"Secure an unelected second term in office". As if this is some highly precise technical term that he prefers, when it really is saying "coup d'etat" rather than "insurrection", which are near-synonyms.
Which loops back to your reading of his motives. Your reading shows precisely why "ad hominem" is the only right answer sometimes to the arguments of another--to respond with outrage or rebuttal or counter-argument is to get trapped in a provocation that is both consciously intended to entrap and which is ultimately valueless, e.g., is pretty much exactly what people mean when they dismiss a line of conversation as being "just semantic". Facing that, you can judge either that the provocateur is either an idiot, is someone who got stuck in being a high-school debater the same way some people get stuck in having been the quarterback of their Pee-Wee football team, or has hit on that kind of empty provocation as a market strategy. I think Chait is definitely in #3, as you do. (There are others than I think are in #1 or #2, like Freidersdorf, who is sort of Chait's understudy.)
Chait’s ham-handed quote is more or less a gloss on eminent, anti-Trump, legal scholar, Michael McConnell:
“Section 3 speaks of "insurrection" and "rebellion." These are demanding terms, connoting only the most serious of uprisings against the government, such as the Whisky Rebellion and the Civil War. The terms of Section 3 should not be defined down to include mere riots or civil disturbances, which are common in United States history. Many of these riots impede the lawful operations of government, and exceed the power of normal law enforcement to control. Are they insurrections or rebellions, within the meaning of Section 3?
“I have not done the historical work to speak with confidence, but I would hazard the suggestion that a riot is the use of violence to express anger or to attempt to coerce the government to take certain actions, while insurrections and rebellions are the use of violence, usually on a larger scale, to overthrow the government or prevent it from being able to govern.
“Moreover, Section 3 uses the verb "engage in," which connotes active involvement and not mere support or assistance …”
The evidence mounts. Chait is arguing along the lines of what is emerging as the conventional wisdom. Whatever Chait’s flaws, here he’s going with the flow.
David Axelrod: a court decision to remove Trump from the primary ballot “would rip the country apart”
Gavin Newsom: “There is no doubt that Donald Trump is a threat to our liberties and even to our democracy,” Newsom said, “but in California, we defeat candidates at the polls. Everything else is a political distraction.”
I am scratching my head at why people get so worked up over this guy. The piece is based on a single quote. Yes, some of Chait’s takes over the years have been “contrarian.” But what’s the equilibrium? Glancing at the search results on NY mag - I’m guessing 95% of his output consists of standard center left liberal takes. (List of titles below if interested. I could be wrong - you’d need to do content analysis to answer this question.)
As for the column at issue - yes, that one quote is not great. But his main point is that it would be a bad idea for U.S. SOTU to uphold the Colorado decision - on pragmatic grounds. That is a mainstream opinion. See Samuel Moyn in today’s NYT. If SOTU upheld it, it would have “disastrous consequences.” It “should overturn the ruling unanimously.”
What is pragmatic about Chait's idea? Moyn's contention that Trump's involvement with Jan. 6 is unclear or not agreed on. That seems a strange reading of recent events.
"Part of the danger lies in the fact that what actually happened on Jan. 6 — and especially Mr. Trump’s exact role beyond months of election denial and entreaties to government officials to side with him — is still too broadly contested. The Colorado court deferred to a lower court on the facts, but it was a bench trial, meaning that no jury ever assessed what happened, and that many Americans still believe Mr. Trump did nothing wrong."
Just because it's in the NYT doesn't make it mainstream.
Thank you for your comment. I’d like to be clear I’m not defending Moyn’s or Chait’s arguments.
My point is that Farrell’s piece is not well-founded - not based on systematic analysis. Chait was not trying to be outrageous, here, in my view.. He’s kind of within the 40 yard lines. The argument that - pragmatically - if you want to make a legal case against Trump, it had better be air tight - is mainstream. You’re right, being published in the NYT doesn’t make it mainstream. But my read of the discourse is that this is a mainstream opinion you see advocated on the left (Moyn) and the non-crazy right (Harvard’s Jack Goldsmith.) The idea Chait was trying to be outrageous just doesn’t hold up.
