argues that Biden is a better populist than many on the Right. A taste: What did (and does) populism consist of, outside of a vague rhetorical...
American historian Sean Wilentz on Marco Rubio’s “fake populism”
Distinguished Princeton historian Sean Wilentz was recently part of a group of historians (and others) that Joe Biden invited to the White House to discuss the fate of American democracy. Marco Rubio called the group “elitists” and “snobs” working against...
The impending disaster
Yascha Mounk, a political scientist at The Johns Hopkins University and defender of liberal democracy, lists five reasons why the United States may be heading for disaster. They are: “Trump is Anti-Democratic” “A Second Trump Term Would Be More Dangerous...
Trump gave rural American Supreme Court justices and trade wars. Biden is bringing them economic relief.
Robert Leonard writes about the Midwest. His recent piece at The New York Times is titled, “Biden Has Already Done More for Rural America Than Trump Ever Did.” A taste: In under two years in office, President Biden has done...
This woman is not alone
She probably represents a small part of the population, but people like this are out there. Watch:...
Nikki Haley’s “foolish, self-serving, and pernicious” comments about the Putin invasion of Ukraine
In case you missed it, former South Carolina governor and Trump U.N. Secretary Nikki Haley is tweeting and talking. In this video she seems like she is running for president against Biden: In an interview with Chuck Todd on Meet...
Historian Heather Cox Richardson interviews Joe Biden
They talked about Kentanji Brown Jackson, Build Back Better, and American Democracy. Watch: Richardson writes about the experience at her wildly popular Substack page: Every day, people write to me and say they feel helpless to change the direction of...
Have you heard about the new State of the Union sitcom?
It’s brought to you by Trevor Noah and the Daily Show:...
Who is Kim Reynolds
She is the governor of Iowa. Last night she gave the Republican response to Joe Biden’s State of the Union address. As Elaine Godfrey writes at The Atlantic, the GOP picked her to deliver the response to “show voters that...
Biden searches for common ground in State of the Union address
Last night Biden delivered a solid State of the Union Address. Not great. Nothing to write home about. But solid. It was the speech the country needed this week. I give credit to Joe Biden for his effort to find...
Will Ukraine define Biden’s presidency?
For LBJ, it was Vietnam. For George W. Bush, it was September 11, 2001. Will the Russian invasion of Ukraine define the Biden presidency? I think it is way too early to tell. Future historians will see more clearly. Nevertheless,...
Biden will nominate Katanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court
Amid all the Ukraine coverage, the Supreme Court has not received much coverage on cable news in recent days. But today Joe Biden nominated the first Black woman to the Supreme Court. Her name is Katanji Brown Jackson. Here is...
The New York Times condemns the Russian invasion of Ukraine
Here is a taste of the editorial: …Vladimir Putin is giving a master class in dangerous and destructive leadership and making it all the more important that President Biden and other nations stand resolutely together in the face of threats,...