The GOP Abandoning Trump Is Not Praiseworthy. It’s Self-Preservation.
In the months since President Trump lost re-election, a number of Republican leaders have moved to detach themselves from Trump and Trumpism. More may follow in the coming months. But that does not mean they should be praised. Lawmakers have only started to distance themselves from Trump’s sect of the party as his danger—or at […]
Eschewing Electability: What Democrats Can Draw from the Far-Right Playbook
Talking heads, opinion columnists, and mainstream pundits continually stressed that a Democratic victory in the 2020 presidential election was predicated on a nominee who could appeal to centrist swing voters. Political commentator Thomas Friedman, in a New York Times op-ed, pitched Michael Bloomberg as that candidate—one who could send a message of “national unity, personal […]
Bill Who? The Republican Primaries’ Significance in the 2020 Election
Despite President Trump’s approval rating sitting at 44 percent as of March 20, 56 percent of Americans—including 65 percent of independents and 93 percent of Democrats—disapprove of his administration. Even the number of Republicans supporting the president has fallen by two percent since January, when the president’s approval rating peaked at 49 percent. Yet toppling […]
Moderate New Hampshire Voters Hope For Unity, Fear Extremism
New Hampshire, like Iowa, has always been a key state and area of hyper-focus for presidential contenders. It holds the first primary, resulting in a disproportionate influx of rallies and campaigns in the small state and, in-turn, a politically engaged electorate. At a town hall event in Concord on November 9, Joe Biden served chili […]
Why Conservatives Should Conserve the Environment
When the sun comes shining, then I was strolling In the wheat fields waving and dust clouds rolling The voice was chanting as the fog was lifting This land was made for you and me -Woody Guthrie In 2017, Congress passed new tax legislation allowing for the leasing of oil rights in the Arctic National […]
White House, Black Mark: Trump’s Shutdown
There is very little a government can do to frustrate and anger its population more than shut down. Citizens pay taxes and abide by laws—even those with which they don’t agree—and in return, the government abdicates much of its responsibility and ceases to function over issues that do not necessitate such drastic measures.[1] Indeed, this […]
Putting “America First” by Recommitting to Global Health
On Monday, November 14th – six days after the presidential and congressional elections – I piled into an Enterprise rental car with a few friends, and we made the short trip up to Nahant, MA. Representative Seth Moulton was holding a town hall meeting at the public library there, and we hoped to speak to […]
The Case for America: Hardline Republicans Want to Have Their Cake and Eat It Too
To the surprise of many long-time political watchers, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell kept his word in negotiations with his Democratic counterpart and allowed a week of free-flowing debate on the Senate floor to discuss immigration policy.[1] Rather unsurprisingly, however, the GOP-controlled chamber failed to perform its duties and pass any substantive legislation. Instead of […]
The Republican Tax Bill: The Good, the Bad, and The Ugly
Ever since losing control of the government in 2006, Republicans have been striving relentlessly to reclaim their hold on power. Throughout their obstructionist escapades during the Obama administration, Republicans made promises to their voters to enact large-scale conservative reforms once voted back into power, and they were especially intent on reversing the enactment of the […]
The Red Menace: The GOP’s Quest to Turn America into a Single-Party State
When Senator Jeff Flake revealed that he would not be seeking re-election, he delivered a moving speech that sounded like an epitaph for traditional conservatism. The senator from Arizona lamented the death of a conservatism based on values, from a bygone era when Republican candidates offered visions and values, using rhetoric and logic to defend […]