The congresswoman has become a handy and versatile symbol — the representative representative. For the leftward and younger wings of the Democratic Party, she serves as a figurehead and a hero; for conservative media outlets,[…]
Likability seems to have emerged as an important personality trait in the late 19th century, when it became closely associated with male business success. Before this, people liked or disliked one another, of course, but[…]
The very things that can make the center so appealing, however, are also its great weaknesses. As worried centrists have long noted, it can be hard to rally the people behind a message of pragmatism,[…]
There are really important arenas – ideological trends like the rise of nationalism and shifts in how democracy is valued and understood, and political alliances like the dangerous dalliance between Trump and Netanyahu – where[…]
Trump’s assault on the premises of democracy is not only unique in modern American history but unique in the annals of modern liberal democracy. No duly elected leader of any mature democratic state has gone[…]
Trump has been merciless toward anyone else in government who reveals his administration’s secrets, tweeting that ‘‘the real story that Congress, the F.B.I. and all others should be looking into is the leaking of Classified[…]
Change, of course, is inherently destabilizing. It upsets an existing state of affairs that might be unbearable to some but suits others just fine. Which is why accusations of “politicizing” might seem like so much[…]
Politicization is the last refuge of the scoundrel. To “politicize” something — hurricanes, intelligence, science, football, gun violence — is to render it political in a way that distorts its true meaning. That, at least,[…]
I recognize that there are those people, on the right and on the left, for whom their relationship to Israel is not just a moral imperative, but an exclusive imperative; and for whom, therefore, common[…]
The focal point for much of the post-Bush right’s anger and resentment was the Tea Party, a decentralized movement that variously mixed genuine desire for limited government with white resentment and flare-ups of outright paranoia.[…]