If Donald Trump goes to church regularly, he’s kept it a pretty good secret. He and his wife have made sure to alert the press on the few times he does attend services, for instance on Christmas and St. Patrick’s Day. Otherwise, the president seems to worship regularly only at the Church of the Hole… Continue reading Ayatollah Trump
The Republican Party, since its takeover by Reaganauts in the 1980s, has long favored shrinking the federal government to the point at which it can be “drowned in the bathtub,” to use Grover Norquist’s colorful phrase. Tax cuts reduce the federal budget. Budget cuts weaken social programs. Even cutting remarks have their effect. Reagan got… Continue reading Will Trump Rule by Decree
As he nears the end of his second year in office, Donald Trump has reached the high point of his influence and power. For the last two years, the president has relied on a Congress controlled by the Republican Party. He took advantage of this congressional control to appoint two Supreme Court justices. He also… Continue reading Peak Trump
Even popular series can hit rough spots in their second seasons. Take The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, the Amazon breakout about a young Jewish housewife in the late 1950s who improbably establishes a connection with Lenny Bruce and becomes a hilarious, foul-mouthed stand-up comedian in her own right. The first season sparkled. The second season brings… Continue reading Review: Trump Presidency Season Two
During a lifetime of make-believe, Donald Trump has never pretended to be a conventional politician. When he finally decided to make a serious bid for office, he built his presidential aspirations on the flimsiest of foundations: a wild conspiracy theory about Barack Obama’s birthplace. His leadership bona fides were equally laughable, having presided over bankrupt casinos and failed real-estate projects,… Continue reading Say Goodbye to the Guardrails of Governance
The recent anonymous op-ed in The New York Times about the resistance to Trump within his own administration was supposed to reassure the American people. Don’t worry, the writer was saying: We the “steady state” are making sure that an unhinged president doesn’t blow up the world. Behind the scenes, the “adults in the room”… Continue reading The GOP Wants Trumpism without Trump
In 2012, Roseanne Barr ran for president. The actress/comedian received the nomination of California’s feminist-socialist Peace and Freedom Party. She chose Cindy Sheehan, the anti-war activist, as her running mate. Barr took strong positions on environmental sustainability. She wanted the United States to withdrawfrom Iraq and Afghanistan, and she opposed any war with Iran. She criticized the right-wing… Continue reading Dear White People
Don’t kid yourself: 2016 was a revolutionary year in the United States. Yes, I know, the United States is a deeply conservative country. Americans don’t engage in periodic attempts to overthrow the system. There is no viable political party that threatens the status quo. When protesters gather in Washington, they have no intention of storming… Continue reading The Insurrectionists
If I were a Trump supporter, I’d be furious at the coverage of the president’s first 100 days. The mainstream media has engaged in a bout of competitive schadenfreude as headline writers and columnists vie for the distinction of deriving the most pleasure from the administration’s failures. Pundits and journalists have made much of the… Continue reading Worst. 100 Days. Ever.
Two days before the November elections, Elizabeth Moreno was driving to the Democratic Party headquarters in Manassas to pick up a list of addresses. She was planning to spend another day of canvassing to get out the vote for her candidate Hillary Clinton. Elizabeth had taken off a full week from her job at one… Continue reading Goodbye, Clinton!
In my senior year of college, my Russian teacher pulled me aside. He told me that the CIA was recruiting on campus. I should consider applying for a job. It was 1986. Mikhail Gorbachev had taken the helm of the Soviet Union, but the Cold War was still very much in place. “The CIA?” I… Continue reading Bartleby the American
In the typical time travel story, an enterprising person from the future goes back to 1922 to assassinate young Hitler, or to 1963 to interrupt Lee Harvey Oswald in the Texas School Book Depository in Dallas. This time, however, the smarter denizens of the future world didn’t save us from the horrors of the present.… Continue reading It Can’t Happen Here (But It Just Did)
Much has been made of the swing in political allegiances of neoconservatives in favor of Hillary Clinton. As a group, Washington’s neocons are generally terrified of Trump’s unpredictability and his flirtation with the alt-right. They also support Clinton’s more assertive foreign policy (not to mention her closer relationship to Israel). Perhaps, too, after eight long… Continue reading Clinton and the Neocons
The system is rigged. Let’s be clear: the American political system favors the two major parties and our economic system favors the wealthy. The global system is similarly rigged in favor of powerful countries (such as the United States) and powerful economic actors (such as transnational corporations). This is not, however, a conspiracy. No secret… Continue reading It’s Rigged: Takes One to Know One
The world according to Donald Trump is very dark indeed. The American economy has tanked. Mexico has sent a horde of criminals over the border to steal jobs and rape women. The Islamic State, cofounded by Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, is taking over the globe. “Our country’s going to hell,” he declared during the… Continue reading Trump the Arsonist
