Politics

As counting continues and lawyers gear up for courtroom battles, Election Day now looks to become Election Week, and maybe even Election Month. But while we do not yet know who will be president, November 3 allows us to see certain political realities more clearly. One notable reality: the ongoing ignorance of our leadership class. […]

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. The president owes much of his margin in Florida to strong gains in Miami’s Cuban-American community, while in Texas he won largely-Hispanic […]

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. Neither of those outcomes will delegitimize the rules of the game as much as the rules failing to supply a clear outcome; pray […]

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 I walk to work each day, my mind does not dwell on Trump or Biden. I go past closed hotels and empty office buildings. At […]

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 […]

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 […]

As part of American Compass’s “Party Foul” series, which seeks to set forth mistakes and self-service by the political establishments of both parties, Henry Olsen has played penitent and confessor for the Right. Republicans have committed, according to him, “three deadly sins,” in the form of market fundamentalism, snobbery, and hubris. I will happily agree […]

Donald Trump’s presence in 2016 was heralded as a fundamental shock to the system, as a new way for the Republican Party, as a final nail in the coffin of zombie Reagan-era public policy pushed by the billionaire and think tank class in Washington.  As important as Trump has been for showing that there is […]

Campaign books are not written for the ages. But they can be telltales. A New Catholic Moment: Donald Trump and the Politics of the Common Good is a good example. It indicates a shift away from freedom as the leading motif on the American right and toward solidarity. The book was put together by CatholicVote.org, […]

Supreme Court Justice Ginsburg’s death roiled an already unsettled the political scene. A pitched battle is underway over who will succeed her and when. David French urges Republicans to stand on principle. He sketches a way forward that has Trump nominating a replacement before the election. The Senate will then hold hearing but refrain from […]

This morning’s commentary from the Wall Street Journal editorial board is of great scientific import, a fragile creature crushed into a perfectly preserved fossil by the forces of reality. Future researchers tracing the evolution of the American right-of-center from market fundamentalism to a viable economic conservatism will regard it as a vital transitional form—like a […]

In the 1972 presidential campaign, Richard Nixon’s leading theme was “law and order.” Traumatized by urban riots, student protests, and the first wave of what would be a historic increase in crime, voters handed him a historic victory. Nixon won 49 states and 60 percent of the popular vote. In early June, not a few […]