This misconception leads down a not-great path - for example the prof. above who advocates ad hominem attacks. Chait’s argument may be weak. But you can reply with reasoned argument. I’d actually take that position even if Chait were trying to be outrageous.
I think Chait is trying to be outrageous, especially in the last paragraph.
“ To deny the voters the chance to elect the candidate of their choice is a Rubicon-crossing event for the judiciary. It would be seen forever by tens of millions of Americans as a negation of democracy. It is not enough that their belief is plausibly wrong or likely wrong. It must be incontrovertibly wrong to support such a momentous step.”
This is some swinging for the fences rhetoric. Millions of people do support Trump and will be more furious if he’s denied a ballot presence. The fact that the Colorado justices are threatened attests to that. Trump supported the assault on the Capitol. He attempted to keep Pence from doing his job. If that’s not insurrection, I’m not sure what would count.
We’ll have to agree to disagree on whether Chait is trying to be outrageous. Anyway, Farrell’s argument is that Chait is in the outrage business. I don’t think that’s true, if you look at his work as a whole.
I covered the 2000 election, and a very esteemed liberal Constitutional scholar told me he hoped no court would overturn Bush’s victory because too many Americans would never accept it. Akin to the “outrageous” argument Chait is making. He wouldn’t express it publicly. Anyway, pragmatic adjudication is a thing.
There's an interesting connection between this and how we evaluate language models. At some point AI researchers realized a great way to test language models was to look at perplexity, which is something like how good of a job the model does predicting the next word of a text sequence. So your point about creating a great ChaitGPT is actually very similar to what model builders do right now...
There's a thread that I am not at all technically competent to follow from Shannon's arguments about information (which were seminal for LLMs) through to the the analogy I draw with Iain Banks' notion of interestingness via The Awesome Power of Handwaving.
The APoH effect is going to be my new buzzword! But seriously there’s something interesting about how LLM-world started pulling together once people decided the predictability was the right way to evaluate things. Though I'm not smart enough to know when that runs into a dead end.
Adored this piece. Thank you. I did a trip through the centrifuge of, if not internet fame, a sufficient level of reach and recognizability to put a person at the crossroads you describe so well here. You either lean into being milled down to hyperbole or you intentionally opt out via some means. If you choose the latter, it makes watching the evolution of people who chose the former... interesting. This was such a good read. Thank you again.
Likely he gets attention this way but he bugs me so much I cancelled my subscription to New York Magazine. I give him not attention at all. One cannot learn anything from anything he ever says. It is clutter for the brain. They are all like this--incredibly predictable. I am not immune to attention hooks but some of them make me so impatient, I cannot bother.
Do the data maybe support the contrarian take he’s not the contrarian he’s made out to be?
Here’s a data set. His last 50 columns. How would you code them?
1.
THE NATIONAL INTEREST December 20
Disqualifying Trump From the Ballot Is a Step Too Far
The political case against Colorado’s legal ruling.
2.
THE NATIONAL INTEREST DEC. 18, 2023
Trump Touts Endorsements From Global Dictators His most consistent belief is that authoritarian rulers know best.
3.
We Were Told Biden Is Secretly Running the DOJ. Why Is His Son Being Charged?Maybe Merrick Garland is actually independent.
THE NATIONAL INTEREST DEC. 12, 2023
4.
Political Correctness for Jews Won’t End Campus Antisemitism You can worry about antisemitism without going crazy about it.
THE NATIONAL INTEREST DEC. 7, 2023
5
The College Presidents Were Right About Campus Antisemitism Schools should regulate conduct, not speech.
THE NATIONAL INTEREST DEC. 6, 2023
6.
Why Trump Refuses to Deny He Plans to Become a DictatorIt’s because he loves dictators.
THE NATIONAL INTEREST DEC. 4, 2023
7.
Trump Denies He Ate Too Little After Losing, Claims He Binged InsteadA strange confession of post-coup-attempt gluttony.
THE NATIONAL INTEREST DEC. 2, 2023
8.
