When anyone analyzes American politics in 2021, a pervasive assumption nearly always colors their thinking: that gridlock and polarization have cemented the parties into a stalemate from which neither can escape. This is a structural problem with no easy solutions. But what if that isn’t true? There’s another way to…

For forty-odd years, from the moment my mom tried to explain the bizarre development of a peanut farmer romping through the Democractic primary in the mid-70s, I’ve been magnetized by politics. There’s something irresistible about a massive human project with so many contradictory, layered, and interdisciplinary impulses, all crashing against…

Governments have faced hundreds of insurrections over the centuries, but none have been as well-documented as last Wednesday’s MAGA mob. This is only partly because past rioters haven’t owned smart phones: one of the weirdest — and most revealing — quirks of the Capitol insurrection was how readily rioters were…

In the first of three posts on the fallout of the 2020 election, I consider the results themselves. Magnitude of the Win The final results are still not quite in (New York again sets the standard for failure to tally ballots), but we know Biden won 306 electoral votes, will have won more than…

Forecasts made a day or two before an election are almost always composed for the benefit of forecasters who are attempting to talk themselves into a favored outcome. I am resisting that temptation and instead trying to focus my mind on those factors that will actually matter tomorrow. Every Election is a Simple Proposition I’ve been…

This is an unprecedented election. To date, ~66 million votes have already been cast, and that number could top 100m by Election Day. Election experts expect a huge turnout, most pegging the number at 150–160m — far more than the 137m who turned out in 2016. The really shocking development…

As the baroque, late-empire spectacle of the Supreme Court battle unfolds during this election year, let’s talk about one easy fix that would substantially reduce some of the nation’s dysfunction. The founders, in all their wisdom, decided to put more veto points in our government than any other modern democracy…

The election that would never end is suddenly speeding toward its conclusion. For so many months, all our speculation was purely theoretical — and all commentary ended with disclaimers about how much things might change. Once Labor Day comes, however, the presidential picture begins to firm up. Over the last…

Until last week’s disturbing Republican Convention, I was able to place the specter of a second Trump term in the back of my mind. In the midst of a pandemic and open conflict over racial justice, it was literally unthinkable. And, thanks to those crises, it’s been easy to imagine…