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.

The country’s citizens are enduring power outages while Saudis are making deals for cutting-edge technology.

The Asia pivot is happening very slowly.

Bizarre conspiracy theories shared by powerful people are immune to fact checking.

Stoking anti-Semitism for political gain

They’re apparently ongoing. Who knew?

Rural Americans are misunderstood!

Truly foreign language edition.

The 21st century’s most brutal conflict and the laws of war.

The laws of armed conflict aren’t designed for this war.

The innumeracy hurts.

An idea, not a continent.

Americans have largely stopped using checks and are rapidly doing the same with cash.

The process that could chance Alabama’s congressional delegation begins.

We’re seeing our lowest test scores in decades among a key cohort.

Most high-income Congressional Districts are Democratic and low-income Districts are Republican.

Many in the Global South see the war very differently than we in the West.

A pending Supreme Court ruling could be more impactful than many realize.

Anger over COVID lockdowns has activated myriad frustrations.

A surprising factoid in a bad election for the party.

A bit of a rant, I expect.

A thought inspired by the PA Senate race.

A lot of folks who study democracy have sent an open letter to Congress.

A repeat of 1860 can’t happen. But something even worse could.

Assuming they had the votes, should Democrats carve out yet another exception?

How long can the unsustainable be sustained?

Has the Internet made us more selfish?

The much-anticipated escalation has happened. Now to see how the United States and its allies respond.

It seems that some Americans are relocating to be with people who share their social and cultural views.

Hesitancy is a complex phenomenon largely immune to facts.

Representatives Choosing Their Voters Rather than Vice Versa, Chapter 412.

A piece in The Atlantic inspires thoughts.

Women are increasingly dominating American higher education.

Whataboutism about a visit to Whataburger (and other tales of obfuscation).

The reaction to the pandemic has long since been about much more than the pandemic.

How well do single-seat districts lead to representation? (And of what?)

Our insistence on relying on an 18th Century understanding of electoral systems is our ongoing bane (if one values representative government).

Yes, partisanship is real. And it influences more than just voting behavior.

A mind-boggling statistic.

Legitimacy hangs in the balance.

A defense of the indefensible.

There are different, and not equally good, reasons to talk about labels.

If the goal is to change politics, not just vent frustration, messaging is important.

Republicans are half as likely to take the outbreak seriously.

The Republicans are playing a different game.

Not surprisingly, AOC is getting behind Bernie Sanders in the race for the Democratic nomination.

Trying to nail down some basics about a very complicated situation.

He could lose the popular vote by an even larger margin in 2020—and still coast to re-election.