Since the election, I’ve been waiting for insight, hoping for an explanation. None has arrived. And at this point, almost a month after election day, none is likely to. The unanswered question, the question whose answer has eluded not only me, but every pundit I’ve read, is how so many Americans – very nearly half … Continue reading Notes from the Aftermath

We’ve heard a lot recently about “Project 2025,” a policy paper released by the conservative Heritage Foundation that was initially positioned as a transition guidebook for a second Trump administration, but which Trump promptly claimed to know nothing about (because who but him can have any ideas he would subscribe to?). Its guiding premise – … Continue reading Toward a Better “Project 2025”

Joe Biden’s belated decision not to seek reelection has turned the Democratic prospect of almost certain defeat in November into one where victory seems at least possible. Not probable — given the abruptness of the anointment of Kamala Harris as the party’s standard bearer, the policy baggage she carries, and American voters’ proven reluctance to … Continue reading It Won’t Be a Landslide Anymore…and That’s a Problem

Of the many reactions to the recent attempt on Trump’s life at his rally in Butler, PA, surely the most misguided is the need on the part of investigators and the media to assign a motive to the would-be assassin, to discover what “ideology” might have driven him to fire upon the rally, nick Trump … Continue reading The Hunt for “Motive” in the Attempt on Trump

With the upheaval surrounding the attempted assassination of Donald Trump — for that’s what it was— much remains unclear this following night. How could security at a political rally for a presidential candidate of Trump’s provocativeness (if that’s the right word) have broken down to the extent that such an obvious line-of-sight, long-range attempt on … Continue reading The Attempted Assassination of Donald Trump

Well at least now we know. No waiting in agonizing suspense till November. Donald Trump will win the presidential election. We know this because most of America watched Joe Biden debate Trump last night, and we all know what we saw: two old men, one of whom has aged much more profoundly and rapidly than … Continue reading The Biden Debacle

Who runs for the position of Vice President is a matter of importance in any election year, but in this one the question looms particularly large. Both presidential candidates are of an age that neither can be counted on to live out his next term. Biden’s presumptive running mate, Kamala Harris, is one of the … Continue reading “What J.D. Vance Believes” is Rather Unbelievable

We all love to complain about politics and politicians, especially in an election year as fraught as this one. But occasionally we need to raise our sights above the immediate fray and consider the structural defects in our electoral system that we can actually do something about. It’s already clear that the 2024 presidential election … Continue reading The Unnecessary Tyranny of the Electoral College

Israel’s military action against Hamas is now in its sixth month. While numerical measures of its consequences are in constant dispute,[1] at least 100 people remain hostages of Hamas, some of them almost certainly undeclared dead, and Israel's response has claimed over 33,000 civilian casualties and caused untold billions in damage to homes, buildings, and … Continue reading Israel in the Present Tense

My fellow Republicans: I stand before you as a distant runner-up in the Iowa and New Hampshire primaries. I’m here to concede those losses to Donald Trump, but also to take a step back and refocus on what we’re in the process of doing as a political party, and as a country: we’re in the … Continue reading The Concession Speech Nikki Haley Should Give