Recent Government Commentaries

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Dispatches From the Front
Let me get this straight: … the Senate will vote to approve a woman with ties to authoritarian leaders, a man who has pushed vaccine conspiracy theories for years, and a man on the bubble who openly plans to fire thousands of career FBI agents who investigated Trump’s role on January 6, and have the White House oversee the agency....
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February 5, 2025
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How Do We Rebuild America?
“The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.”—Lincoln We’ve seen an outpouring of help and unified efforts from...
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December 12, 2024
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Good Night, and Good Luck
“You tried to destroy Trump; you tried to imprison Trump; you tried to break Trump. He’s not breakable. You couldn’t destroy him, and now he has turned on you.” That’s Trump’s favorite loyal lieutenant, Steve Bannon, from the former president’s first administration. This time around, he’s playing Lady Macbeth who’s role is fluffer to Donald Trump, making sure he feeds...
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November 18, 2024
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An Unthinkable Loss of Faith
Donald J. Trump didn’t win the election last night; fear and loathing did. Justice, accountability, honesty, character and democratic values lost. If you repeat a lie often enough, the theory goes, people accept it as truth. That theory has become reality. Last night, a majority of American voters bought into the lie that the 2020 election was stolen, that the...
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November 6, 2024
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The Day After Today
After all the votes are counted, will the country stand united, committed to overcoming our differences, or will we continue to let division define us? This is a moment to reflect and decide who we want to be and what kind of country we want to build. We can’t allow ourselves to be drawn into anger, to see one another...
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November 5, 2024
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What America Stands For
We know the darkness—we’re living it—but what about the light? America’s moral conscience reflects our evolving values, shaped by both successes and failures. We’ve seen progress in Civil Rights, Women’s Rights, LGPTQ+ rights, but we’ve also faced dark chapters—slavery, the mistreatment of Native Americans, Japanese internment, McCarthyism, and Watergate. Each of these pivotal moments, both the triumphs and the trials,...
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October 23, 2024
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Trump/Nixon
Imagine if Watergate had been more than just a scandal. Imagine if Nixon got away with it. I don’t mean no one finds out; I mean he beats the justice system, and the only people held accountable are his co-conspirators, Republicans who were sucked into the vortex of loyalty, sacrificing their principles to protect a man who manipulated the levers...
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October 8, 2024
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What Do We Look for in a President?
In a 2016 poll entitled “What Voters Want in a President Today,” Pew Research reported that “more than a year before the first primaries, more voters valued a hypothetical candidate with ‘experience and a proven record’ (50%) than one who had ‘new ideas and a different approach’ (43%). Six months later, those numbers had flipped – 55% said it was...
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September 26, 2024
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The Great and the Regrettable
The Presidential Greatness Project, led by Professors Brandon Rottinghaus and Justin Vaughn, is a research effort that evaluates U.S. presidents through the lens of expert scholars in the field of presidential politics. Every few years, these scholars weigh in on which presidents exemplify greatness based on their leadership, historical significance, and legacy. In 2024, not surprisingly, Abraham Lincoln still holds...
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September 24, 2024
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Facts or Fear
The Rockwellesque city of Springfield, Ohio, has recently been thrust into the national spotlight, not for its charm but because of false claims spread on social media that Haitian immigrants have been stealing and eating the pets of their neighbors. Despite a lack of evidence, former President Donald Trump and his running mate, Senator J.D. Vance, have used the claims...
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September 23, 2024

Read Some of the Most Recent Articles
The Latest... And Often Greatest
Dispatches From the Front
Let me get this straight: … the Senate will vote to approve a woman with ties to authoritarian leaders, a man who has pushed vaccine...
Godfather, Part Now
“I don’t feel I have to wipe everyone out, Tom, just my enemies.”—Michael Corleone, The Godfather Note: I must pause my earlier commentary suggesting how...
The Political System Explained (from the opening of my doctoral thesis)
(Note: this is a rough draft and still undergoing revisions.) Welcome, esteemed colleagues, to a comprehensive exploration of one of the most perplexing and confounding...
Something Like a War
I’ve been revisiting Ken Burns’ series on the history of baseball, and it sparked some interesting comparisons to a subject that headlines the news daily....
Descaling Our Psyches
I recently descaled my espresso machine—removed the limescale buildup that hinders efficiency. How might we descale the returning president from our psyches? Donald Trump has...
Foreshadowing What’s to Come
After learning that one of Donald Trump’s first actions as president pardoned nearly all of the 1,600 January 6, defendants, police officer, Michael Fanone–who was...