Outside the Beltway

The lack of common understandings and shared assumptions makes political conversations challenging.

A mass shooting in Atlanta draws attention to a problem of which I was only tangentially aware.

Yet another example.

Also some ironic positions on capitalism.

Reacting to the asymmetrical polarization of the electorate.

Yet another reminder about pathologies of US democracy.

Debunking urban legends and Internet rumors is harder than it used to be.

Now, we’re just haggling over price.

There’s more than enough opinion journalism.

The disgraced loser remains as popular as ever with his base.

America’s institutions are undemocratic but only some of them are a product of the Constitution.

America’s Newspaper of Record needs to figure out what it wants to be.

Some reflections

Most Americans have never even heard of it.

Mitch McConnell is testing out his spine again.

It is not a tool to foster compromise. It is tool of obstruction, plain and simple.

Our two-party system distorts the representativeness of our politics.

The Republican Party is not really a thing.

The GOP, alas, is not going anywhere.

AOC v. MTG: one of these things is not like the other.

The aftermath of the January 6 Capitol riots runs into the First Amendment,

Will there be in-fighting? Yes. A break-up? No.

So says Pew.

First whining about losing, now whining about legislation. (And creating chaos along the way).

A very low-spoilers review.

The days of one-stop media shopping are long gone.

Wherein I detail evidence of fraud and take the Heritage Foundation’s database of fraud to task.

The new Ford Mustang may be the harbinger of things to come.

A silly, sexist WSJ op-ed has generated plenty of attention.

Not of governance.

That which worked for petty business disputes was never going to work on this big of a stage.

Saruman’s rigid arrogance ultimately made him pathetic. Sound familiar?

That thing that happens when you sow the wind with conspiracy theories.

Because he’s an idiot.

The inevitable happened, as extremist organizations descended on DC.

In a sane world, Joe Biden’s election win would not have come as a surprise. Alas . . . .

Revisiting predictions about what would happen if what has happened happened.

A reminder that narratives are narratives and data are data.

The early reaction was premature.

Who’s to blame for the Blue Wave not materializing?

We’ve just had an election, not psychoanalysis.

Last night amplifies a long pattern.

It’ll be days before we know the final 2020 results but a resounding repudiation is unlikely.

The degree to which the country is divided is truly shocking.

Rethinking what qualities we should be looking for in Supreme Court Justices.

Election Day is increasingly a myth.

Thinking about what we might know on the night of the election.

Great journalism can result in lousy history.

He has the largest lead of any challenger since modern polling began in 1936.