Matt Lewis

At a time when Donald Trump’s status as 2024’s GOP frontrunner remains rock solid, I’m left wondering: Could Joe Biden’s weakness leave voters yearning for the return of a strongman? In a rational world, the thought would be absurd. Trump not only lost re-election, he continues to remind us why the possibility of returning him to office should be a non-starter. But coupled with Biden’s floundering performance, Trump’s continued hold on the Republican Party makes it an eerily real possibility. Biden, the would-be anti Trump, has been guilty of aping some of Trump’s most divisive behavior. Still, Trump remains a uniquely […]

There was a time when Donald Trump made news with his rallies—when he said things that utterly shocked us. Who could forget the firestorm he started, for example, when he went after Colin Kaepernick and other NFL players who knelt during the national anthem in 2017, or earlier that year when he called Barack Obama “the founder of ISIS”? Trump’s performance in Arizona on Saturday night—his first rally in months and his much-hyped chance to respond to the one-year anniversary of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot—was neither shocking nor terribly newsworthy. It didn’t even merit a mention on The Washington Post’s […]

If you want to understand the impact Donald Trump has had on the Republican Party, look no further than the behavior of Ted Cruz and former Vice President Dick Cheney this week. At first blush, these men have little in common. Cruz humiliated himself to stay on the right side of the MAGA crowd, while Cheney brought honor to his family by escorting his daughter, Liz, to the Jan. 6 anniversary ceremony at the Capitol. But both men did something this week that they probably didn’t really want to do—something that would have been unimaginable a few short years ago. And […]

Not all heroes wear capes. Some wear badges. Some wear boots. Some wear neckties. Some wear pant suits. Some even wear tennis shoes. And in these troubling times, during the darkest time of the year, we need to celebrate the real-life heroes in and around American politics. This is my list for 2021: The year began in dramatic and tragic fashion, with the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection. Capitol police officers proved themselves heroic, particularly Officer Eugene Goodman, who brilliantly diverted the mob away from the chamber where U.S. senators were holed up. “In short, he tricked them,” as Randolph Sturdivant of […]

When it comes to pulling off coups in 2021, Donald Trump is 0 for 2. The latest, of course, being his failed effort to depose Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. I recently documented how Trump’s political endorsements don’t matter much in the outside game of GOP primary elections. It turns out, neither do his condemnations in the inside game of Senate leadership contests. At least, that’s what this Politico headline suggests: “GOP blows off Trump’s bid to oust McConnell.” As the story recounts, Trump has tried in vain to topple McConnell—likely as retribution for McConnell’s decision to acknowledge Joe Biden’s victory. […]

The last time Donald Trump screwed things up for the Republican Party in Georgia—less than a year ago—it cost his party control of the U.S. Senate and the country trillions of dollars (so far). Guess who’s back to offer more “help” to Georgia Republicans? In case you missed it, Trump (who also managed to lose Georgia’s electoral votes during the presidential election to a Democrat for the first time since 1992) is backing former U.S. Senator David Perdue in a primary bid against Georgia’s Republican governor, Brian Kemp, who angered Trump by not helping him overturn the 2020 election results. Trump […]

In 2020, Democrats were given a chance to lead. And while it’s too soon to declare this presidency an abject failure, things are not looking good. Joe Biden continues to be plagued by COVID-19, disappointing jobs reports, and anemic approval ratings. If all goes as expected, the Republican Party will recapture Congress next year. But then what? As long as Biden is president, Republicans can simply be the resistance party. But at some point, a political party has to lead. As far as I can tell, Republicans don’t have a proactive agenda—in part because they haven’t been forced to come up […]

The culture war doesn’t take Thanksgiving week off, and its two main participants aren’t big on giving thanks, anyway. The illiberal left wants to radically transform an inherently evil America that was founded on slavery and colonialism. The post-liberal right wants to forfeit the idea of liberal democracy, contending that modern America is weak, secular, and decadent. Let’s start with the left. On Tuesday, the Women’s March issued an apology for sending out an email noting that their average donation this week had been $14.92. “It was an oversight on our part to not make the connection to a year of […]

On Friday, the Associated Press’s politics feed described the House’s passage of Joe Biden’s “Build Back Better” plan thusly: “A sharply divided House has passed an expansive social and environment bill, a win in President Biden’s drive to use Democrats’ control of government to funnel resources toward their domestic priorities. Changes to the bill are likely in the Senate.” The AP really has to stop letting Ted Cruz run their Twitter feed. Seriously, even I, a conservative writer and alleged (by some) Trump shill, found this interpretation to be overly negative. So what’s the truth? Is this a big deal or […]

The reemergence of Beto O’Rourke, this time as a candidate for Texas governor, is further proof that we’re scraping the bottom of the barrel for saviors to rise from these streets. Once a rising star, O’Rourke is likely to end his bid to replace Texas Gov. Greg Abbott as a three-time loser. Despite this, he will soak up plenty of buzz and money along the way—which is good for O’Rourke and bad for Democrats. Once a charismatic young Texas congressman from El Paso who shared a bromance with then-Republican Rep. Will Hurd, O’Rourke ran a surprisingly strong race against Sen. Ted […]

What if Joe Biden just doesn’t have what it takes? That’s the impression I’m left with after thumbing back through Richard Ben Cramer’s classic tome about the 1988 presidential campaign, What It Takes, which features Biden as one of the profiled candidates. In it, Biden comes off a little bit like Ted Kennedy in that famous Roger Mudd interview—a man who lacks a compelling rationale for wanting to be president. “Everybody in the country…knew that Biden wanted to run,” Cramer writes, “but he wasn’t going to run without [a] message…and he didn’t have a message.” Biden’s team only developed a halfway […]

