The coronavirus pandemic appears destined to widen the political divide between the nation’s big cities and the smaller places beyond them. And that could narrow Donald Trump’s possible pathways to reelection. In almost every state, the outbreak is spreading much more heavily in the largest metropolitan centers than in less […] Read more »
Trump Has a Gut Feeling About What Covid-19 Means for 2020
Evidence of President Trump’s mishandling of the current Covid-19 emergency has been building steadily. Most recently, The Washington Post on April 4 (“The U.S. was beset by denial and dysfunction as the coronavirus raged”) and The Times on April 11 (“He Could Have Seen What Was Coming: Behind Trump’s Failure […] Read more »
Tracking The Pandemic In The Battleground
For the first time in our post-Tea Party era, America responded to a big national challenge with a single voice. Nine in ten Democrats, independents, and Republicans embraced social distancing to fight the pandemic in a way that stopped the economy, split families apart and most of all, left most […] Read more »
Another lesson about context: Biden and young voters in 2020
Today, I thought I’d offer another lesson about why context is so important in political reporting and analysis — and how it can affect our view of the 2020 presidential contest. On April 8, NBC News ran a piece online, “Progressive Youth Groups Issue a List of Demands for Joe […] Read more »
How Coronavirus Will Blow Up the 2020 Campaign
The chaos around Wisconsin’s primary last week has raised the level of concern about November’s Election Day to Defcon-1 status. Will Republican legislators in key states block efforts to expand mail-in voting, and force people to stand in line together? Will we be clear enough of the virus for polling […] Read more »
No progressive tea party: Sanders’ exit highlights asymmetry between the parties
The tea party of the left never materialized. While the election of Barack Obama triggered a takeover of the Republican Party by its more radical elements and eventually paved the way for Donald Trump, Democrats have taken a different route during Trump’s presidency and have mostly defeated their populists at […] Read more »