WASHINGTON — “The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.” The novelist Anatole France’s mischievous observation came to mind when the Congressional Budget Office released its analysis of the Republican cut-taxes/gut-Medicaid bill and its defenders went […]
E.J. Dionne
Posted inOp-Eds, sj-web, Uncategorized
Next steps for the Trump resistance
WASHINGTON — For opponents of President Trump, his first seven weeks in office went about as badly for the country as they expected. The pleasant surprise is their own capacity for resistance and political resilience. What some feared might be a Trump Juggernaut is instead the Trump Jalopy, a wheezing, unsightly contraption with grinding gears […]
advertisement
Posted inLetters
Free press are the true patriots
E.J. Dionne’s column (Jan. 31) ends saying that rather than the media being “the opposition party,” as Trump strategist Steve Bannon has said, they are true patriots, the same as the original American patriots — persons who are prepared to vigorously defend democracy against enemies — in this case, defending the First Amendment to the […]
Posted inOp-Eds
Conservatives in a show of supreme hypocrisy
WASHINGTON — You want bipartisanship on Supreme Court nominations? Let’s have a consensual moment around Sen. Ted Cruz’s idea that having only eight Supreme Court justices is just fine. “There is certainly long historical precedent for a Supreme Court with fewer justices,” the Texas Republican said last year when GOP senators were refusing even to […]
Posted inOp-Eds
Remaining silent will not be an option
WASHINGTON — Let me begin with a word of thanks to Stephen K. Bannon, the chief White House strategist. With a single interview, he dispelled any illusions that normal or productive relations with the media will even be possible under the Trump administration. True, the new president’s modern predecessors in both parties all tangled with […]
Posted inOp-Eds, sj-web
One reason millions gathered to say ‘no’ to Trump
WASHINGTON — Within 48 hours, we learned that Donald John Trump intends to govern as the same fiercely angry man who shook the country in 2016. He confirmed that his administration intends to show no regard for norms — or facts. His opposition has drawn the obvious conclusion. Its only options are to contain the […]
Posted inOp-Eds
A Paris moment for U.S. politics?
WASHINGTON — The 2016 presidential campaign has been peculiarly disconnected from the real world of problems, crises and governing. It took the catastrophe in Paris to narrow the gap — and even a monstrous terrorist attack may not shake the trajectory of a contest that operates within a logic of its own. The inevitable distance […]
Posted inOp-Eds
The hidden and deadly bias of class
WASHINGTON — White working-class voters have been a key building block of the Republican coalition. You would think that the party’s presidential candidates would want to respond to the heartbreaking crisis these Americans are facing. Two Princeton economists, Angus Deaton and Anne Case, issued a study last week that found that the death rates for […]
Posted inOp-Eds
A different look at the GOP divide
MANCHESTER, N.H. — Maybe our definition of the Republican presidential contest is a little off. It’s often cast, accurately enough, as a choice between “outsiders” and “insiders.” But another party division may be more profound — between Republicans who still view the country’s future hopefully, and those deeply gloomy about its prospects. The pessimism within […]
Posted inOp-Eds
The Republican establishment’s weak tea
WASHINGTON — The narrative about the 2016 presidential campaign focuses on angry discontent in the American electorate. Democrats Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders have a plausible explanation for what lies behind this unhappiness. The only Republican acting as if he has a working theory of his own is Donald Trump. As their policy-heavy debate last […]