By the summer of 1974, it was clear to leading Republicans that Richard Nixon would not be able to survive Watergate. It fell to Republican leaders like Barry Goldwater, Senate Minority Leader Hugh Scott of Pennsylvania, and House Minority Leader John Rhodes of Arizona to tell the president that support among his partisans in congress had collapsed and his presidency … Read More

The government has re-opened but governing by crisis continues. On Monday, Senate Democrats opted for a tactical retreat and agreed to a resolution to fund the government for three weeks in exchange for a promise from Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to permit debate on an immigration measure. This allowed Republicans and the White House to claim victory in the weekend … Read More

Maybe presiding over a government shutdown on the first anniversary of his administration is too perfect a metaphor for the most incompetent president in American history. Perhaps it was inevitable that a president whose business resume is filled with wreckage would be at the center of negotiations that would lead to such a fundamental and glaring failure. But I have … Read More

Republicans are not going to impeach Donald Trump. They are not going to invoke the 25th Amendment to take away his nuclear toys. They are not going to do these things because for the past ten years Republicans have been committed to finding ways to hold power after their political coalition had fallen apart, and they can no longer hold … Read More

Political events in 2017 offer many reasons to believe that 2018 will bring a sweeping rebuke to Donald Trump at the ballot box. With the mandatory caveat that nothing should be taken for granted or regarded as predetermined, the past year has provided all the necessary preconditions for a backlash which—depending on its size—threatens to undermine or possibly eliminate the … Read More

The first norm-shattering, chaotic year of the Trump administration will be remembered for the president’s relentless assault on every democratic institution that threatens his power and ego needs. He delegitimized the press as purveyors of fake news. He characterized bureaucrats as malevolent “deep state” actors. He attacked the judiciary when it refused to rubber stamp his dictates and the FBI … Read More

It’s been well over two months since I last posted here—and that wasn’t by design. My day job has been keeping me unexpectedly busy while national events have moved so rapidly that a brief post here or there wouldn’t have been sufficient to keep up with our exhausting political reality show. Things are finally starting to quiet down at work, … Read More

Two items this weekend from the New York Times speak to the possibility that we are well along the road to a political realignment, a theme I have been writing about for a long time. First, a column by Frank Bruni describes Steve Bannon’s plan to destroy the Republican establishment if he is unable to reshape the party in his white nationalist … Read More

John Danforth, a long-serving former Republican senator from Missouri, on Thursday became the latest unelected member of his party to condemn Donald Trump. In an opinion piece published in the Washington Post, Danforth ripped into Trump as un-American for sowing dissent and division. He correctly noted that “Trump is always eager to tell people that they don’t belong here, whether it’s … Read More