Commentary by Michael Barone

September 23, 2022

Queen Elizabeth II Showed Monarchy's Surprising Resilience By Michael Barone

The funeral of Queen Elizabeth II and the praise pouring in from almost all quarters for her 70 years of service make a powerful case, even for small-r republican and small-d democratic Americans, for the institution of constitutional monarchy. There is much to be said for having a head of state who is politically neutral, culturally traditional but open to popular innovation, personally embodying the traditional strengths of a nation.

September 16, 2022

On Ukraine and on Welfare, Morale Trumps Materiel By Michael Barone

Morale matters more than materiel.

September 9, 2022

Political Careers Are Ending in Failure Because of Outdated 'Expert' Theories by Michael Barone

"All political lives, unless they are cut off at midstream at a happy juncture, end in failure, because that is the nature of politics and of human affairs." So said the British politician Enoch Powell, whose own once-stellar career ended in spectacular failure.

September 2, 2022

Student Loan Forgiveness: A Payoff for the Woke By Michael Barone

"A Bailout for Woke Higher Ed" reads the headline on the stringent analysis by the Wall Street Journal's Allysia Finley of the Biden student loan forgiveness program.

August 26, 2022

In 'Systemically Racist' America, Lots of Whites Vote for Blacks By Michael Barone

It was just a mini headline nationally on primary night this month, but one with some national implications and historic resonance. The city of Detroit, 77% of whose residents are Black, according to the 2020 Census, will not be represented by any Black members in the 118th Congress taking office next January.

August 19, 2022

The Espionage Act of 1917 Once Again Rears Its Ugly Head By Michael Barone

When federal agents removed top-secret documents from former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence last week, they carried with them a search warrant citing possible violations of the Espionage Act.

August 12, 2022

Will Dobbs Help Democrats? Will the Mar-a-Lago Raid Help Republicans? By Michael Barone

Are Republicans losing what seemed for months to be their overwhelming advantage in elections to the House of Representatives this November? The answer is unclear.

August 5, 2022

The West's Long-Lasting Enemies Cannot Be Cajoled b Michael Barone

Revisionist powers, nations whose leaders seek to undermine American leadership in the world, seem to be on the march.

July 29, 2022

Sorry, Progressives, But America Isn't Intersectional By Michael Barone

America isn't intersectional. That's something the left-wingers who call themselves progressives have been learning, painfully, over the past 18 months.

July 22, 2022

Sure, Ron DeSantis Could Beat Donald Trump in 2024 by Michael Barone

How inevitable is a third consecutive nomination of Donald Trump? Partisan commentators, when it suits their purposes, tend to assume it is so.

July 15, 2022

James Madison, 21st Century Pundit by Michael Barone

Could America's Founding Fathers see far, some 234 years, into the future? In declaring independence and fashioning a constitution, they were certainly trying to do so. And, in some cases, they succeeded. Consider this 78-word sentence written by James Madison and published as part of "Federalist 63" on March 1, 1788:

July 8, 2022

Who's Behind Joe Biden's Leftward Lunge? by Michael Barone

What's going on with Joe Biden? Why is a president who ran and was elected as a centrist Democrat supporting one left-wing proposal after another? What has prompted the politician whose sensitivity to public opinion was finely honed for four decades to take one unpopular stand after another?

July 1, 2022

United States of Diversity: The Founders and Dobbs by Michael Barone

DEI -- "diversity, equity and inclusion." University administrators, corporate human resources facilitators and politicians of a liberal stripe all assure us that America is now, suddenly, for the first time in history, a nation of diversity, equity and inclusion .

June 24, 2022

Can Government Build Things Again? By Michael Barone

Give the New York Times's Ezra Klein credit for identifying a problem with big government institutions. "Our mechanisms of governance have become so risk averse that they are now running tremendous risks because of the problems they cannot, or will not, solve," he tweeted. The subject was San Francisco's attempt to make permanent the parklets, or parking spaces used as outdoor restaurant space, through 60 pages of regulations.

June 17, 2022

The Secular Right Versus the Woke Left By Michael Barone

This month, I've come across two outstanding articles by writers I had not previously known on important trends on the political right and political left.

June 10, 2022

What Was the Left Thinking? By Michael Barone

Whether you're contemplating San Francisco voters' recall of left-wing District Attorney Chesa Boudin or the plight of Democrats nationally as they face voters' dismay at out-of-control inflation, immigration and crime, the question is liable to come to mind: What were they thinking?

June 3, 2022

Politics as the Leisure of the Theory Class Michael Barone

Politics has increasingly become, for many Americans, the leisure of the theory class. That's a phrase from the early 20th century sociologist Thorstein Veblen, which I turned on its head in a recent column. He was condemning the showy consumerism of the contemporary rich for having no economically practical purpose. I, on the other hand, was describing the political preoccupations of contemporary people, mainly high-education liberals but also low-education populists, as having no practically achievable goals.

May 27, 2022

Primary Results: Trump Repudiated, Republicans Enthused, Democrats Focused On Theoretical Issues by Michael Barone

Complete and utter repudiation. That's what a record number of Republican primary voters in Georgia administered to former President Donald Trump this Tuesday. The man he blamed for not contesting his narrow 2020 loss in the state, Gov. Brian Kemp, won renomination with 74% of the vote.

May 20, 2022

It's Not Exactly Trump's Republican Party by Michael Barone

Is it Donald Trump's Republican Party? You can make the case it is, as partisan Democrats do, from the victories of various candidates endorsed by the former president in Republican primaries. But it's not an airtight case, and Trump's batting average is inflated by the dozens of endorsements he has made of incumbents with no significant primary opposition.

May 13, 2022

Progressives' Version of 'Democracy': 2 Plus 2 Equals 5 by Michael Barone

They may or may not have been playing the song "The World Turned Upside Down" when Lord Charles Cornwallis's troops surrendered to Gen. George Washington at Yorktown in 1781, but there's good reason to sing it now.

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