Editorial

By LEE H. HAMILTON When the history of this era is written, special attention should be reserved for the prominent US politicians who dismissed or misrepresented the COVID-19 pandemic for political purposes. The coronavirus has wreaked untold suffering and damage to this country through the deaths it’s caused, the illness it’s produced, the strain it has placed on the lives and well-being of health care workers, and the incredible damage it’s done to the livelihoods and prospects of millions of Americans. It has been able to do … [Read more...] about The pandemic lays bare our information problems

One of Joe Biden’s first priorities as president will be to risk stoking a new migrant crisis. After much trial and error, President Donald Trump came up with cooperative arrangements with Mexico and Central American countries that drastically diminished the pressure from asylum-seekers on our southern border. Biden is pledged to overturn these policies, as well as undermine enforcement and boost immigration numbers across the board. The lie about Biden is that he’s “a moderate,” when the truth is that he’s always been smack in … [Read more...] about Biden’s radicalism on immigration

It already seems clear that the first major political and culture eruption of the Biden years will be a roiling populist backlash against the next round of COVID restrictions. We saw this sentiment play out in sporadic anti-lockdown demonstrations last spring and it has driven ongoing resistance to masks, but it is, in all likelihood, about to reach an entirely new level — fueled by exhaustion with the virus, elite hypocrisy and the shattered credibility of the public-health establishment. The ascension of Joe Biden will add … [Read more...] about The coming anti-COVID restriction backlash

In my hometown of Little Rock, Ark., back in the late 1950s they closed the public schools down rather than desegregate. But since high-school sports were as big as in Texas, they kept the football season going. The saying around town that year was that the teams were “Undefeated, Untied and Uneducated.” Fast-forward 60-plus years. This year, so many schools are once again closed, but at least some of their teams are also not playing football, nor any sports. It’s too dangerous, thanks to the pandemic. Now we are overwhelmed … [Read more...] about Racial politics then and now

In three separate announcements in recent weeks, three scientific teams at different pharmaceutical companies have given a weary, frightened world what it needs: a verifiable path to defeat the coronavirus pandemic, end the suffering and start the process of returning life to the normal rhythms of “before.” Imagine again going to work and school, to restaurants and concerts without significant risk of infection. Imagine being able to travel. Imagine hugging family members and friends. We are likely to get there in 2021 because a … [Read more...] about The COVID-19 vaccine is a gift from science. Accept it.

Black Lives Matter came up with the single most effective political slogan of the year. While no one was likely to be overly impressed with Joe Biden’s line, “Build Back Better,” and Donald Trump’s “Keep America Great” or “Make America Great Again, Again” didn’t have the resonance of the original 2016 version, BLM broke through the clutter with a catchphrase that was memorable, pungent — and utterly devastating to Democrats. After a surprising Tory victory in the British parliamentary election in 1992, the pro-Tory tabloid The … [Read more...] about The failure of Black Lives Matter

With the Biden victory in Arizona, aka McCain’s Revenge, the extent of the Donald Trump election rejection is now documented. Nevermind his desperate fantasies of a legal tap dance to victory — can you imagine Donald Trump tap dancing? — there’s no way to soft shoe over the reality of a 5 million popular vote loss to Joe Biden and, more importantly, Biden’s 306 electoral college accumulation. That’s what the Trumpster collected last time around, which he called a “landslide.” No matter how many thousands of his MAGA supporters … [Read more...] about What a mess!

Time is not likely to improve the narrative of Donald Trump's presidency. But if history is fair to him, the enduring legacy of his tenure will be the incredibly rapid development of a vaccine to shield against COVID-19. The president has received well-earned criticism for mishandling many aspects of the pandemic. His messaging was contradictory, his sense of urgency in mobilizing against the virus was inconsistent, and he politicized protective measures such as mask wearing and social distancing. And yet at Trump's direction, … [Read more...] about Vaccine development a triumph for Trump

Ordinarily, it’s not possible for a party to win the presidency and have a bad election night, but the Democrats managed it. Pending the outcome of two Senate runoffs in Georgia, Joe Biden looks set to become a caretaker president who won’t be signing any legislation that doesn’t pass muster in Mitch McConnell’s Senate first. He isn’t riding into the White House on the strength of a Blue Wave, as was so often predicted, but a Blue Trickle that saw Democrats fail to win control of the Senate (they need to win both Georgia seats … [Read more...] about The blue trickle

While most of us wouldn’t want to “light the corners of my mind” with recent memories — unless you’re into nightmares — if it were to be remade about the current political climate, it would be called “MAGA,” another way of saying “the way we were.” Redford would definitely not be playing any of the main characters, and Donald Trump has been written out of the script. This time, the important couple trying to recall their relationship of so many years ago would be Joe Biden and Mitch McConnell. That would make some risky … [Read more...] about The way we were