What if Donald Trump has to fight a grudge match against Liz Cheney and Chris Christie on his way to a second term? This scenario is probably more likely than you might think—one with significant consequences. Both Cheney and Christie are tough pugilists, and both are in the news flirting with a presidential run. In a sense, they are already running against him. This past week, Cheney traveled to Manchester, New Hampshire, and delivered a “standing ovation” speech that was interpreted by CNN as “testing the waters” for a presidential bid. During the speech, she staked out conservative ground criticizing Joe […]

In politics, a week is a lifetime. Just one week ago, the big stories were Republican Glenn Youngkin winning the Virginia gubernatorial election and Democrats spinning out in their trademark disarray. Among other problems, the party seemed out of touch with suburban moms and dads. On top of that, progressives were hindering Democrats from passing a bipartisan infrastructure bill that might have—just by demonstrating competence and momentum—thrown Virginia Democratic candidate Terry McAuliffe a lifeline. Days later, Democrats, with the help of 13 Republicans, finally did pass an infrastructure bill. Then, rather than building on the promise of “normal” Republicanism (as represented […]

After a long on-again, off-again back-and-forth standoff over whether they would muster the votes to pass President Biden’s bipartisan infrastructure bill, progressives finally folded like a cheap suit late Friday night and passed it, in exchange for almost nothing. Consider how progressives’ demands have shifted these last few months. They went from saying they would pass a bipartisan infrastructure bill only after the Senate passed a $3.5 trillion social spending bill to passing that bill in exchange only for an agreement for a house bill on a half-sized $1.75 trillion package if the Congressional Budget Office agrees it would pay for […]

Democrats just can’t quit Trump. At least, that’s the case in Virginia, where Republican Glenn Youngkin wants to move past the former guy, and Democrat Terry McAuliffe seems desperate to keep Trump front and center. The news we should be celebrating? After years of enduring Trumpian controversies, voters are ravenous for a non-crazy Republican. There’s pent-up demand. And Youngkin, with the look and feel of a Mitt Romney, has given suburban voters permission to vote Republican and not feel bad about it. In a way, it feels like coming home again. Not everyone wants a homecoming, though. Some of my prominent […]

It’s Halloween, which is comforting, because the post-apocalyptic vibe going on in our politics can at least be written off as ambiance. I’ve specifically struggled to come up with the perfect analogy to explain how otherwise normal conservatives turned into Donald Trump apologists, but the best example is The Invasion of the Body Snatchers. A few years ago, conservative writer Jonah Goldberg made this very observation. Joking about his then-colleagues at National Review, Goldberg wrote, “I live in constant fear that I will run into Kevin Williamson, Charlie Cooke, or Rich Lowry and they will start telling me that Donald Trump […]

With a hint of confusion in his eyes and a whiff of failure in the air around him, Joe Biden is watching his approval ratings continue to plummet to the point where just 42 percent of Americans approve of his job performance. Which makes sense, since at least so far Biden really doesn’t seem very good at this whole being president thing despite dreaming of and preparing for it for decades. With his staff trying to hide him from the press, and his penchant for saying confusing things, Biden isn’t rhetorically equipped to talk himself out of this mess. He was […]

The mainstream media’s credibility took another big hit this week. Katie Couric, the former co-host of NBC’s Today show, revealed in a new memoir that she chose not to air some controversial comments made to her five years ago by the sainted Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, involving RBG’s criticism of NFL players like Colin Kaepernick kneeling during the national anthem. Couric says she was “conflicted” because she was a “big RBG fan,” so she only aired some of the harsh words RBG had for the football players refusing to stand for the national anthem. According to her story, after […]

Donald Trump is the biggest loose cannon in the world. If Joe Biden actually ends up spending trillions of dollars to radically transform America, it will be because Trump sabotaged not one, but two U.S. Senate seats in Georgia after refusing to accept his own defeat, giving Democrats a surprise majority in both houses of Congress to go along with the White House. He could have an even bigger, and more damaging, impact on Republicans going forward. The only thing we know for sure is that he will not be ignored. Indeed, he is already meddling. Let’s start in Virginia, where […]

Yogi Berra was right. “It gets late early out here.” Just nine months into his presidency, Joe Biden’s support is collapsing. This isn’t just me saying so, although I’ve been warning about it for months. According to a new Yahoo News/YouGov poll, Biden’s approval rating is just 42 percent, with 50 percent of Americans ​​disapproving of how he’s handling his job. Amazingly, that’s good news compared with the Quinnipiac poll, which shows his approval rating at just 38 percent. It should come as no surprise, especially when you consider the policies that have dominated the headlines these last few months. When […]

Like bad breath, Corey Lewandowski keeps coming back, but he might have finally worn out his welcome in Trumpworld for good. According to allegations reported in Politico, the wife of a Republican donor claimed that Lewandowski “repeatedly touched her, including on her leg and buttocks, and spoke to her in sexually graphic terms” and “stalked” her throughout the evening. Oh yeah, he also “allegedly remarked on the size of his genitalia, described his sexual performance and showed Odom his hotel room key.” The alleged incident cost Lewandowski his role running a Trump SuperPAC (he has been replaced by former Florida attorney […]

Two defining moments come to mind as Democrats careen dangerously close to what could effectively be the coup de grâce to Joe Biden’s presidency: failing to pass either of the much-touted “infrastructure” bills as House progressives called Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s bluff. The first moment was when Biden thought he could be the next FDR or LBJ. The second moment was when he announced on stage that he would only sign the bipartisan infrastructure bill if a more progressive social reform package (“human infrastructure”) passed via reconciliation vote at the same time. Both moments have conspired to lead Democrats perilously close to […]

Somebody’s lying, but who? The Biden administration suggested this week that the 15,000 Haitian migrants under a bridge in Del Rio, Texas, were being “swiftly” deported. But on Tuesday, two U.S. officials told the Associated Press that Haitians had been released into the interior of the U.S. on a “very, very large scale” with “notices to appear at an immigration office within 60 days” (which means we may never see some of them again). When asked about it on Wednesday, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki passed the buck and said to “ask the Department of Homeland Security.” But the department […]

