As Biden Takes Office, Trump’s Shadow is Inescapable – at Least for Now

Given Donald Trump’s ability to dominate the news both before and during his presidency, it is perhaps not surprising that he remains the subject of the most immediately pressing political question in Washington: Should Senate Republicans use the pending impeachment trial in the Senate to forbid the outgoing president from […] Read more »

Riots will cost GOP its natural advantage in 2022

The Republican Party is at a crossroads: Break with President Trump, stick with him to maintain support with a majority of the GOP’s voters, or muddle through the next two years with uncertainty. But the direction of the party won’t be determined by party leaders meeting in secret. It will […] Read more »

Trump leaves America at its most divided since the Civil War

Donald Trump ends his tumultuous presidency with the nation confronting the greatest strain to its fundamental cohesion since the Civil War. The January 6 assault on the US Capitol capped four years in which Trump relentlessly stoked the nation’s divisions and simultaneously provided oxygen for the growth of White nationalist […] Read more »

If the Capitol mob had been Black? Most Americans say the police would have been harsher

By a wide margin, Americans say the police response to the mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol would have been harsher if the rioters had been mostly Black rather than mostly white, a new USA TODAY/Suffolk University Poll finds. A 55% majority says law enforcement would have employed harsher tactics […] Read more »

Americans, braced for violence at the inauguration, see democracy damaged after Trump

Most Americans are braced for violence at President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration Wednesday, a new USA TODAY/Suffolk Poll finds, amid an overwhelming consensus that the nation’s democracy has been weakened since the last president was sworn in four years ago. The survey finds an anxious and embattled electorate, the divisions from […] Read more »

Biden wins wide approval for handling of transition, but persistent GOP skepticism on issues will cloud the opening of his presidency

Two-thirds of Americans approve of President-elect Joe Biden’s handling of the transition ahead of his inauguration Wednesday, but mixed confidence in his leadership on major issues along with President Trump’s hold on the Republican Party present sizable challenges for the early days of the new administration, a Washington Post-ABC News […] Read more »