It was amazing to hear Republican candidate Chris Christie speak words that should be a central principle of society: “There but for the grace of God go I.”
As a result of a recent vogue for feeling culturally embattled, the word “Christian” now is seen less as identifying an ethic, and more as identifying a demographic.
His withdrawal speech sounded like an announcement speech, and it captured the aching ambivalence of Joe Biden. So why didn’t he run the race he wanted to join?
Trump speaks clearly to a group that sociologist Donald Warren identified in 1976 as “Middle American Radicals,” who think the middle class is seriously neglected.
The departure of Scott Walker from the presidential campaign should come as a relief to American working people. But the hostility toward labor he embodied remains.
In his new book on labor, Thomas Geoghegan—a longtime labor lawyer in Chicago—lays out many of the depressing ways that American workers have been moving backward.
The run-up to Labor Day brought news on the actions of the National Labor Relations Board and other government agencies to strengthen the rights of workers.
The principal defense of Obama’s stewardship rests on the idea that his realism about what military power can and can’t achieve has recalibrated America’s approach.
Donald Trump preaches an unadulterated version of a materialistic gospel. Money, he says, is the measure of all things. This is not just vulgar, but dangerous.
We are definitely in for another “Second Coming” revival, and Donald Trump is the least of it. The center is under siege all over the democratic world.
In the short run, Obama simply has to win enough votes for his Iran deal. For the long run, he has to persuade Americans that diplomacy is a safer path than war.
No one is more amazed about the buoyancy of his presidential candidacy than Bernie Sanders himself, which only adds to its charm. Now, in some polls, he’s surging.
A Republican representative’s resolution to “vacate the chair” will likely once again remind John Boehner of the nature of the party caucus over which he presides.
The deal struck by the United States and its partners with Iran to dismantle that nation’s capacity to build a nuclear weapon looks like a remarkable achievement.
The problems that bother us most are those we bring on ourselves. That’s why Republicans are out of sorts with Trump: They created the beast they now want to slay.
It’s telling about today’s Republican party: Kasich would probably be the better bet in the general election, while Walker has a better chance at the nomination.
Will Republicans be able to admit that enforcing “conservative” values about the honor of work might require what are seen as “progressive” measures by government?
Amusing and engaging, Barney Frank’s stories (from sixteen terms in Congress) tell what kinds of “inside politicking” informed the presidencies of LBJ through Obama.
Hillary Clinton’s foes cast her as the candidate of the past, but it’s the GOP, she insists, whose ideas come from long ago. Will voters see her in a new light?
Transparency has brought not openness but paralysis; the ability of legislative bodies to do their job requires a closed door behind which compromise can be reached.
Bernie Sanders is reminding his party of something it often forgets: Government was once popular because it provided tangible benefits to large numbers of Americans.
Why have any sympathy for Jeb Bush? His apparent desire to stay true to his family ties. Loyalty is in short supply in our culture, so I admire it when I see it.
Pundits will have great fun with a socialist in the race. But before laughing Bernie Sanders off, a short primer on socialism in the United States might be useful.
Pinckney’s short history deals with basic things—Reconstruction, Ku Klux Klan terrorism, crude political machinations like Plessy v Ferguson—white people can forget.
It’s Hillary Clinton, not Jeb Bush, who will take former President George H. W. Bush as her role model. Her road to victory was blazed by Jeb’s dad in 1988.
The furor over Indiana’s RFRA raises questions about our capacity to engage in the kind of thoughtful, careful public discussion that issues like this demand.