Joe Biden’s norm-busting presidency suggests the depressing conclusion that every future executive is destined to overreach. Consider the trend over the last 12 years. Biden’s old boss, Barack Obama, told DREAMers he couldn’t just “waive away the law Congress put in place,” because he was, “not a king,” and then he proceeded to do just that. He said of Congress, “Where they won’t act, I will,” and warned that he had a pen and a phone. This led to Donald Trump, who (among other things) persuaded “constitutional conservatives” and Freedom Caucus members to support his bogus “emergency” order on the border […]

Joe Biden’s bipartisan fantasy league cut another player this week with the petty, crass, and unnecessary removal of former National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster from the advisory board of the United States Military Academy (also known as West Point). Every president has the right to make such moves, but that doesn’t mean this decision isn’t scandalous. If Trump had removed a predecessor’s appointee of McMaster’s stature, the resulting criticism would have been deafening. Compare that to the current mainstream outrage level, which sounds more like crickets. This much is indisputable: Lt. Gen. McMaster is highly qualified for this role. He is […]

A deeply polarizing new law in Texas takes the person who cares about unborn children and asks him or her to become an apologist for a vigilante system where average citizens are abortion bounty hunters. With all due respect, you can count me out. I’m not here to quibble with the Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision not to enjoin a Texas law that bans abortions after a fetal heartbeat is detected—that was a complex legal and procedural decision over which reasonable people can disagree. Nor am I here to talk about the political backlash that may result from this, or whether Texas […]

Nemo resideo is a Latin phrase that means, “Leave no one behind.” It is such a fundamental American value that this commitment is embedded in the creed of several branches of the U.S. military. Yet some American citizens are being left behind now that the last plane has left Kabul on Monday. “We believe there are still a small number of Americans—under 200 and likely closer to 100–who remain in Afghanistan, and want to leave,” Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said on Monday. This contradicts Joe Biden’s previous comments. During an August 18 interview with George Stephanopoulos, Biden said, “If there’s […]

“This is a battle between the utility of democracies in the 21st century and autocracies. We’ve got to prove democracy works.” People betting against American democracy “are wrong, and we have to prove them wrong.” “It is clear, absolutely clear … that this is a battle between the utility of democracies in the 21st century and autocracies.” If you haven’t guessed, these are all lines previously delivered by President Joe Biden. It’s a sentiment I applaud, partly because these were sentiments that could have been spoken by presidents like John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, or George W. Bush—leaders who made long-term […]

“Secretary of Defense James Mattis submitted his resignation…It was an honorable thing to do. But it wasn’t much of a choice. He did exactly what military tradition demands when one can’t ethically or morally support the boss anymore.” Those words were written in 2018 by John Kirby, the current Pentagon press secretary who, last Friday, claimed that Afghanistan’s capital city “Kabul is not, right now, in an imminent-threat environment.” Kirby’s assessment lasted about 48 hours. One wonders what “military tradition” demands of him. When things go to hell, as they have in Afghanistan, accountability and honor dictate that someone should get […]

Joe Biden was the perfect presidential candidate. It’s likely that no other plausible Democratic nominee would have defeated Donald Trump in 2020. Biden’s friendly and decent demeanor was the perfect contrast to Trump’s malignant, vulgar image—and that made it nearly impossible for Trump to demonize him like he did Hillary Clinton. If shamelessness was Trump’s superpower, Biden’s was being utterly likable. Likewise, Obama’s faithful number two—who was too old and out of touch to be aware of, much less fall for, “woke” Twitter—was uniquely able to thread the needle by appeasing the left of his party while assembling a “Biden coalition” […]

With the Taliban retaking Afghanistan amid a frenzied U.S. exit, I am reminded that Robert Gates, Barack Obama’s defense secretary, famously said that Joe Biden has “been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.” That isn’t an exaggeration. Biden opposed the Persian Gulf War (later, reversing his decision and saying George H.W. Bush should have gone all the way to Baghdad) and supported the Iraq War, before opposing the surge in Iraq (not to mention famously wanting to partition Iraq into three countries). As vice president, he opposed the raid that killed […]

What we have here is failure to communicate. I’m talking about the Biden administration’s tendency to issue confusing statements and then walk them back and clarify what they really meant. One minor, but recent, example involves the wearing of masks. As David Leonhardt writes in The New York Times, “The White House added to the confusion” on Tuesday by emailing staffers and telling them they would have to again wear masks. “The email explained that the C.D.C. had recently upgraded Washington, D.C., to having ‘substantial’ transmission, from ‘moderate,’” the article continues. However, “The online C.D.C. map… still showed the city as […]

The story of our era may be one about loneliness, isolation, and a lack of community. Scientists tell us that social isolation is as bad for your health as smoking or not getting adequate sleep. COVID-19 took an already bad situation and made it worse. Meanwhile, (anti)social media does nothing to solve the problem, and likely exacerbates it. And while lack of communal ties may be killing us at the micro level, on the macro level this phenomenon has contributed to numerous societal ills, including the rise of Trumpism. In the 2016 Republican primary, for example, it was well documented that […]

“Done with being hungry, unemployed, without water, without power”—as one 88-year-old protester put it—thousands of Cubans are, after 60 years of oppression, taking a brave stand against an authoritarian regime quick to crack down on dissent. As unprecedented street protests aimed at Cuba’s vengeful Communist government have continued, here in the comfortable confines of American politics, the Democratic Party risks blowing yet another opportunity to seize both the center and the moral high ground at a time when those have been largely abandoned by the GOP. Who or what is stopping them from simply assuming this position as America’s mainstream, majority […]

