'Mostly Peaceful' Violence and Dueling Double Standards By Michael Barone
Pictures matter. Images convey truths -- and falsehoods -- with an emotional impact that can amplify and sometimes completely overwhelm the messages imparted by words.
Commentary by Michael Barone
Most Recent Releases
February 5, 2021
January 29, 2021
The United States of Racial Quotas and Preferences By Michael Barone
On Tuesday, six days into Joe Biden's administration, it became clear why Susan Rice, hitherto a foreign policy specialist, was named director of the Domestic Policy Council. Rice -- unconfirmable for a Cabinet post after her unembarrassed Sunday show lying about the Benghazi terrorist attack -- ventured into the White House press room to preview Biden's "equity" initiative.
January 22, 2021
Biden's Heartfelt Appeal for Unity Likely to Be Unavailing By Michael Barone
"We must end this uncivil war," Joe Biden proclaimed shortly after he became the 46th president on Wednesday. Hours earlier, in his last moments as the 45th president, Donald Trump extended "best wishes" to the "new administration." Graceful words, but accompanied by sharp and, in some cases, deserved attacks. Our presidents since George Washington have come to office through an inevitably adversary process, and while they may inspire "unity" on occasion, that's more the exception than the rule.
January 15, 2021
From Impeaching Incitement to Canceling Conservatism By Michael Barone
It wasn't just Donald Trump's detractors who felt a sudden sense of relief when they heard that Twitter was blocking his feed after the storming of the Capitol and the disruption of the reading of the Electoral College results on Jan. 6. While President Trump's exact words to the crowd on the Ellipse didn't constitute a criminal incitement, they were uttered with a reckless disregard for the possibility that they'd provoke violence, which any reasonable person could find impeachable.
January 8, 2021
Will Democrats Ditch a Policy That's Produced More Equal Incomes? By Michael Barone
The policies of defeated one-term presidents are not as easily reversed as their victorious successors, suffused with campaign rhetoric, sometimes suppose they will be. Even when, as now, the winning party has majorities in both houses of Congress.
January 1, 2021
The Year America Went Crazy By Michael Barone
Did America go crazy in 2020? I suspect observers years hence will think so because of the responses, of both elite officials and ordinary Americans, to the COVID-19 pandemic starting last February and to the shocking video from Minneapolis police officers released over Memorial Day weekend.
December 25, 2020
Immigrant Voters Trended Toward Trump By Michael Barone
Like Sherlock Holmes' dog that didn't bark in the night, so goes in politics: Uncharacteristic behavior can turn out to be crucially significant -- uncharacteristic behavior in politics being defined as one demographic group unexpectedly trending one way when most of the electorate trends the other.
December 18, 2020
Biden: Identity Politics and No Apologies By Michael Barone
Identity politics seems to be sticking around. Important election results seemed to refute the notion that Americans vote for their ethnic or racial identity. Hispanic voters trended significantly toward the supposedly anti-Hispanic Donald Trump, and Californians, while voting 63% for Joe Biden, rejected racial quotas and preferences in a referendum by an even larger margin than in the 1990s.
December 11, 2020
The Unbearable Lightness of White College Democrats By Michael Barone
Eighty-five percent of counties with a Whole Foods store voted for Joe Biden. That factoid, relayed by The Cook Political Report's David Wasserman, tells you something important about the election -- and about today's Democratic Party.
December 4, 2020
Democrats Reaping What They Sow By Michael Barone
"My sense is that if Trump wins, Hillary supporters will be sad," left-wing writer Sally Kohn tweeted the day of the 2016 election. "If Hillary wins, Trump supporters will be angry. Important difference." Kohn turned out to be wrong about her own side that year, which angrily set about delegitimizing Donald Trump's victory. She was wrong, too, in her apparent assumption -- shared by shop owners who boarded up their windows -- that Trump supporters would react as violently to his defeat as the Black Lives Matter movement reacted to a death in Minneapolis.
November 27, 2020
Republicans Retain a Marginal Advantage in Redistricting By Michael Barone
One of the many big surprises in this month's surprising election was the Democrats' failure to overturn Republican majorities in state legislatures. Various Democratic committees budgeted $88 million to flip majorities in big states such as Texas, Florida and North Carolina. Total gains: zero.
November 20, 2020
Californians -- and Americans -- Reject Racial Quotas and Preferences By Michael Barone
Among the most surprising of the multiple surprising results in this election was California's rejection of Proposition 16. The ballot measure was supported by the Democratic supermajorities in the state legislature; by long-established corporations and Silicon Valley tech firms; by leaders of mainline churches and nonprofit organizations. Some $20 million was spent on its behalf and only $1 million in opposition.
November 13, 2020
A Country Where People Are Afraid to Tell Pollsters What They Think By Michael Barone
"I like a good contrarian argument as much as the next guy," tweets mild-mannered RealClearPolitics senior elections analyst Sean Trende, "but there's really no getting around the fact that the 2020 polling was a pile of steaming garbage."
November 6, 2020
Some Observations on an Extended Election Night By Michael Barone
1. This was not a good night for conventional polling. My review in Tuesday's Wall Street Journal of a book on the history of "polling failures" took perhaps too positive a view of contemporary polling. I find it remarkable that polling has been as accurate as it has been in a country where the completion rate for pollsters' contacts is below 10% -- but it got worse this week. The Real Clear Politics average of recent polls showed Joe Biden with more than 51% of the popular vote and Donald Trump with 44%. As this is written, Biden has 50% of the tabulated national popular vote, which will probably rise as California's data comes dribbling in, but Donald Trump has 48%. So, the current 1.9% Biden plurality is far lower than the polls' 7.2% Biden plurality.
October 30, 2020
The Perils of Political Trifectas By Michael Barone
If the final election returns, when they finally come in, match the current polls, Joe Biden's Democrats will win a trifecta: the White House and majorities in both houses of Congress.
October 23, 2020
Both Candidates' Risky Strategies By Michael Barone
Are both presidential candidates trying to lose? Or at least pursuing campaign strategies which put them at grave risk of defeat?
October 16, 2020
Court Packing Is No Hypothetical By Michael Barone
On Monday, Joe Biden finally broke his monthslong silence on court packing. Previously, he refused to take a stand -- "whatever position I take in that, that'll become the issue," he said in the Sept. 29 debate, said voters didn't "deserve to know" his position or would know it "when the election is over,"
October 9, 2020
Lockdown Enthusiasts' Risk Aversion Is Producing a More Unequal Society By Michael Barone
Now that Donald Trump exited from Walter Reed Hospital and the vice presidential debate aired, let's turn to an apolitical analyst to understand what's happening. Vaclav Smil, 76, native of communist Czechoslovakia and former University of Manitoba professor for four decades, has written 39 books on energy, technology and demography. "Nobody," says Bill Gates, who has read every book, "sees the big picture with as wide an aperture as Vaclav Smil."
October 2, 2020
Worst Presidential Debate Ever By Michael Barone
"Chaos." "Painful." "Dispiriting." "The worst presidential debate in American history." "The lowest point in American political culture in my lifetime."
September 25, 2020
Who's Violating Norms These Days? By Michael Barone
Norms, we are told, matter. Violating norms, recklessly disregarding norms -- these are charges on which President Donald Trump is often arraigned in the court of public opinion.
