NEW YORK — Donald Trump campaigned as someone who wanted to get America out of the Middle East. But he also cast himself as a tough guy, and his initial instincts in office were to show force — added troops, more aggressive rules of engagement, bigger bombs — in America’s war zones. “These killers need […]

NEW YORK — Donald Trump’s press conference Monday in Helsinki was the most embarrassing performance by an American president I can think of. And his preposterous efforts to talk his way out of his troubles made him seem even more absurd. But what has been obscured by this disastrous and humiliating display is the other […]

NEW YORK — With their successes this week in the California primaries, Democrats are increasingly optimistic about their prospects for the midterm elections. But they should take note of the bigger picture when it comes to left-right politics these days. During the last decade, the center-left has been devastated electorally across the West. Unless Democrats […]

ROME — The Republican Party is facing dim prospects in the upcoming midterm elections. But it doesn’t have to be that way, says Steve Bannon, the chief ideologist of the populist wave that brought Donald Trump into the White House. “If the Republicans continue on the path they are on,” Bannon told me Thursday, “they […]

NEW YORK — Last week was Teacher Appreciation Week, and I intended to write on the subject, but a more newsy topic intervened. That’s an apt metaphor for what is happening to the plight of teachers in America today. We live in a media environment in which the urgent often crowds out the important. But […]