Nikki Haley’s Rocket Ride to Second PlaceHer boomlet is the GOP’s weakest challenge to Trump yet.
THE NATIONAL INTEREST DEC. 1, 2023
9.
‘Anti-Chaos’ Candidate Ron DeSantis Has a Dumpster Fire CampaignHis big promise was to end the staff drama!
THE NATIONAL INTEREST NOV. 30, 2023
10.
Elon Musk Doesn’t Understand What ‘Blackmail’ MeansCompanies refusing to pay for your ads is not blackmail.
THE NATIONAL INTEREST NOV. 30, 2023
11.
McCarthy Forgave the Insurrection Because Trump Was Getting Too SkinnyMission accomplished?
THE NATIONAL INTEREST NOV. 27, 2023
12.
Why a Second Trump Presidency Might Try Again to Repeal ObamacareA Republican Congress might do it.
THE NATIONAL INTEREST NOV. 26, 2023
13.
Just Stop Making Official Statements About the News
A simple answer for every CEO, school president, and City Council.
THE NATIONAL INTEREST NOV. 20, 2023
14.
Ron DeSantis Embodies the Republican Surrender to antisemitismOnce again, the “mainstream” Republican refuses to condemn Jew hatred.
THE NATIONAL INTEREST NOV. 17, 2023
15.
Republicans Have an Antisemitism Problem. The Democratic Party Doesn’t.The antisemitic left hates Biden. The antisemitic right loves Trump.
THE NATIONAL INTEREST NOV. 16, 2023
16.
John Podhoretz Is America’s Saddest Twitter AddictThe Commentary editor keeps falling off the wagon.
THE NATIONAL INTEREST NOV. 15, 2023
17.
Selling Bidenomics Is Biden’s Only Chance to Beat TrumpIncumbent presidents can’t run away from the economy.
THE NATIONAL INTEREST NOV. 14, 2023
18.
Democratic Staffers Who Can’t Accept Democratic Support for Israel Should Quit
Anonymously protesting your boss is a weird choice.
THE NATIONAL INTEREST NOV. 14, 2023
19.
President Biden Is Too Old to Campaign Hard But Still Able to Govern
Claiming he can’t do the job is just false.
THE NATIONAL INTEREST NOV. 10, 2023
20.
The Big Ten Suspending Jim Harbaugh Is InsaneIf the scandal is such a big deal, why is the league lying about it?
THE NATIONAL INTEREST NOV. 9, 2023
21.
Trump’s ‘He Did It First’ Rationale for Locking Up His CriticsThe lie hiding behind the other lie.
THE NATIONAL INTEREST NOV. 8, 2023
22.
The Special Elections Tell Us Nothing About Biden’s Chances Against TrumpDemocrats have a Biden problem, not a party problem.
THE NATIONAL INTEREST NOV. 5, 2023
23.
It Is Actually Possible to Oppose Bias Against Jews and Muslims at the Same Time
A revealing conservative complaint.
24.
THE NATIONAL INTEREST NOV. 3, 2023
The Authoritarian Right’s Code-Phrase: ‘Do You Know What Time It Is?’ The Sinister Implications of a Piece of Jargon
25.
THE NATIONAL INTEREST NOV. 2, 2023
Bob Knight Was a Misogynistic BullyI grew up hating the Indiana basketball coach, and I was right.
26.
THE NATIONAL INTEREST NOV. 2, 2023
Why Haven’t the Free-Speech Liberals Denounced This? (They Have.)Not every free-speech advocate is a hypocrite.
27.
THE NATIONAL INTEREST NOV. 1, 2023
Joe Biden Is a Morally Decent President in a Time of HateAn appreciation of the administration’s response to 10/7.
28.
THE NATIONAL INTEREST OCT. 31, 2023
House Republicans: No Aid for Israel Unless Rich Tax Cheats Get a BreakThis is not a “pay-for,” it’s an add-on.
THE NATIONAL INTEREST OCT. 26, 2023
29.
Republican ‘Moderates’ Caved. Wow, That Never Happens.Except always.