So Kevin McCarthy met with Donald Trump (“Much to discuss!”), and I’m struggling to come up with an analogy for taking a meeting with someone who (according to you) “bears responsibility” for an insurrection that tried to overthrow the peaceful transfer of power just before the House minority “leader” announces his picks to serve on the select committee looking into what happened on Jan. 6. The problem, of course, is the unprecedented nature of what Trump did—and is doing. Of course, Trump remains the de facto leader of the Republican Party, which is to say he has incredible influence without any […]

I’ve spent the better part of a decade trying to elucidate why one of our major political parties went crazy and decided to worship Donald Trump—with that knowledge in hand, we have the potential to begin healing both the party and America. Trump was able to take over the Republican Party for many reasons—most of which reflect Republican failings. But there is another perspective that is not widely understood or appreciated. According to Kevin Drum, the liberal journalist formerly with Washington Monthly and Mother Jones, “It is not conservatives who have turned American politics into a culture war battle. It is […]

In order to preserve the conservative movement’s credibility, William F. Buckley excommunicated the John Birch Society, relegating their crackpot conspiracy theories to the fever swamps of American politics. Six decades later, paranoid conspiracy theories are sexy again. In recent days, right-wing personality Candace Owens declared that “not one person in my family will ever touch the COVID-19 vaccine.” A doctor appearing on Laura Ingraham’s Fox News show warned about the dangers of vaccines, saying, “Unless we really have a compelling case, no one under age 30 should receive any one of these vaccines.” And Charlie Kirk of Turning Point USA compared […]

When I interviewed J.D. Vance about his book Hillbilly Elegy five years ago, he conceded that his politics and his background made him a natural Trump supporter. But “the reason, ultimately, that I am not,” he said, “is because I think that [Trump] is the most-raw expression of a massive finger pointed at other people.” It’s unclear if the massive finger was the middle one, but Trump, Vance said, gives the white working class “an excuse to not look inward [and] to not ask tough questions about themselves and their communities.” Fast-forward to Thursday, when Vance announced his candidacy for the […]

Conventional wisdom has been that Republicans won’t negotiate in good faith with Joe Biden, that bipartisan talks were just a ploy to waste precious time, and that Mitch McConnell would sandbag any deal at the eleventh hour—like Lucy pulling the football away from Charlie Brown. I’m starting to think it’s the other way around. Maybe Joe Biden is Lucy? After a bipartisan group of Senators announced the framework for a compromise $1.2 trillion COVID-19 bill, hopes were high that the fever had broken. At least, that was true until Biden made it clear that he would only sign the compromise bill […]

Forget everything you know about American politics, including all the conventional wisdom about the 2022 midterms. Forget all the variables like candidate recruitment, the economic recovery, inflation, crime, or even Joe Biden’s accomplishments between now and then. And forget all the historical precedent regarding how the president’s party always loses seats in the midterms. There’s a good chance it will all be blown away in the form of a huge thunderbolt that hits next summer. It’s been a month since we learned that the Supreme Court will take up a case that could result in weakening—or even reversing—Roe v. Wade, the […]

Amy Coney Barrett 2, Liberals 0. Her victory this time was a moral one, striking a blow to critics who asserted she was nothing more than a partisan political hack who would put her own political preferences ahead of the rule of law. I’m talking, of course, about Barrett joining a 7-2 majority ruling that the states and individuals challenging the Affordable Care Act in California v. Texas didn’t have standing to sue over the individual mandate. This is especially noteworthy because, last October, Democrats made demagoguing the ACA their key line of attack against Barrett during her confirmation battle. There […]

Trust in news sources has been plummeting for a long time now, but recent events promise to make it sink it to new depths. Let’s take the lab leak theory, which suggests the origin of COVID-19 was a Chinese laboratory, not a nearby wet market. After Sen. Tom Cotton mentioned the idea on Fox News last year, The Washington Post referred to his comments as a “debunked” “conspiracy theory.” The article has since been updated with a correction, which is more than the demagogues do when they mess up. But rather than fully copping to their mistake, they are now calling […]

The blame-America-first crowd strikes again. The latest example comes to us via Rep. Ilhan Omar. Much has been made of Omar’s flirtations with antisemitism, but this time, she took things a step further. She didn’t just equate Israel with terrorist organizations, as horrible and wrong as that may be. She did the same thing to America, tweeting that “We have seen unthinkable atrocities committed by the U.S., Hamas, Israel, Afghanistan, and the Taliban.” In the wake of that tweet, she has sought once again to “clarify” her position and to play the victim (accusing her critics of perpetuating “Islamophobic tropes”). Her […]

We’ve reached the point in Joe Biden’s presidency and the Democratic party’s ascension when reality sets in. The honeymoon is over. We’re living in a cramped studio apartment, not the suite overlooking the beach. The kids are screaming, the toilet needs plunging, and my paycheck is stretched thin. You’re not dropping those ten pounds and I’m never going to get around to writing a great American novel. This is the real world, baby, and not the MTV version. That’s OK. The question is, how do we deal with it? The honeymoon was Biden winning the presidency, Democrats winning both run-offs in […]

Is Democrat Joe Manchin really a “Jim Crow” loving, “white supremacist” and closet Republican? Or is he just someone who “doesn’t give a fuck about progressive backlash or caucus politics,” as a source familiar with Manchin’s thinking put it, “Just West Virginia.” Screaming about him may make Democrats feel good, but it’s not getting them anywhere, since the party’s problem is not that Manchin needs to confront reality, but that they do. After all, we’re talking about a senator representing a state that Trump won by 40 points—a state that is literally giving away guns to entice people to get vaccinated […]

If Donald Trump’s allies begged him not to mention being “reinstated” during his speech Saturday night to the party faithful in North Carolina, it worked. Trump resisted the urge to riff about the notion (probably inspired by the MyPillow guy)—or about the recent buzz about him wanting to become Speaker of the House in 2023. If not vamping about such controversial craziness constitutes a “win,” the presidential loser was a winner Saturday by that standard. But that’s an awfully low bar. Trump still railed about the “2020 election hoax,” and otherwise turned in a less than inspiring performance. If this was […]