When I was a kid, my extended family got together for the holidays. One of my uncles was a big, fat guy who looked like Santa Claus without the beard. He loved to laugh and tell jokes. When I was really young, I thought he was hilarious. As I got older, however, I began to… Continue reading The Damage Trump Does
The history of political parties is rather boring. Not much has changed since the French Revolution, which produced the the terms “Left” and “Right” to reflect where people sat in the National Assembly. The early 20th century saw the rise of Communist parties on the far left. Shortly later, fascist parties began to emerge on… Continue reading Trump and the Transformation of Politics
Here at Emergency Travel Services, we believe that it’s never too early to plan your vacation. Or your emigration. Based on the latest polls, most of you are confident that Donald Trump won’t be elected president in November. If the election were held today, according to statistician Nate Silver, Trump would have about a 12… Continue reading The Globalization of Trump
Donald Trump presents his worldview as fresh and new. He promises to shake up the U.S. foreign policy elite that Hillary Clinton represents. He heaps scorn on the Obama administration’s approach to the Middle East, its failures to engage Russia and North Korea, its woeful neglect of the U.S. military. He wants U.S. allies to… Continue reading Trump: Not the Peace Candidate
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has staked out a foreign policy position quite distinct from his opponent, Hillary Clinton. It is not, however, “isolationist” (contra Jeb Bush and many others) or “less aggressively militaristic” (economist Mark Weisbrot in The Hill) or “a jolt of realpolitik” (journalist Simon Jenkins in The Guardian). With all due respect to… Continue reading The Myth of Trump’s Alternative Worldview
Every era has its representative figure. The Neolithic era had the Farmer. The avatar of the Middle Ages was the Monk, bent over an illuminated manuscript. For the period before and after 1492, the Explorer captured the global imagination. During the Industrial Revolution, the Worker embodied the age of manufacturing. And now we have the… Continue reading The Gunman
The voters vowed to take their revenge at the polls. They’d missed out on the country’s vaunted prosperity. They were disgusted with the liberal direction of the previous administration. They were anti-abortion and pro-religion. They were suspicious of immigrants, haughty intellectuals, and intrusive international institutions. And they very much wanted to make their nation great… Continue reading Donald Trump and America B
In poker, a wild card can add to the fun of the game. But it throws off the odds and makes the hands more unpredictable. That’s why poker purists prefer to keep jokers and other wild cards out of the deck. In American politics, the presidential primaries usually function as a vetting process to remove… Continue reading Donald Trump: Joker’s Wild
He wants to cut back on U.S. military commitments overseas. He calls the Iraq War “one of the worst decisions ever made in the history of our country.” He promises to make deals with America’s adversaries. He’s comfortable with the détente with Cuba. And he really pisses off the stuffed shirts at The Washington Post.… Continue reading Trump: Foreign Policy’s Useful Idiot?
It would have been difficult, after the 2014 elections, to imagine that President Barack Obama could achieve much of anything in his last two years in office. After all, the opposition Republican Party had taken control of both houses of Congress in the midterm elections in 2014. The Supreme Court, led by the right-leaning Chief… Continue reading Obama’s Recent Victories
Before the gale-force hurricane of Reaganomics swept through the United States in the 1980s, America very briefly entertained the adoption of a deliberate industrial policy. As in South Korea and certain European nations, the U.S. government would pick economic winners and losers and direct funds accordingly. This was no utopian idea. After World War II,… Continue reading Venture Capitalists Rule the World
There are several types of missing persons. Some missing people are missed so publicly that their absence is a presence. Vanished children reappeared on milk cartons and then later in amber alerts. American soldiers, killed in action or MIA, look out at us from rows of photos like headstones in the newspaper on Memorial Day.… Continue reading The Missing
To: John Brennan, Langley HQ From: Operative 650, McMurdo Sound Re: Politics 2.0 Greetings from Antarctica. It’s not so bad here, as long as you like tinned peas and snow blindness. But seriously, thanks to several months of sunless winter, I’ve been able to learn Urdu, top my previous high score in Spider Solitaire, and… Continue reading Robot-in-Chief
Economic inequality is a hot topic in America these days. It is the subject of hefty bestsellers, presidential addresses, and even Hollywood movies. The issue has even appeared on the radar screen of foreign policy pundits. In this Sunday’s Washington Post, former assistant secretary of state Kurt Campbell writesabout how “income inequality undermines U.S. power.” Campbell writes about… Continue reading The Life and Times of Michael B
With the exception of a spike immediately after September 11, Americans don’t trust their government. Take a look at a graph of public trust from 1958 to 2014, and you’ll see the rate drop from around 70 percent half a century ago to the dismal 20-something depths of today. The government shutdown in 2013—the supreme expression of… Continue reading Obama and the Gordian Knot of Politics