THE NATIONAL INTEREST OCT. 25, 2023
30,
New Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson Was Mastermind of the January 6 PlotHow the Trump coup attempt propelled Johnson’s rise.
THE NATIONAL INTEREST OCT. 24, 2023
31.
Authoritarian Maniac Ron DeSantis Makes Anti-Israel Group Free Speech MartyrsThe answer to horrendous ideas is not censorship.
THE NATIONAL INTEREST OCT. 23, 2023
32.
Trump Is Actually Guilty of the Kind of Bribery Republicans Imagine Biden DidThe Mar-a-Lago scandal is way worse even than what Republicans can dream up against Biden.
THE NATIONAL INTEREST OCT. 20, 2023
33.
It Turns Out Joe Biden Is Actually In Charge of the Biden AdministrationSo much for the charge the president is a puppet of his left-wing staff.
THE NATIONAL INTEREST OCT. 19, 2023
34.
Ari Fleischer Enraged by Advice Not to Repeat 9/11 BlundersTitanic captain unavailable to weigh in.
THE NATIONAL INTEREST OCT. 18, 2023
35.
Why Are Anti-Ukraine Republicans So Hawkish on Israel?The revealing hypocrisy of the GOP’s pro-Russia wing.
THE NATIONAL INTEREST OCT. 16, 2023
36.
Hamas, the Jews, and the Illiberal LeftThe schism on the left is not just about the Middle East.
THE NATIONAL INTEREST OCT. 12, 2023
37.
Do Democrats Understand How Bad the Election Is Looking?Biden as nominee is looking more and more unsafe.
THE NATIONAL INTEREST OCT. 10, 2023
38,
Your Moral Equation Must Have Human Beings on Both SidesIgnoring universal humanity is the path to murder.
THE NATIONAL INTEREST OCT. 6, 2023
39
Running Spoiler Campaigns Does Not Protect ‘Democracy’The fatuous rationale for No Labels and Cornel West.
THE NATIONAL INTEREST OCT. 5, 2023
40.
Why House Republicans Keep Couping Each OtherAn even crazier Republican always comes along to claim the gavel.
THE NATIONAL INTEREST OCT. 4, 2023
41.
The News Media Is Not Trying to Elect TrumpThe mainstream media isn’t, at least.
THE NATIONAL INTEREST OCT. 3, 2023
42.
Why Democrats Shouldn’t Bail Out Kevin McCarthyLet justice be done, though the Kevins fall.
THE NATIONAL INTEREST OCT. 3, 2023
43.
Ron DeSantis: Trump’s Coup Attempt Was No Worse Than That West Wing AdBill Maher lets the Florida governor engage in absurd whataboutism.
THE NATIONAL INTEREST OCT. 2, 2023
44.
Conservative Columnist Thinks the Polls Are Rigged for TrumpDeSantis fan Andrew McCarthy gets very desperate.
THE NATIONAL INTEREST OCT. 2, 2023
45.
Anti-Trump Republicans Won’t Save Democracy. Can Anybody?The authors of ‘How Democracies Die’ have a hopeful answer.
THE NATIONAL INTEREST SEPT. 28, 2023
46.
DeSantis Forced to Say Why He Enjoys Denying Health Insurance to Poor FloridiansThe banality of “normal” American conservatism briefly surfaces.
THE NATIONAL INTEREST SEPT. 22, 2023
47.
Let’s Compare How Trump and Biden Treat Indicted Crooks on Their Own SideRepublicans won’t admit it, but Biden is respecting DOJ independence.
THE NATIONAL INTEREST SEPT. 21, 2023
48.
‘Biden or Bust’ Is a Risky Strategy to Save DemocracyThe unconvincing case for complacency.
THE NATIONAL INTEREST SEPT. 19, 2023
49
Now Liberals Are Unskewing Polls, TooStop it, the media isn’t faking the close race.
THE NATIONAL INTEREST SEPT. 18, 2023
50.
Trump Throws Anti-Abortion Activists Under the BusWhat Trump’s moderate abortion rhetoric says about the presidential race.
