With the powerful case it has assembled against former President Donald Trump, the bipartisan House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021, insurrection may provide the clearest — and potentially most ominous — measure yet available of how completely red and blue America have separated into divergent information bubbles that […] Read more »
Watergate happened 50 years ago. Its legacies are still with us.
On Friday, America will mark the 50th anniversary of the Watergate break-in. The scandal that riveted the nation and forced the resignation of a president is taught in schools as a dark chapter in history. It is more than that, however. Its legacies have shaped the conduct of politics and […] Read more »
Oz had Trump’s endorsement, but didn’t win in Trump country
After more than two weeks of counting and recounting in the Pennsylvania Republican Senate Primary, TV host and physician Mehmet Oz emerged victorious. But one analysis of the primary vote suggests the newly-minted GOP nominee may need to craft a different strategy for his fall campaign against Lt. Gov. John […] Read more »
Donald Trump has become more popular since the January 6 Capitol attack
… Analysts like me remarked over and over again during Trump’s time in office that he was one of, if not the most unpopular presidents. He left office with the lowest approval rating of any president at the end of his first term (39%) and the highest disapproval rating (58%) […] Read more »
A 1955 book on right-wing extremists predicted the Jan. 6 attack
The year was 1954, and the Cold War was in full swing. Sen. Joseph McCarthy (R-Wis.) was seeing Soviet spies in every corner of the government. And a young sociologist at Columbia University, Daniel Bell, convened a seminar to come to grips with the menace of McCarthyism. Bell enlisted an […] Read more »
What Ordinary Republicans Think About January 6
… I live in a deep-red part of America. According to the New York Times neighborhood political calculator, only 15 percent of my neighbors are Democrats. That’s one reason why I laugh when Beltway Republicans and Acela-corridor conservatives purport to explain Trump’s appeal to me. They’re “explaining” the actions of […] Read more »