Tuning Out

The 2018 election season marked a high-water point for my political engagement. We supported ten Democrats identified by Mind the Gap running for winnable seats and were thrilled when seven won, the House flipped and Trump’s government takeover was slowed down. Then came 2020, when we expected a Blue Wave in revulsion to Trump’s disastrous […]

Amy Klobuchar

You asked about Amy. Her selling points: Personal appeal. She is likable, in a girl-next-door kind of way. But is that what you want in a president? Could she stand up to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Israel lobby, Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong-un? Electability. Yes, she won big in Minnesota. But, she hasn’t run […]

Disappointing Democrats

With over 20 professed candidates for president, it is dismaying that the Democratic Party does not seem able to come up with a convincing opponent to Donald Trump. It should be so easy for a candidate to set themself up as a superior alternative, but almost every liberal voter I know is currently in a […]

The Second Debate

August 2, 2019: Two more nights of debates did little to either clarify the Democratic presidential field or burnish the Party’s image. The biggest disappointment, perhaps, was Kamala Harris, who bounded out of the opening debate as a potential front-runner but seemed strangely out of it last night. It wouldn’t surprise me to learn she […]

My 2018

For my memory only: As we leave 2018 behind, I’d like to recollect some of the highlights. In most respects it rates as a terrible year: Donald Trump’s stupidity, egocentricity and meanspiritedness was a daily downer, and there were frequent reminders that our planet is heading toward an ecological upheaval that will make almost everyone’s […]

The Awfulness of Donald Trump

It is impossible to overstate how horrible Donald Trump is as a man or as a president. I can’t think of a single thing he has said or done that I agree with, which is a pretty amazing record. The only silver lining is that he will be out of office eventually, although not for […]

History in the Making

For years, as we moved relatively steadily through “the American Century,” I thought of history as something we studied in school. Now I am older, with a longer perspective, and the American Century is itself history. There are individual events I lived through that will merit mention in future history books: the Cold War, the […]

The Hillary Problem

The complement to the votes for Trump were the votes against Hillary, and certainly among people we know the latter far outnumbered the former. It’s hard to understand the vitriol she inspired, but it was clearly fomented by Fox News and other right-wing commentators and legislators. The three strikes against her were 1) her use […]

The Trump Election

[fullwidth background_color=”” background_image=”” background_parallax=”none” enable_mobile=”no” parallax_speed=”0.3″ background_repeat=”no-repeat” background_position=”left top” video_url=”” video_aspect_ratio=”16:9″ video_webm=”” video_mp4=”” video_ogv=”” video_preview_image=”” overlay_color=”” overlay_opacity=”0.5″ video_mute=”yes” video_loop=”yes” fade=”no” border_size=”0px” border_color=”” border_style=”” padding_top=”20″ padding_bottom=”20″ padding_left=”0″ padding_right=”0″ hundred_percent=”no” equal_height_columns=”no” hide_on_mobile=”no” menu_anchor=”” class=”” id=””][fusion_text]Thoughts on the election of Donald Trump, four days later: My first and foremost thought is sadness and regret for the fate of […]

The Media v. Trump

The media has been blamed, fairly or not, for facilitating Donald Trump’s rise by providing so much free and unduly uncritical publicity during the primary season. He didn’t need to raise money or buy ads, the analysis goes, because he was constantly in the news. I’m not sure this was really the media’s “fault,” because […]