Lowering the bar for the Biden administration

Less than two years from now, during Joe Biden’s first midterm election — and assuredly four years from now, during the next presidential contest — one of the two parties is likely to raise an inevitable question: “Are you better off now than you were two — or four — […] Read more »

Death threats and intimidation of public officials signal Trump’s autocratic legacy

Rioters storm the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, seeking to intimidate politicians into overturning the presidential election. AP Photo/John Minchillo Shelley Inglis, University of Dayton As the impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump approaches, federal officials are investigating threats to attack or kill members of Congress. This comes […] Read more »

A roadmap for the new Congress: From dysfunction to meaningful change

As Joe Biden assumes the presidency, there is an urgency to responding to the crises Chief of Staff Ron Klain put in a memo to the senior White House staff and the president emphasized in his inaugural address: the pandemic crisis, the resulting economic crisis, the climate crisis, the ongoing […] Read more »

Why Biden’s bipartisanship hope is probably already lost

If there was one big message from President Joe Biden’s inaugural address, it was bipartisanship and unity. This theme wasn’t surprising given that inaugurations are often about coming together and Biden’s 2020 campaign emphasized unity over division. Still, the underlying political disagreements that have led to nastiness will almost certainly […] Read more »

The Trump approach to politics may have captured the GOP permanently

… Recent work by political scientists characterizes the struggles within conservative parties as key for democracy. Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson’s book “Let Them Eat Tweets” addresses what they call “the conservative dilemma.” The core of this dilemma is that in modern democracies, the conservative party tends to be more […] Read more »