One week after a violent mob breached the U.S. Capitol, threatened lawmakers and forced evacuations, members returned to the House floor. What followed was an emotional, and often angry, debate about recrimination for the president who many argued incited the riot that resulted in five dead. … There was a […] Read more »
The Party Still Doesn’t Decide
… In the past, a party tried to move on from their presidential losers quickly. Democrats spent years trying to rebrand themselves after Pres. Jimmy Carter’s one-term tenure. Republicans host primary debates at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California, not the Richard M. Nixon library two hours […] Read more »
Fallout From the House GOP Leadership Fracture
In the final weeks of 2020, there was a window of opportunity for House GOP leadership to marginalize the loudest voices in the Freedom Caucus — Reps. Jim Jordan, Matt Gaetz, Mo Brooks, Paul Gosar, Louie Gohmert and others — who parroted conspiracy theories about a “stolen election.” Instead, it […] Read more »
White Riot
There is no question that out-and-out racism and a longing to return to the days of white supremacy were high on the list of motivations of the pro-Trump mob that ransacked the Capitol on Jan. 6. That should not end the discussion about why it happened, though. There are other […] Read more »
The Capitol Was Just the Start
These were not just the Trump loyalists of lore, that economically marginalized, over-elegized white working class of the heartland. No, the crowd that stormed the Capitol was a big tent of whiteness, a cross-section of American society bridging divisions of class, geography and demography. They were doctors and lawyers, florists […] Read more »
Trump Is the Republican Party’s Past and Its Future
The appalling siege of the U.S. Capitol by pro-Trump insurrectionists, on the heels of their upset defeat in two Georgia Senate races the previous night, will require soul searching among Republicans about the direction of their party. Republicans will certainly seek to pivot from the riot, but the nativism, extreme […] Read more »