Outside the Beltway

It beats the alternative but it ain’t for sissies.

Michelle Obama thinks so.

Why blaming “the Democrats” or even “leadership” ignores a basic fact of American politics.

What the shutdown should have been about.

A lot of pain for . . . not much.

And what it means for 2024 and beyond.

The standoff is in its 35th day.

Not so much.

A dramatic escalation of the standoff.

Memories are fading, as they are wont to do.

Trump’s personal lawyer, and man accused of telling DOJ lawyers to ignore court orders is now a federal judge.

Things are not operating as Madison intended.

Spinelessness isn’t permanent.

A major unforced error has apparently been reversed.

They may whine and bluster, but Trump always gets their votes.

Senate Republicans are balking at several measures, but fixing those would make passage in the House impossible.

We are about to find out the degree to which trade wars are good and easy to win.

He filibustered nothing for a very long time.

Governing like a dictator.

The sadly predicted has come to pass.

Beware the Ides of March.

Just beyond parody at this point.

Yet again, too little, too late.

Only a handful of Republican Senators have objected. Mildly.

In which I agree with Trump about the problem, but NOT the solution

Trump is significantly outpeforming his 2020 results in New York and Florida. It doesn’t matter.

He was looking for a vote to steal.

It could all come down to Pennsylvania.

Thoughts that didn’t fit in my last post

Does Nicholas Kristof make his case?

The Democratic gadfly is performatively ‘leaving’ the party.

Grouping House Members by their voting patterns.

A longstanding project inches forward.

Five months too late, we’re back to the Biden-McCarthy deal.

The pandemic ruined everything.

Punditry, complexity, and democracy.

If so, he’ll almost surely win bigly.

They don’t make ’em like they used to.

There’s one in Maine.

The inevitable threats to remove Biden from the ballot emerge.

A compelling document.

Another state has declared him an insurrectionist.

A breakdown of new survey data.

A David Brooks column inspires some thoughts.

House Republicans still can’t get out of their own way.

His critics are focused on the wrong problem.

Much ado about nothing?

Generations of young Americans weren’t alive or have no real memory of the event.

A new book looks at the confluence of geography and disadvantage.