Before the election, some pundits were predicting that a Trump defeat would cause the Republican Party to split into at least two discrete new parties -- one representing the old GOP's business establishment, the other for the populist firebrands of the Tea Party. As the fight over gutting Obamacare reveals, those factions are in an uncomfortable marriage. But a full-fledged rupture doesn't appear imminent.
Perceptions matter. People make decisions, even life-altering decisions, based on what they perceive as likely to happen. To the extent that public policy affects such decisions, the perception of likely policy change can affect behavior even before the change happens -- even if it ends up never happening.
"The senator from Kentucky," said John McCain, speaking of his colleague Rand Paul, "is working for Vladimir Putin ... and I do not say that lightly."
What did Sen. Paul do to deserve being called a hireling of Vladimir Putin?
Democrats have a path to winning a House majority next year, but that possibility is highly dependent on variables over which they have effectively no control. That’s the takeaway from our initial ratings of 2018’s House races, a list that is heavy on Republicans who start this cycle only mildly endangered.
The good should never be the evil of the perfect. House Speaker Paul Ryan's health care bill is a very good first step. Massive repeal of Obamacare tax hikes will be great for the economy. Getting rid of the Affordable Care Act mandates will be great for health care. Private-sector competition and choice are always better than government-run anything. The Republican Party has to practice bipartisanship within itself.
Here come the hyperpartisan hounds.
Remember how for years after President Obama first got elected we had to hear all about how Republicans destroyed the economy?
Not long ago, a democratizing Turkey, with the second-largest army in NATO, appeared on track to join the European Union.
To back up Defense Secretary "Mad Dog" Mattis' warning last month, that the U.S. "remains steadfast in its commitment" to its allies, President Donald Trump is sending B-1 and B-52 bombers to Korea.
"Most Americans don't like change very much," writes economist and Marginal Revolution blogger Tyler Cowen, "unless it is on terms that they manage and control." That's just one of many provocative sentences you can mine from the riches threaded through his new book, "The Complacent Class."
Next week, Donald Trump releases his new budget. It's expected to cut spending on things like the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
Once again bypassing the hopelessly jaundiced media, President Trump announced that he just learned that his predecessor in the White House bugged Trump Tower during the last election.
“This is McCarthyism!” he declared, in 140 characters or less.
Last month, there was a national "Day Without a Latino." This week, the demonstration du jour shutting down schools and shops is a "A Day Without a Woman." Here's my question for all the virtue-signaling protesters who pay lip service to better jobs and wages:
At Mar-a-Lago this weekend President Donald Trump was filled "with fury" says The Washington Post, "mad -- steaming, raging, mad."
The afternoon before President Donald Trump's Tuesday night speech to Congress, Twitter watchers were treated to a flurry of tweets, inspired by comments at the traditional lunch with network anchors, that the president was going to endorse something very much like the "comprehensive" immigration bills that foundered in Congress in 2006, 2007 and 2013.
Before the largest audience of his political career, save perhaps his inaugural, Donald Trump delivered the speech of his life.
It’s not like they leave much room for doubt about how much contempt they hold for military service and the immeasurable sacrifice that comes with it.
The mark of great presidents is optimism -- visionary optimism and transformational optimism. During Tuesday night's remarkable speech before Congress, President Donald Trump was brimming with optimism from start to end. My guess is that his marvelous speech will imbue and inspire new optimism and confidence throughout the entire country.
With politicos everywhere turning their eyes to the still-distant 2018 midterm election, we thought it would be useful to review some of the basic differences and similarities between the electorates in presidential and midterm cycles. Basically, midterm electorates are smaller, older, and less diverse than presidential ones, but the demographic voting patterns and divisions that we see in midterms are quite similar to presidential contests. What follows is a look at the similarities and differences between the two kinds of national electorates. For the most part, this analysis is based on exit poll data: We used the national exit poll data for the presidential race in presidential years and the national exit poll data for the national House vote in midterm years.
