Only one party in the 2020 Presidential election is attempting to make it hard for people to vote, or to have their vote counted. It’s the Republicans. Just a reminder: these Rationalist Papers posts are for the group I call the deciders: conservatives, moderates, undecided, and third-party voters considering their choices in the 2020 US Presidential election….
American presidential politics has always been about winning over the middle. And Donald Trump has abandoned the middle. Are you in the middle? Just a reminder: these Rationalist Papers posts are for the group I call the deciders: conservative, moderate, undecided, and third-party voters considering their choices in the 2020 US Presidential election. Who’s for Biden? Certainly…
Trump met with Putin in Helsinki, then defended the Russian president. Democrats were outraged, of course, but this time many Republicans chimed in with disapproval as well. What does the language of these Republican protests tell us about the probability of an impeachment? Trump got everyone upset with this response to a reporter’s question: AP…
Congressional Republicans, egged on by Donald Trump, are debating changes in the tax code. Any number of pundits on both sides have weighed in, as have tax wizards at think tanks and, strangely, press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders with a bizarre argument based on reporters buying beer. The analysis tends to focus on who wins…
Republicans attempting to repeal Obamacare and replace it with the American Health Care Act are taking a pummeling. Everyone from the American Medical Association and the AARP to the Tea Party Patriots have come down against it. House Speaker Paul Ryan took to PowerPoint to explain and defend the law, and his presentation technique was quite…
If you’re a liberal, Donald Trump’s presidency gives you two choices: fight fiercely against everything conservative or Republican, or find common cause with Republicans against Trump’s excesses. The angry fight will make you feel good for a moment. The rapprochement might save our democracy. Democrats are about to enter hell. Republicans controls Congress. The new president…
Yesterday, 50 former national security officials who had served in Republican administrations published a letter criticizing Donald Trump. This document is bullshit-free: it’s written in the first person with active voice, direct, declarative sentences and a limited number of qualifiers. For a political document, this is remarkable. An effective document is short, features a descriptive title, and explains its…
Analysts predict not only what will happen next, but what will happen after that. Here’s my prediction: after losing in 2016, Donald Trump will form his own party, the Trumpist Party. Trump is divisive Trump thrills white men and scares nearly everybody else. Donald Trump is a hero for white, working-class men. As Kathleen Parker writes in the Washington Post,…
Last night’s CNN Debate was about how the Republican candidates are “tougher” than Democrats. But look close. Tougher always means violating somebody’s rights, including yours. While the debate moderators asked about the mass collection of phone records, they glossed right over the implicit privacy violations in many of the candidates’ proposal. Only one candidate — Rand…