Outside the Beltway

If this is American greatest, I prefer it when things were “going to hell.”

A day of AI, tariffs, and world historic stupidity.

He was looking for an election to buy.

You know, the meritocracy at work.

Informed, somber voices in these perilous times.

“…but I didn’t vote for that.”

Here we go again.

And yes, Trump fits the definitions all too well.

Where the science and art of polling intersect.

One of these things is not like the other.

Time may change me, but I can’t trace time.

But the story will continue for a while yet.

More post-debate thoughts and a reminder about how US parties work.

A morally right but politically fraught move.

The moderates are gone.

The GOP caught the car and now doesn’t know what to do.

Punditry, complexity, and democracy.

The politics of chaos.

Group dynamics and limited choices.

Ignorance, it turns out, isn’t bliss.

The system isn’t very good.

What if one of the candidates is Hitler?

When the obvious is controversial.

Because I think it is really important.

Another illustration of the weakness of the American party system.

The House is in recess as the exasperated GOP leadership tries to figure a way out.

A longtime friend has passed.

Say it ain’t so!

The North Dakota governor really, really wants to be on TV.

Separating rhetoric from action.

It is something we need to think about.

A post about thinking in a comparative way.

Old men still bitter about where they went to college.

A look back at two decades of blogging.

Too many jobs needlessly specify a bachelor’s.

My (apparently) annual reflections on “The content of their character” day

A brilliant journalist is gone at 44.

Because sometimes the comment box is just too small.

Local issues barely matter in Congressional races anymore.

The race is returning to expectation.

The term that kicks off today could undermine our entire system of government.

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

A man made famous for discovering Iraq’s WMD program was virtually nonexistent is gone at 82.

“Moderate” is up, “Liberal” is down, and “Conservative” is static. What does it mean?

Can American democracy survive its information bubbles?

So, what now?

Tweaking the message and getting out the vote don’t matter as much as strategists think.

Quite often, political fights are about attitudes rather than issues and polices.

More on primaries with a foray into Madison and the general politics of power-seekers and incentives.