“It Can’t Happen Here” is a dystopian novel about the rise of an American dictator that Sinclair Lewis wrote in 1935. “It Should Happen Here,” is an even more dystopian idea, authored by Mike Flynn in 2021, and it’s non-fiction. In case you missed it, when asked this weekend why American can’t have a Myanmar-esque coup (after a democratic election didn’t go their way, the military seized control and declared a state of emergency), Flynn responded, “No reason. I mean, it should happen here.” This is a former general and national security advisor endorsing a military coup to overthrow a democratic […]

It’s a bad sign when a president chooses to leak details about his proposed $6 trillion budget as a sort of news dump on the eve of Memorial Day weekend. Then again, it’s also a bad sign when a New York Times story about a Democratic president scares you. But such is the state of affairs. As a conservative, I’ve come to expect Times coverage of Democratic plans to be, shall we say, flattering. But Jim Tankersley’s piece on Joe Biden’s proposed $6 trillion budget was chock full of alarmingly quotable lines that seem to confirm many of the concerns I […]

The last time an “America First” MAGA rally was held in Georgia, Republicans lost two U.S. Senate seats, and America lost what might end up being around $6 trillion. The Matt Gaetz–Marjorie Taylor-Greene show on Thursday night probably won’t cost us as much. Just some time with our family—and our dignity. The event opened with Rep. Jody Hice, who is running a primary against Republican Brad Rafensperger for Georgia Secretary of State. The crowd changed “Lock Him Up,” which was directed at Raffensperger, whose decision to follow the rule of law (though he’s wobbling now while running for reelection) obviously put […]

There’s a preacher down in Texas, a televangelist of sorts, named Mike Murdock. He has created a list of maxims he calls “Wisdom Keys”—and they just might help you understand how Donald Trump took over the Republican Party. One of the keys is this: “What you can tolerate, you cannot change.” Like many of Murdock’s keys, this is a truism. We pretty much do get what we’re willing to put up with. This is true in politics (he cites Rosa Parks’ refusal to give up her seat) and in our personal lives (he cites someone who stays with an abusive spouse—or […]

Republicans, conventional wisdom suggests, are destined to take back the House of Representatives next year. This is partly because Democrats hold a very slim majority, partly because the president’s party historically loses about 30 seats during midterms, and partly because redistricting will handle what historical trends don’t. A recent headline in Roll Call said it best, “Republicans should disband if they don’t win back the House in 2022.” (We should be so lucky.) Joe Biden’s big spending policies aren’t helping. They risk spurring inflation and depressing job growth numbers (not to mention the out-of-control growth of debt and deficits). Add in […]

The border crisis that President Joe Biden refuses to call a “crisis” may not be dominating the headlines but it is bad and getting worse on his watch, and he is under the gun to fix it. That won’t be easy. This is a problem that Biden helped resuscitate with his rhetoric, even before he was sworn in, enticing desperate migrants fleeing violence and poverty to try and illegally cross our border, and then with his move as president to roll back some of his predecessor’s border policies. As The New York Times noted in a story about thousands of migrant […]

Ever since Joe Biden floated his $1.9 trillion COVID-relief bill, worrywarts like yours truly have been warning about the possibility of inflation. In case you weren’t alive in the 1970s, inflation erodes the value of money. Simply put, your paycheck is worth less today than it was last week or last month. This demoralizing and frustrating decline in purchasing power can have the psychological effect of causing consumers to spend money quickly, for fear that prices will rise. There is also increased pressure on welfare and wages to keep pace with the rising cost of living. Once this cycle gets going, […]

Joe Biden is tempting fate. Having lived through the tumultuous 1970s, he is an unlikely candidate to repeat the mistakes of the decade—like inflation and high crime. Yet, instead of being chastened (or trapped) by 70s era thinking, his policy preferences reflect the prevailing progressive view of these issues. Is Biden transcending the tired old rules and leading us into the future, or is he setting us up for another big fall? This is a question as old as time itself. The human experience suggests that we are cursed by having to learn and relearn the mistakes of the past. “The […]

Troublemakers. We need them in our personal lives, as well as in our politics. Not during normal times, when nice, normal people employing nice, normal solutions are sufficient and usually preferred. But during tumultuous times, when it takes a stubborn pain in the ass to punch a bully in the nose. Liz Cheney is the exact kind of troublemaker that the Republican Party desperately needs, but is too decadent to support. During times like these, we need someone who is so full of piss and vinegar that she, in this case, will relish the fight more than peaceful coexistence and comfort. […]

One of Joe Biden’s big campaign promises was to restore norms and institutions in our country. In other words, he would not be Donald Trump. And while the nation’s political tone has calmed, the Party of Biden is gaslighting us in an entirely different way: by redefining what had been the meaning of widely understood words and terms to suit their political interests. Twisting language isn’t a new thing. But in modern American politics, this usually manifests as hyperbole (like Biden’s suggestion that the Georgia election law is worse than Jim Crow), euphemisms like “downsizing,” politically correct neologisms like “Latinx,” or […]

Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast Pro-Trump attorney L. Lin Wood would like you to open your hymnals to the first book of COVID, Chapter Q(Anon), verse 2 (Conspiracy Prophets). Wood raised eyebrows recently at the Health and Freedom (as in “COVID denialism”) Conference in Oklahoma, when his appearance picked up some attention for its stream of unfiltered crazy as he raved about how the Clintons, the Obamas, the Bidens, and the Bushes are all supposedly involved in sex trafficking, while insisting that Donald Trump is still the president. But I was most struck by how the speech, held at Rhema […]

