Outside the Beltway

What should be the bar? Can it ever be reached?

The Department of Justice takes an utterly unsurprising, but important step in the Mar-a-lago document case

The former president shopped for the right judge.

I warned you all, my predictions are notoriously wrong.

Both sides have had their say and now we wait for a ruling.

The President delivered a rousing stump speech from Independence Hall.

Just when I think I’m out, they pull me back in again… [update: x2]

I mean, really, really, really bad for the former President and his legal team.

It appears that the DOJ has enough evidence to indict someone.

Why would the Trump team release a document that casts them in such a bad light?

Running down the latest “known knowns” with just a bit of analysis

This is as close as we get to Garland saying “Eff around, find out!”

Tell us you don’t know anything about Federal Warrants without telling us you don’t know anything about Federal Warrants

Approval is down (again).

Normalcy is not a bad thing.

The nature of American political reporting distorts our perception of reality.

More intraparty support numbers.

Signs and portents?

Another comment on the American presidency and its critics.

The pressure and expectations of a king, but with considerably less power.

Here we go again . . . .

Much ado about a perfectly normal phenomenon.

Ezra Klein discusses the dynamics of American conservatism in historical perspective. Plus, he helps illustrate a key problem that we have in thinking about American politics (IMHO).

The role of American political institutions.

Added historical context to ongoing conversations about American democracy.

We expect far more from the Oval Office than is reasonable.

They’re not missing and that points to a systemic issue

No, presidentialism does not lock us into two parties.

The Court is out of balance–and it is a design flaw.

Our system lacks accountability.

Doing the right thing on 1/6/20 doesn’t absolve him of being a key Trump enabler.

Shockingly, they’re not remotely equivalent.

Two members of the presidential commission reach the conclusion that expansion is needed.

The erosion of representativeness continues.

A weird new narrative has emerged.

The matter of Executive Privilege and former Presidents is settled law.

Senator Romney and the latest edition of the senatorial pro-filibuster op/ed.

The Politician’s Syllogism rears its ugly head.

His executive order blocks schools from having masking rules.

President Trump’s destruction of longstanding norms continues under his successor.

A meaningless gesture that’s long overdue.

And linkages to broader US politics.

Overruling every case President Trump was involved in is getting silly.

It makes voting harder.

The media became the story but the President was the news.

We tend to focus on the wrong qualities in our early assessments.

What at first blush appears a case of hypocrisy and cancel culture is a violation of professional ethics.

Nonhierarchical parties strike again.

An explanation to a question you likely weren’t asking.

On the one hand, true. On the other, so what?