Ukraine Shows We Live in a Nationalist World by Michael Barone
It turns out that we live in a nationalist world. That's one of the lessons people are learning from the surprise early results of the Russo-Ukrainian war.
Commentary by Michael Barone
Most Recent Releases
March 11, 2022
March 4, 2022
Volodymyr Zelensky Transforms Germany -- and Europe By Michael Barone
It's been a week since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and Kyiv, and even Kharkiv, 20 miles from the Russian border, remain under Ukrainian control. Contrary to many predictions, Russian President Vladimir Putin's forces have fallen short of their goals so far, but there can be no certainty about the outcome in Ukraine -- or Russia.
February 25, 2022
Ukraine's Fate Is Rooted in a Tragic History by Michael Barone
For those trying to keep up with the fast-moving events in Ukraine, it may be helpful to consider some lessons of history. Mistakes made in the past week, added onto developments covering the last two or three centuries, have left the United States and its European allies -- in particular the largest of them, Germany -- unable to prevent President Vladimir Putin's Russia from absorbing an as yet undetermined part of a theoretically independent Ukraine.
February 18, 2022
Must Government Be a 'Big, Waddling, Sluggish Beast'? by Michael Barone
Itinerant policy journalist Ezra Klein, now with the New York Times, has highlighted something interesting about the Biden Democrats' now-defunct Build Back Better package -- something beyond its huge cost (trillions) and its failure to get majority support in the Democratic Congress, just like the single-payer health care bill that recently failed to pass in California's Democratic supermajority legislature.
February 11, 2022
Lamentations About Redistricting Ending Democracy Prove Hypocritical -- and Wrong by Michael Barone
Masks were necessary, especially in schools, to prevent mass deaths. Or so we were told, at great and tedious length -- until suddenly, in the last 10 days, they weren't.
February 4, 2022
Returning to Normalcy on School Masks by Michael Barone
Are we returning to normalcy?
January 28, 2022
Voters Oppose 'Transformative' Policies, Want Reform of Dysfunctional Bureaucracies By Michael Barone
Do Americans really want transformative change? The evidence accumulates that they don't.
January 21, 2022
Abolish Parenthood? No, Family Trumps 'Equity' by Michael Barone
"California should abolish parenthood, in the name of equity." That's the headline of a Ventura County Star column by Zocalo Public Square's Joe Mathews. "Want true equity?" the San Francisco Chronicle headlined the same column three days later. "California should force parents to give away their children."
January 14, 2022
Joe Biden's Deplorable Lies May Not Even Be in His Partisan Interest by Michael Barone
How do you explain why an ultra-experienced politician makes a major speech on the behalf of a legislative goal that is both doomed to fail and unpopular with voters? Especially when his speech is boycotted by the bill's chief backers and consists of one big lie after another?
January 7, 2022
The John Lindsay Democrats By Michael Barone
One way to anticipate what may be ahead in politics is to gauge the balance of power in the nation's two political parties. The Republican Party has always been centered on people regarded by themselves and others as "typical" Americans but who do not by themselves comprise a majority. The Democratic Party has always been a coalition of out-groups, powerful when united but often at risk of division.
December 31, 2021
Plague-Year Immigrants Headed to Trump Country By Michael Barone
I want to add a few notes to my Christmas weekend column on the Census Bureau's July 2021 state population estimates and what stories they tell about growth and decline in the first 15 months of the coronavirus pandemic.
December 24, 2021
A (Statistical) Journal of the Plague Year By Michael Barone
As a Christmas present to statistics lovers, the Census Bureau has released its estimates of the population of the nation and the 50 states as of July 1, 2021. The Bureau admits up front that, due to COVID, its numbers are subject to more uncertainty than usual. But overall, they provide important clues as to how Americans have coped with the pandemic, and how it may have changed the trajectory of national growth and contraction.
December 17, 2021
Against the Religion of 'Woke Anti-Racism' by Michael Barone
"If you pull the camera back and think about 1965, and think about last week, there's been massive improvement. The question is why so many people pretend that that's not true."
December 10, 2021
Redistricting Helps Republicans but Doesn't Guarantee Control By Michael Barone
Here's a suggestion for those who think that partisan redistricting -- or, as is often the case with these plaints, partisan redistricting by Republicans -- threatens to destroy American democracy. Take a look at "The Long Red Thread," the recent history by Sabato's Crystal Ball analyst Kyle Kondik of House of Representatives elections from 1964 to the present decade.
December 3, 2021
A Post-Roe Abortion Political 'Revolution' Is Unlikely By Michael Barone
The Supreme Court, as this is written, is hearing oral arguments in the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, challenging Mississippi's law banning, with a few exceptions, abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. There's a powerful argument that the Court can't logically uphold this statute, which is less restrictive than most other nations' abortion laws, without overturning Roe v. Wade, the 1973 case that overturned all 50 states' abortion laws.
November 19, 2021
Biden Stimulus Failures Could Produce 1920s-Style Republican Victories
What's wrong with the economy? Nobody seems quite sure, but it's clear that the Biden administration's $1.9 trillion stimulus package passed in March, on top of the $900 billion approved in December, the last full month of the Trump administration, has not had the intended results.
November 12, 2021
History Has Some Bad News for Biden Democrats by Micahel Barone
As in the 1880s, we live in an era of polarized partisan parity, in which changes of opinion among independent voters can sweep election results. One year ago, Joe Biden was elected president with 51% of the popular vote. Now, with his job approval down to 42%, his party is in trouble.
November 5, 2021
Biden Democrats Lose Big -- And on Cultural Issues by Michael Barone
President Joe Biden returned the morning of Nov. 3 to a nation that no longer supports him or his party.
October 29, 2021
Health and Education Elites Forced To Confess Error by Michael Barone
Confessions of error are rare enough in woke America that they should be strictly construed against the speaker. Two such confessions (the legal term is "admissions against interest") suddenly appeared last week.
October 22, 2021
Republicans Gain Big in Blue-Collar Elections But Narrowly in Affluent State Legislative Elections by Michael Barone
State legislative special elections provide an interesting index of partisan sentiment these days. That wasn't so in the late 20th century, when clever local candidates and notables often got voters to cross party lines. But in this century of increasing partisan polarization and straight-ticket voting, local special elections are a proxy for opinion on national issues.
