Outside the Beltway

America is always both what it claims to be and what it actually is. The Fourth of July, then, marks our aspirations—and also our shortcomings.

These sweet, anxious, thoughtful, and genuinely loveable students know in their bones that their future is deeply uncertain and shaped by adults who appear to have no idea what they’re doing.

There’s a glaring gap in my information consumption.

A look back at two decades of blogging.

Is the past still the past?

When life doesn’t imitate art.

Violence, masculinity, and American politics.

Kimberly Webb Joyner, my first wife and the mother of my children, has been gone a decade.

“The Closer” delivers more of what people love and hate about the GOAT.

The longtime OTB front-pager has passed far too soon.

The early reaction was premature.

Rethinking what qualities we should be looking for in Supreme Court Justices.

Institutional reform is necessary, but we can’t accomplish much in the face of tribalism.

The convergence of design flaws in the constitution and a flawed leader have brought us to brink of an electoral crisis.

This is not even close to the worst it’s ever been.

The races are more alike—and yet more different—than we seem to remember.

We’re going to make history one way or another in November.

A recurring source of friction in the OTB conversation.

(At least the removal part)

Money has increasingly dominated American politics but the court case had little to do with it.

What happened to “building a lasting relationship within the African American community”?

David Brooks joins the long line of commenters predicting the GOP’s demise.

Did I leave the Republican Party or did it leave me? Both.

Oral argument hints that we may have a 5-4 ruling allowing state legislatures to continue stacking the deck.

The mysterious disappearance of long-time OTB commenters.

The emergence of a silly talking point.

The Kavanaugh fight is just another indicator of our national divide.

I’ve changed my mind on a couple of things and hardened my opinion on others.

The President is generating so much outrage on a daily basis that we’re missing important stories.

Today is a great day to reflect on the Enlightenment ideals that fueled a Declaration.

There is a frustration and a growing sense that the American political system is illegitimate.

Was one of the pioneering African-American entertainers a “house Negro”?

Controversies involving Jimmy Kimmel and “The Simpsons” highlight a perennial question.

A blog post and resulting Twitter exchange point to a larger problem in our political dialog.

When a prominent political scientist committed suicide yesterday, I was deeply struck by how much he was like not only me but most of the people in my professional circle.

It has become necessary to destroy the party in order to save it.

In the immortal words of the Fonz, I was wr-wr-wr-wr . . . not exactly right.

Ronald Reagan famously claimed, “I didn’t leave the Democratic Party. The party left me.” I’m going through the process in reverse.

We will have a two party system for the foreseeable future.

People don’t much care whether information supporting their prejudices is true.

Some preliminary thoughts on the inaugural college playoff system.

Chris Rock wants us to remember that Bill Cosby isn’t the only celebrity accused of rape.

A former RNC chair says a black man’s life isn’t worth a ham sandwich.

17-year veteran of the LAPD says, “If you don’t want to get hurt, don’t challenge me.”

We should not tolerate them acting otherwise.

Shutting down rational debate one meme at a time.

An ongoing set of considerations on the relationship between liberty and government.

Some thoughts on reform.

The economics of higher education is increasing the gap between rich and poor.

The noted wine critic Robert Parker recently forayed into reviewing bourbon and came under intense fire from enthusiasts of American whiskey.