The most dangerous position for a Republican is to be popular, but not named Trump. Such is the case for Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who is having a moment. Just one year ago, he was being blamed for dangerous Spring Break behavior in Miami, while Democratic governors like Andrew Cuomo, Gretchen Whitmer, and Gavin Newsom were being hailed as responsible leaders. One year later, their fortunes have reversed. The “lockdown” governors have all been plagued with scandals and/or COVID-19 surges, while DeSantis’s approval rating in Florida has shot up since it hit its COVID nadir. Meanwhile, he is garnering considerable national […]

Joe Biden’s presidency may be a lot of things, but a restorer of norms and institutions it is not. Take, for example, Biden’s willingness to embrace the kind of Orwellian language that justifies spending unprecedented amounts of money simply by deeming things to be “infrastructure”—or his misrepresenting the Georgia voter law and referring to it as “Jim Crow.” In a recent Washington Post opinion piece, Gabriel Sterling, the Georgia elections official who heroically stood up to Donald Trump, pleaded with Biden to tone down his rhetoric, writing, “Someone is going to get hurt. Your words matter. The facts matter.” Biden’s rhetoric […]

As Christians gather to celebrate Easter, a new Gallup poll shows that, for the first time, U.S. church membership has dropped below 50 percent. If you’re applauding this, you shouldn’t be. This milestone should concern anyone who cares about preserving liberal democracy, civility, and comity. You might be tempted to point out that church membership is not the same as religious belief. This is true, but the Gallup numbers also track with the Pew Research Center’s recent findings on the decline of American adults who identify as Christians. Regardless, there is a stark difference between joining a community of believers and […]

During the 2016 presidential campaign, journalist and author Salena Zito observed that when it came to Donald Trump, “the press takes him literally, but not seriously; his supporters take him seriously, but not literally.” Zito deserves credit for coining a memorable phrase that certainly sounded plausible back when we were all trying to fathom how Trump won. By 2020, however, it was clear that Trump’s fans were, in fact, taking him literally. The Capitol insurgency that occurred after months of Trump claiming that 1) the election had been rigged and 2) we were losing our country was proof enough. I’ve been […]

Republicans spent the last year helping to set an incredibly low bar for Joe Biden. And for the last year, Biden has benefitted from being, as George W. Bush might say, “misunderestimated.” But Biden’s first presidential press conference tested him in ways he managed to avoid during much of the campaign. He was forced to think on his feet and, despite repeatedly consulting his notes, make unscripted comments in real time. The result wasn’t a total disaster, but it wasn’t pretty, either. It revealed a president who was shaky, sometimes incoherent, and not terribly skilled at this part of the job, […]

The military industrial complex has declared war on Fox Nation, as evidenced by their recent attacks on Tucker Carlson. It’s another needless quagmire. By now, you’ve probably heard about Carlson’s criticism of the military’s “new hairstyles and maternity flight suits,” and the Department of Defense’s clapback. “Press secretary smites Fox Host That Dissed Diversity in U.S. Military” was the headline, not from an opinionated news site like this one, but from an official DoD statement as military leaders in uniform filmed videos and sent tweets from official accounts condemning the TV talker. What the heck? It’s problematic to see military leaders […]

The time to hesitate is through. With Donald Trump out of the White House, an argument is brewing on the Never Trump right over how to proceed. Should we push for a new center-right party, maintain our principled independence as intellectually honest opinion leaders above the fray? Or should we throw in with the Biden wing of the Democratic Party? This is a big decision and, possibly, a crossroads. One prominent voice teasing the Biden option is Bill Kristol, editor-at-large of the Bulwark website. He recently floated a short but provocative trial balloon in his column at the Bulwark: “Mightn’t [anti-Trump […]

The Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) kicked off this week with almost biblical symbolism: After they cancelled Young Pharaoh, they proceeded to wheel out a golden (calf) idol in Donald Trump’s graven image. Is the party doomed to wander through the political wilderness for 40 years? Do we need to invest in plague insurance? Judging by recent events, the answer is…maybe. Day two of CPAC kicked off Saturday morning with a largely empty ballroom and no opening act. Sen. Marco Rubio, who was scheduled to appear, called off his scheduled speech, citing “an unexpected family issue.” Was the family emergency real […]

As we edge closer to spending $1.9 trillion on COVID-19 relief, it is worth noting that a less generous package presented by the last Democratic president led to a political backlash that gave us Donald Trump. Twelve years ago this past week, CNBC’s Rick Santelli delivered his famous “rant” that inspired the rise of the Tea Party movement. The source of Santelli’s outrage was a $787 billion stimulus package that, at the time, felt like a huge amount, and the $75 billion aid for homeowners with funds from the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). While many of my Never Trump conservative […]

After House impeachment managers played that emotional and compelling video of the Capitol riot on Tuesday, Fox News’ Martha MacCallum tweeted, “Methinks they could have showed that video and said. ‘The Prosecution rests.’ But brevity is rarely the Congressional way…” Indeed, it was a mic-drop moment. The video was devastating. A part of me thinks the prosecution should simply show it on a loop. This would have the benefit of reminding open-minded viewers what the trial is really about, and also torturing Republicans who have decided to acquit no matter what. Having made the case for Trump’s culpability with footage, Reps. […]

For most of my life, conservatives have advocated law and order and peace through strength. People who commit evil acts should be punished, we said, to deter that kind of behavior in the future. Allowing bad actors to go unpunished, the assumption went, creates a “moral hazard”—just as weakness invites additional provocation. So, why do today’s conservatives think a president who incited a mob to kill a cop and injured others should skate? In a sane world, conservatives would be first in line to support holding Donald Trump—who obviously incited the insurrection (just ask the incitees)—accountable for his behavior. Unfortunately, we’ve […]

