President Trump said last month that he had “learned a lot from Richard Nixon,” and many interpreted his hard-line response to the street protests of recent days as a homage of sorts to the 1968 campaign. The president’s Twitter feed has been filled with phrases famous from the Nixon lexicon […] Read more »
For Trump, It’s Never Been About the Economy
A growing number of Republicans, including President Trump, argue that Democratic governors are keeping their states closed to intentionally slow the economy and hurt Trump’s chances at reelection. Some Democrats, including many who worked with President Obama during the last fiscal crisis, worry that a partial rebound of the economy […] Read more »
Why COVID Was Never Going to Produce National Unity
… Many observers have expressed amazement at how quickly the nationwide public health crisis of COVID-19, itself not inherently an ideological or divisive issue, has evolved to conform to the outline of familiar culture-war conflicts. But to the media outlets that now exercise substantial influence over the national Republican Party, […] Read more »
When the Mask You’re Wearing ‘Tastes Like Socialism’
The Covid-19 pandemic has divided Americans into two camps. To no one’s surprise, lockdown politics have joined the legion of issues that pit Democrats against Republicans. … The partisan fight over the lockdown has shown us, once again, how differently the choices government leaders make look to different constituencies of […] Read more »
The ‘Hard Hat Riot’ Was a Preview of Today’s Political Divisions
This was something genuinely new, and raw. Even jaded viewers tuning in to the network news on May 8, 1970, must have been shocked to see helmeted construction workers waving enormous American flags and chanting “All the way, U.S.A.” as they tore through an antiwar demonstration in Manhattan’s financial district […] Read more »
Tracking The Pandemic In The Battleground: Wave 2
The Tea Party-Trump Republican Party was forced to lead the country’s response to the pandemic and that accelerated the polarization of the country and marginalization of the GOP — at a very high human cost. Donald Trump took leadership of a modern Republican Party shaped profoundly by the Tea Party […] Read more »