I get the sense that this is not only the low point of the Trump presidency but the low point of the American presidency ever. Has any president ever been this overmatched by a crisis?
If it comes to Trump vs. Warren, the only plausible choice is Warren. Over the past month Trump has given us fresh reminders of the exceptional ways he corrupts American life. You’re either part of removing that corruption or you are not.
I believe in democracy. I believe in a free press. I believe in open debate. I love it when my newspaper prints pieces I disagree with. It causes me to think.
When I started covering politics I was struck by how often politicians made physical contact with voters and journalists. It wasn’t about sex. It was about connection. Joe Biden, who emerged in that era, is one of the finest people I’ve ever covered.
Instead of spending the past 3 years on Mueller and impeachment suppose Trump opponents had spent the time on an infrastructure bill or early childhood education? More good would have been done.
I’m the most horrified I’ve been in my career as a political journalist and the most relieved. This election won’t be close. Have faith in the American people!
Yesterday I had one impression of the maga kids from Kentucky. Now after seeing more videos I have a different more complicated impression. Makes all the hot takes seem silly.
This has been one of the worst weeks of our collective lives: 100K dead, an economy still collapsing, racism, murder, conspiracy mongering, a president more contemptible by the day. Hang in there. It will get better.
Beto O’Rourke and John Brennan owe Donald Trump a public apology. If you call someone a traitor and it turns out you lacked the evidence for that charge, then the only decent thing to do is apologize.
Some obits are reporting that John McCain was driven by “raw ambition.” In my experience he was driven by an inherited sense of honor and a ferocious love of country.
Only 12 percent of Millennials call themselves consistently conservative or mostly conservative. This is the most important statistic in American politics right now.
Our job in the media is to capture reality so that when reality voices itself, like last night, people aren’t surprised. Pretty massive failure. We still are not good at capturing the rightward half of the country.
This is how moral corrosion happens. Supporting Trump requires daily acts of moral distancing, a process that means that after a few months you are tolerant of any corruption. You are morally numb to everything.
The pathetic and dishonest Weekly Standard, run by failed prognosticator Bill Kristol (who, like many others, never had a clue), is flat broke and out of business. Too bad. May it rest in peace!
Mark Shields is stepping down from his weekly slot on the PBS Newshour. He’s the best colleague I’ve ever had in any job. Warm, wise, considerate, generous, a man of unimpeachable good character. He puts his love of country to excellent use!
When the indictments come down, Trump won’t play by the rules. He’ll seek to delegitimize those rules. He’ll seek to delegitimize our legal institutions. He’ll seek to destroy the edifice of law in order to save himself.
Republicans have now flipped 15 Democratic House seats even with a losing candidate atop their ticket. Somehow it seems foolish to govern as if progressive views are all that matter.
I’ve just watched populism destroy traditional conservatism in the G.O.P. I’m here to tell you that Bernie Sanders is not a liberal Democrat. He’s what replaces liberal Democrats.
The polarization industry describes an America divided over the virus. That’s false. 98% of D’s and 82% of R’s support the social distancing regime. All things considered we’re quite united.
One of the great problems of the moment is that morality has been replaced by politics—the language of sin, forgiveness and redemption by the language of power competition.
After apartheid, some South Africans told me financial sanctions were minimally effective but sports sanctions really worked. On top of everything else maybe we should ban Russian teams/athletes.
Ari, this is inaccurate cynicism. I have never heard of one of my colleagues doing anything like what the Fox pundits did with Trump. Not even in the same universe.
I wonder what it would look like if MSM anchors, columnists and reporters released their texts to Obama officials, Hillary’s campaign team as well as Biden’s staff.
The most important story about why Americans have become sad and alienated and rude, I believe, is also the simplest: We inhabit a society in which people are no longer trained in how to treat others with kindness and consideration.
Never in my life have I seen a candidate so confidently avoid wedge issues. Biden is instead running on the conviction that, despite it all, Americans deeply love their country, and viscerally long for its unity.
McConnell must have anticipated Trump’s attack on him. He should have voted to convict. If you’re going to take Vienna you better damn well take Vienna.
