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It’s now clear that Joe Biden will be America’s next president. While Democrats will undoubtedly celebrate this fact, the overall election results should give little comfort to them, given their failure to re-establish the party’s historically successful New Deal coalition, especially the working-class component. 

As counting continues and lawyers gear up for courtroom battles, Election Day now looks to become Election Week, and maybe even Election Month.

The wags are having their fun with an election result that hinges upon whether Joe Biden garners sufficient support from white voters to negate an apparent surge toward Donald Trump among minority groups.

A contested election—especially one in which an unelected body casts the final vote—is the worst possible outcome next week. Trump winning in a landslide would be preferable. So would a Biden blowout.

Most of us are fixed on November 3. This is understandable. Elections are important, and this one seems more important than most. But I live in New York City. As Read more…

In the weeks leading up to Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation as Supreme Court Justice, much was written about the new conservative feminism that Barrett arguably embodies. But as Ross Douthat asked in his column at The New York Times, “can there be a conservative feminism that’s distinctive, coherent and influential, at least beyond quirky religious subcultures like the faculty at the University of Notre Dame?”

In late August, one day after the Republican National Convention had officially begun, David Frum penned an essay in The Atlantic that purported to outline “[w]hat the Republican Party actually stands for, in 13 points.” Frum was responding to the GOP’s decision not to publish an official 2020 platform, which had “led some to conclude that … it stands for not

Elaina Plott discusses the future of the Republican Party and conservative movement, highlighting American Compass’s leadership in forging a path forward.

The American Enterprise Institute has just released a new white paper that defends the CARES Act against arguments from the right. Contra deficit hawks and libertarians in Congress, Jay Cost argues that recent deficit-financed economic stimulus falls squarely within the “parameters of Republican orthodoxy on economic conservatism.”

 Nicholas Lemann discusses the ideological future of both parties, highlighting American Compass as a leader in the movement to bring back a genuinely conservative approach to economics.

Self-examination is a useful exercise. I’m grateful to Henry Olsen, Micah Meadowcroft, Josh Hammer, and Michael Lind (in a cognate posting) for their reflection on the sins of the American right. I’d like to add my voice to this collective mea culpa. As a sometime theology professor, I’ll key my observations to the classical list of seven deadly sins.

In March 2016, as Donald Trump was headed toward securing the nomination of the Republican party for president at the Republican national convention in July, I published a piece in The National Interest about the collapse of the establishment Republican agenda.  Today, on the verge of the 2020 election, my essay is as relevant as ever:

If a realigned Republican Party is to emerge as a viable national political force, the ever-incisive Henry Olsen will be one of its leading architects. His American Compass essay, “The Three Deadly Sins of the Right,” once again shows us why. I would merely like to expand upon Olsen’s groundwork.

I will happily agree that those are three of the sins of the American Right. But while Olsen ties snobbery and hubris primarily to Republican religiosity, separating them out from market fundamentalism, I consider the three of a piece with each other, and Olsen’s concern about GOP Christianity a bit of a red herring. 

PRESS RELEASE—American Compass’s October collection explores how Democratic and Republican establishments have been co-opted by a ruling class with little connection to most Americans’ needs.