Donald Trump has been MIA for a couple of weeks, and a few sane Republicans are finally growing backbones. After constantly playing defense against the MAGA crowd, have they finally learned that appeasement gets you nowhere in a cult that demands absolute fealty, and that the best defense is a good offense? Let’s start with the ultimate baller: Liz Cheney. During a Republican conference meeting that was partially about her blistering criticism of Donald Trump, she flatly told her colleagues, “I won’t apologize for the [impeachment] vote.” And when some of her fellow Republicans threatened to oust her from her leadership […]

For almost a year now, too many of our nation’s children have not been allowed to attend school in person. For a long time, the need to homeschool was understandable, if inadequate. We were, after all, in the middle of a global pandemic. But as time passed, two things became clear. First, the immense damage being done to our children, both in terms of their missed educational opportunities, as well as their emotional and psychological needs, became obvious (not to mention the impact on parents who must put aside their work to provide child care and/or “remote learning”). And second, the […]

Getty I’ve been documenting the almost intractable problem facing Republicans: How do you return to sanity when the majority of your voters don’t want you to? It’s not easy. But what if a deus ex machina existed that would miraculously fix this problem? Maybe there is. The Republican Party could be saved if Donald Trump does what he really wants to do: Start his own party. We should be so lucky. Indeed, a Trumpian “Patriot Party” might be the only way to salvage the Grand Old Party. Right now, Republican politicians are captives to their own base. Weirdos like the “QAnon […]

I have often said that today’s Republican Party is full of perverse incentives—chief among them are who gets blamed, who gets punished, and who gets rewarded for their actions. I mean, Donald Trump incited an insurrection in an attempt to overthrow a democratic election just a couple weeks ago, yet the few brave Republicans who tried to hold him accountable are much more likely to suffer real-world consequences—particularly at the hands of their own party. Case in point: Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney. In the brief days after she came out for impeachment, Cheney has garnered a Q-adjacent primary challenger, censure from […]

When he raised his right hand on Wednesday, Joe Biden’s only real mandate was simply this: to not be Donald Trump. To paraphrase what Rush Limbaugh said about Barack Obama except in reverse, I hope he succeeds. At least, in this endeavor. Not being Trump is a major accomplishment. It’s also a campaign promise he achieved just before noon on Jan. 20. What do we do now? I don’t want to diminish the significance of Biden being the polar opposite of Trump. There is great value in restoring honor, integrity, and normalcy—especially in the wake of Trump’s presidency. In doing so, […]

Tasos Katopodis/Getty When I was a kid, College Republicans were mostly seen as harmless nerds and the iconic “young Republican” was Alex P. Keaton, the preppy young Reaganite portrayed by Michael J. Fox on TV’s Family Ties. Sure, there were occasional kooks, but they were out of the mainstream. Somewhere along the way, Republicans decided to ditch the clean-cut image in favor of an edgier vibe. They shed that preppy, “square,” suburban image to appeal to the Roseanne voter. In doing so, they became less appealing and embraced additional behaviors I found repellent. The amazing thing is that this transformation of […]

It was not a perfect call. Indeed, it was a very imperfect one. In a move eerily reminiscent of the Ukraine call that led to his impeachment in the House of Representatives just over one year ago, Donald Trump pressured Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in a call this Saturday to “find 11,780 votes” to overturn the state’s election results. “There’s nothing wrong with saying that you’ve recalculated,” Trump told Raffensperger. All the while, Raffensperger—one of my “political heroes” of 2020—calmly, but firmly, rebuffed the president’s indecent proposal. As the Washington Post notes in its story that broke the news […]

As the ball dropped in Times Square a year ago, I remember thinking, “This is going to be a good year.” What is more, “this is going to be Matt Lewis’s year.” (Yeah, I think about myself in the third person. What of it?) To be fair, the bar was set pretty low. In the Twitter era, it has become commonplace to publicly trash the present (“What? Danny Aiello died?!? 2019 is the worst!”) on the assumption that the future will be better. But then 2020 showed up all hungover in January—laughing, belching, and muttering, “Hold my beer.” Let’s be honest, […]

Amid the hellish parade of disappointments in this never-ending year of 2020, some real heroes have emerged. Obvious examples include doctors, nurses, and frontline workers, not to mention the scientists and innovators working to create and distribute vaccines. But what I’m talking about are the political profiles in courage. This year, a handful of heroes had the guts to stand up to their own parties and tribes, often at the risk of alienating supporters and endangering their political (and, increasingly, physical) lives. Those who rose to the occasion during these rare, defining moments in 2020 deserve our praise and attention. Let’s […]

I never thought I’d be asking this, but how much Trumpian damage can Attorney General Bill Barr prevent on his way out the door? In one fell swoop on Monday, Barr dealt a major blow to not one—but two—major Trumpian schemes. With regard to appointing a special counsel to investigate Hunter Biden, Barr said he “would have appointed” a special counsel, if there had been a need. In so doing, Barr “stuck a wooden stake through the heart of the idea,” writes conservative Ed Morrissey. Barr’s comments make it next to impossible for deputy attorney general Jeffrey Rosen to do so […]

As Congress chugs along toward likely passage of a nearly $1 trillion coronavirus relief package, The Hill reports that “Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is getting much of what he wants…” That McConnell eventually gets his way should come as no surprise to anyone who’s paying attention. Name one person who got more (and gave up less) in the devil’s bargain that the Republican Party struck with Donald Trump. McConnell’s reputation as a cold-blooded political killer is one of the reasons why his acknowledgement that Joe Biden will be our next president actually matters. “Today, I want to congratulate President-elect […]

Is nothing sacred? Having co-opted and discredited the Republican Party and the conservative movement, Donald Trump is now attempting to discredit the Christian church. Or rather, by mixing faith with partisan politics and embracing the notion that Trump won the 2020 election, some prominent members of the Christian church are undermining the church’s witness. For evidence, look no further than this Saturday, when former National Security Adviser Mike Flynn (who recently shared a message calling on Trump to declare “limited martial law” and hold a new election) will give his first post-pardon speech at something called the Jericho March in Washington, […]

