Outside the Beltway

Because sometimes the comment box is just too small.

More centrist fantasies.

The lines aren’t everything, but they need more attention than they get.

We used to (usually) know the results on Election Night because the outcomes were clearer.

A generic attack ad that’s cringeworthy in the specific.

The most popular television product is running out of room to expand.

Would bypassing politicians altogether make the system more just?

Linking to a piece I wrote for The Conversation.

A dramatic if likely symbolic move.

31 of the 35 Senate races next month are noncompetititve.

Mary Peltola’s election was a milestone for America’s First Peoples.

No one should draw conclusions about RCV from the AK special election.

A new meme started by Republican leaders is mostly false.

The Speaker’s trip was reckless, needlessly escalating an already tense situation.

A proposal by Jamell Bouie

What should conservatives who can’t support the party of Trump do?

Police and the Punisher Skull

Assuming they had the votes, should Democrats carve out yet another exception?

Republicans killed their parents and demanding mercy for being orphaned.

Yet another reminder of the pathologies of American institutions.

The most expansive firearms legislation in decades is likely to become law.

Calling it a “deal” is vastly over-selling it.

From the Cliché File.

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).

More on primaries with a foray into Madison and the general politics of power-seekers and incentives.

Our representation problems are far, far more about structure than they are about the messaging of the parties.

Oklahoma’s near-total ban is part of a larger trend.

Greatest democracy in the world, right?

New Mexico Senator Ben Ray Luján is hospitalized with a stroke.

The court wisely deferred to Congress in setting its own rules.

It doesn’t add up.

A necessary but likely irrelevant gesture.

The longtime Senate leader is gone at 82.

Twenty-three and counting will not run in 2022.

Counting is not necessarily as straightforward as it may seem.

We’re likely to see more instances like the Capitol Riot and the Kyle Rittenhouse shootings.

Democrats and Republicans are playing by different rules.

Our system and the shaping of the GOP’s future.

The erosion of representativeness continues.

Voters are suppose to choose elected officials, not the other way around.

The liberal media is giving all their attention to the tax and spend Democrats!

Really, they owed (and still owe) us better behavior.

It hasn’t changed in over 100 years (but the population sure has).

An interesting podcast conversation.

It’s not getting any better, folks.

Kinda, sorta, maybe, but probably not really.

It passed the Senate unanimously.

The law and justice are frequently not the same thing.

And general considerations on mid-term elections.

The long shift of population from the Rust Belt to the Sun Belt continues—with the unusual exception of California.