Outside the Beltway

“The Rise of ‘Middle-Finger Politics’”

Some thoughts on the Speaker contest.

They are standing by as ordered.

Free speech is not for everyone.

Politics makes strange bedfellows.

Is it possible, or even appropriate, to express pride in a country that is being led by a President who stands against everything this country stands for?

Trump’s words matter.

One year after Charlottesville, it’s clear that President Trump still doesn’t understand what happened there, or that he just doesn’t care.

The Republican Party’s nominee for Senator in Virginia really is as bad as you’ve heard, probably worse.

Recent polling finds that Americans aren’t feeling quite so patriotic right now. It’s understandable, but we shouldn’t give up hope.

Donald Trump may or may not be racist himself, but he has most certainly exploited and helped widen racial divisions ever since bursting on the political scene in 2015.

How ‘tainted’ must a funder be before a charity is obliged to reject the donation?

Support for Trump’s comments are very telling.

Most Americans don’t support President Trump’s statements about the protests by N.F.L. players, but it’s just another example of him using hateful rhetoric to pander to his base.

Solace emboldens and helps to mainstream.

President Trump once again revealed his true self at a press conference yesterday.

The president’s begrudging condemnation of evil didn’t last long.

After two days, President Trump finally found the words to condemn the parties responsible for the violence in Charlottesville, but his remarks were far too little, far too late.

And some comments on Trumps’ anemic rhetoric.

Donald Trump has had harsher things to say about Rosie O’Donnell than he did about the people responsible for yesterday’s violence. That says something about him.

Iowa Congressman Steve King is causing controversy yet again with his comments in support of far-right Dutch politician Geert Wilders.

Donald Trump is not Adolf Hitler. But that’s not the standard.

Even if you’re not sure who you should vote for, it’s obvious who you shouldn’t vote for.

The idea that Donald Trump has gotten his racialized rhetoric from libertarians is simply errant nonsense. The libertarian view, broadly speaking, is not defined by Murray Rothbard, Llewellyn Rockwell, and Ron Paul and those who share their views. This is but a small and even fringe group of what could be called the libertarian community.

Donald Trump’s support among African-Americans is at historic lows, and seems unlikely to recover.

The cartoonist and student of human psychology is fascinated by the con artist who would be president.

Paul Ryan is declining to back Donald Trump for the time being, but other Republicans are making their own choices.

Several top Republicans have already said that they would not accept a position on a ticket with Donald Trump, so who might he choose?

The two men most likely to win the Republican nomination aren’t very well liked outside the Republican Party.

The eighth Democratic debate raises the question of whether we really need this many debates.

Another big night for Donald Trump puts him another step closer to being the presumptive GOP nominee.

Michael Bloomberg announced today that he’s not running for President, but he came awfully close to getting into the race.

As expected, Hillary Clinton won big last night while Bernie Sanders largely floundered, thus going further toward making Clinton’s victory inevitable.

A new national poll suggests that the newly aggressive tone from Senators Rubio and Cruz has done nothing to stop Donald Trump’s momentum.

Sarah Palin has joined such luminaries as Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Laura Ingraham, and former KKK Grand Wizard David Duke in endorsing Donald Trump’s anti-Muslim immigration plan.

It’s Election Day in Louisiana again, and voters have the same crappy choices they usually end up with.

The longer this race goes on, the hard it becomes to deny the truth about Donald Trump.

Another tone deaf action from leading Republicans.

Victor Davis Hanson thinks President Obama plans to win the back the White House by alienating the white man.

Matthew Dowd asks: What happens in an election when two candidates who are each unelectable run against each other in the fall?

Yet more revelations about Ron Paul’s newsletters.

Ron Paul has a new explanation for those newsletters of his.

Why isn’t the GOP calling out religious bigotry from one of its candidates?

Nate Silver argues today’s polls “have a reasonable amount of predictive power in informing us as to the identity of the eventual nominee.”