On Saturday, Donald Trump will travel to Georgia to try and help Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler win their Jan. 5 run-off elections. The real question is which Donald Trump will show up to the rally. Will it be the one who wants to help Republicans (and boost his legacy) or the one who wants to prove that the election was stolen from him (with help from Republicans)? Maybe both? Everyone’s nervous. Control of the Senate hangs in the balance. And unless Trump delivers disciplined remarks and a full-throated endorsement (don’t hold your breath), the civil war between Trump supporters […]

I’ve been feeling down, lately, and I bet I’m not alone. In fact, I bet there are millions of us feeling the same way. Maybe even you. Even before the pandemic forced us to embrace social distancing out of necessity, we were already experiencing a loneliness epidemic. This virus basically took an already appalling situation and put it on steroids. Social science tells us that there are only a few things we can (somewhat) control that bring us joy. These things include family, friendships, community, vocation, and faith—and COVID-19 has wreaked havoc on every last one of them. If you skipped […]

After his porn store adjacent presser and his appearances alongside raving conspiracist Sidney Powell, Rudy Giuliani made a more dressed-up attempt to call into question the election results at a hearing on Wednesday in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Even before the president of the United States decided to phone in, it was a stage run for a shadow government—an alternate government for an alternate reality that bodes ill for what’s coming in the next couple years. In case you missed it, this meeting of Pennsylvania Republican lawmakers was billed as a “hearing,” though that description is a bit misleading. There were no Democrats […]

Donald Trump’s presidency might have been a chaotic mess, but even a stopped clock is right twice a day. If Joe Biden wants to change the tone of American politics, he should avoid the temptation to immediately and reflexively reverse all of Trump’s policies. Newly elected presidents tend to assume they must act quickly and make changes immediately. Consider how these early decisions set the tone for an administration. Had Trump began his administration with a bipartisan infrastructure deal instead of a Muslim ban, things might have worked out differently. By my lights, there are three positive Trump-era policies that Biden […]

Donald Trump is a sore loser, man. And he’s training a generation of Republicans to be sore losers, too. Just look to Saturday’s Million MAGA March, which the Washington Post describes as “Demonstrations in support of President Trump’s refusal to accept the results of the presidential election”—an event that Trump himself said Friday he may make an appearance at. The conservatives following Trump’s example have flipped not just on policy preferences but also on the importance of virtues like integrity, courage, empathy, playing fair and, yes, even accepting defeat. Source link

MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty With Joe Biden apparently headed to electoral victory, Donald Trump has already signaled he will not go down quietly—will not accept reality. But will his minions continue to carry water for the one-termer? You better believe it. It’s getting harder and harder to pretend with a straight face that Trump won, but that doesn’t mean his enablers won’t try. Indeed, since Tuesday, Trump has sought to erode trust in the outcome of this election. Anyone who aids and abets this effort should be aware that they are nearing the point where they will cross a bright new […]

Getty The first thing we do, let’s kill all the pollsters. The smart money may still be on Joe Biden to eventually prevail as the 2020 presidential election winner, but I’ve seen enough to declare the polling industry, and its cousin, “probabilistic election forecasting,” as the biggest losers. I’m not alone in thinking this. Republican pollster Frank Luntz told Axios “the political polling profession is done” after Tuesday. “Political polling is a fraud,” writes conservative John Podhoretz in the New York Post. It turns out that “Trump PTSD” from 2016 wasn’t a paranoid or out-of-touch response; it was a smart defense […]

I picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue. Donald Trump’s idea of finishing on a high note involves fantasizing about beating up Joe Biden and pandering to a mob telling him to fire Dr. Anthony Fauci. Meanwhile, Joe Biden’s closing act involved talk of closing down the oil industry, followed by a paean to socialism tweeted by his running mate. In case you missed it, Harris sent out a cartoon video that ends with her saying, “Equitable treatment means we all end up at the same place.” The camera then pans to the words, “Biden-Harris, 2020.” We all end up […]

A spoiler alert for those mercifully hoping for an uneventful Tuesday: This could also be the race that never ends. And did I mention they are throwing bricks at the runners? According to Axios, Donald Trump is planning to declare victory if it looks like he’s ahead on election night. That is the nightmare scenario I warned about in August. And it’s just one of the many ways this election could go sideways after the votes are all cast. The Trump campaign is reportedly telling top surrogates to keep November open for more rallies or campaign events after election day, as […]

If the polls are to be believed, Joe Biden is about to be elected president. And if history is any indicator, Democrats will assume they have a mandate. Parties and movements that win power almost always assume the public endorses what they think have been selling. They usually don’t. Bill Clinton in 1993 and 1994 might be the poster child for this phenomenon, but it’s a predictable pitfall of a winning campaign. The worst disasters occur when people get elected (or re-elected) and try to implement policies that weren’t even litigated during the election, much less decided. That’s probably too strong. […]

If Democrats sweep the elections next week, their party better brace for an inner civil war over both strategies and policies. It’s unclear which faction will prevail, but some large part of the Biden constituency will be disappointed because pleasing both suburban Lincoln Project voters and the Bernie Bros is nearly impossible. Instead of hashing their differences out now and establishing some sort of mandate, Joe Biden and his supporters have blurred the lines that might alienate either faction. That’s great for campaigning, but not so much for governing. So, Biden is winning by virtue of not being Donald Trump, a […]

For most of the 2020 election cycle, Donald Trump has been desperately digging for an issue that might fracture Joe Biden’s winning coalition. As the campaign nears its conclusion, Biden just served him up one, about wanting to “transition” away from oil. This was the kind of mistake that is bound to happen when you serve two masters—the progressive base looking over your shoulder, and the voters you need to win on Nov. 3. Source link