The problem with today’s left-wing and right-wing ideas is that they are both based on the fantasy that the other half of America can be conquered, and when it disappears we can get everything we want.
Fed-Exed the final hand edited manuscript of my next book to my publisher. Somebody at Fed-x sliced open the package and stole it, except for one chapter. Now I’m wondering: what’s wrong with that chapter?
How writers think.
On Meet The Press I mentioned that school shooting rates have been plummeting since the 1990s, causing some outrage and shock on Twitter. Here’s a write up of the data. 4X as many kids were killed per year back then.
I just got off a call with the House and Senate members of the
@NoLabelsOrg
group who wrote bipartisan the COVID relief compromise. I have never seen so much cohesion and loyalty among members of Congress. Something big is happening there.
This moment of heightened danger and crisis makes it even clearer that the No. 1 domestic priority for all Americans who care about democracy is to make sure Trump never sees the inside of the Oval Office ever again.
“The anti-Trump echo chamber is becoming a mirror image of Trump himself — overwrought, uncalibrated and incapable of having an intelligent conversation about any complex policy problem.”
Christopher Hitchens was one of the great essayists in America. He would be unemployable today because there was no set of priors he wasn’t willing to offend.
Steve and Jonah have been two of the bravest journalists during this whole mess. They’ve taken positions that carry real costs. Think about supporting
@thedispatch
.
Charles Krauthammer is obviously brilliant, courageous and principled, but what leaps to mind is his boyish joy watching game after game at Nat’s Park. The sweetness of his heart matches the rigor of his intellect.
Progressives: If Trump-style Republicans were trying to impeach a President Biden, Warren or Sanders, and there was evidence of guilt, would you vote to convict? Answer honestly.
One amendment to my column today. If Nadler believes the “constitutional crisis” is over Trump’s blanket refusal to cooperate with Congress (rather than the narrow subject of redaction) then is he correct.
In elite institutions there is a minority who are progressive and intolerant. There is a large majority who are progressive and tolerant. Life is a lot more complicated and contested than many anti-wokesters imagine.
In which David Brooks seems to argue that there is no such thing as a woke revolution transforming all of our institutions. I'm against illiberal conservatism, but I'm not going to deny the new power of illiberal leftism.
It’s hard to run for national office from California or New York. The urban parts of those states are so unrepresentative you don’t understand what you’re about to face.
The main takeaway. Attempts to argue that Biden is a tool of the hard left are failing. He’s created a center-left coalition well within the American mainstream.
The Republican Party is doing harm to every cause it purports to serve. You don’t help your cause by wrapping your arms around an alleged sexual predator and a patriarchic bigot.
Readers, many of us got involved in the Black Lives Matter marches last summer. Do Black lives matter to you only when they serve your political purpose? Shouldn’t we be marching to get Black and brown children back safely into schools right now?
Moral formation is not like learning math. It’s not cumulative; it’s inverse. It’s through the sins and the ensuing repentance that moral formation happens. We try not to judge people by what they did in their worst moment, but by how they respond to them.
This isn’t a state imof emergency. It’s a spoiled child awarding himself a participation trophy after he lost the game. It’s solely about Trumps need to tell himself he’s a winner after it’s clear he lost the shutdown.
I don’t think it ever occurred to Trump or Giuliani that what they were doing with Ukraine was unethical. Life must be perpetually surprising when you have been denuded of all moral sense.
Many affluent kids have fled the public school disaster for private schools. It’s Black and brown kids who live in cities with progressive mayors and powerful unions, and those are the places where in-school learning has been closed down.
America is sadly divided between the 90 percent who are obsessed with Joe Exotic and the 10 percent who’ve never heard of him. We need to come together as a nation.
In this version you had a Native American man being swarmed by white (boo!), male (boo!), preppy (double boo!) Trump supporters (infinite boo!). If you are trying to rub the pleasure centers of a liberal audience, this is truly a story too good to check.
“Joe Biden is like one of the fathers in the neighborhood I grew up with as a kid,” Springsteen told me. “They were firemen and policemen, and there was an innate decency to most of them that he carries naturally with him. It’s very American.”