"Secure an unelected second term in office". As if this is some highly precise technical term that he prefers, when it really is saying "coup d'etat" rather than "insurrection", which are near-synonyms.
Which loops back to your reading of his motives. Your reading shows precisely why "ad hominem" is the only right answer sometimes to the arguments of another--to respond with outrage or rebuttal or counter-argument is to get trapped in a provocation that is both consciously intended to entrap and which is ultimately valueless, e.g., is pretty much exactly what people mean when they dismiss a line of conversation as being "just semantic". Facing that, you can judge either that the provocateur is either an idiot, is someone who got stuck in being a high-school debater the same way some people get stuck in having been the quarterback of their Pee-Wee football team, or has hit on that kind of empty provocation as a market strategy. I think Chait is definitely in #3, as you do. (There are others than I think are in #1 or #2, like Freidersdorf, who is sort of Chait's understudy.)
Another way to put it is that Chait knows he is a heel (in WWF terms) and enjoys it, while Friedersdorf is just a gawd-help-us.
Chait’s ham-handed quote is more or less a gloss on eminent, anti-Trump, legal scholar, Michael McConnell:
“Section 3 speaks of "insurrection" and "rebellion." These are demanding terms, connoting only the most serious of uprisings against the government, such as the Whisky Rebellion and the Civil War. The terms of Section 3 should not be defined down to include mere riots or civil disturbances, which are common in United States history. Many of these riots impede the lawful operations of government, and exceed the power of normal law enforcement to control. Are they insurrections or rebellions, within the meaning of Section 3?
“I have not done the historical work to speak with confidence, but I would hazard the suggestion that a riot is the use of violence to express anger or to attempt to coerce the government to take certain actions, while insurrections and rebellions are the use of violence, usually on a larger scale, to overthrow the government or prevent it from being able to govern.
“Moreover, Section 3 uses the verb "engage in," which connotes active involvement and not mere support or assistance …”
https://reason.com/volokh/2023/08/12/prof-michael-mcconnell-responding-about-the-fourteenth-amendment-insurrection-and-trump/
The evidence mounts. Chait is arguing along the lines of what is emerging as the conventional wisdom. Whatever Chait’s flaws, here he’s going with the flow.
David Axelrod: a court decision to remove Trump from the primary ballot “would rip the country apart”
https://x.com/rpsagainsttrump/status/1741132725862457599?s=61&t=EUEPNorcS2G_uwppF61fMQ
Gavin Newsom: “There is no doubt that Donald Trump is a threat to our liberties and even to our democracy,” Newsom said, “but in California, we defeat candidates at the polls. Everything else is a political distraction.”
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/12/22/newsom-pans-efforts-to-block-trump-from-california-ballot-00133152
Yes, that quote from the piece is weak. But the key point of the piece is basically Bush Sr’s SNL tag line - “wouldn’t be prudent”
Of course, the conventional wisdom may be “outrageous,” but that’s another matter.
I am scratching my head at why people get so worked up over this guy. The piece is based on a single quote. Yes, some of Chait’s takes over the years have been “contrarian.” But what’s the equilibrium? Glancing at the search results on NY mag - I’m guessing 95% of his output consists of standard center left liberal takes. (List of titles below if interested. I could be wrong - you’d need to do content analysis to answer this question.)
As for the column at issue - yes, that one quote is not great. But his main point is that it would be a bad idea for U.S. SOTU to uphold the Colorado decision - on pragmatic grounds. That is a mainstream opinion. See Samuel Moyn in today’s NYT. If SOTU upheld it, it would have “disastrous consequences.” It “should overturn the ruling unanimously.”
What is pragmatic about Chait's idea? Moyn's contention that Trump's involvement with Jan. 6 is unclear or not agreed on. That seems a strange reading of recent events.
"Part of the danger lies in the fact that what actually happened on Jan. 6 — and especially Mr. Trump’s exact role beyond months of election denial and entreaties to government officials to side with him — is still too broadly contested. The Colorado court deferred to a lower court on the facts, but it was a bench trial, meaning that no jury ever assessed what happened, and that many Americans still believe Mr. Trump did nothing wrong."
Just because it's in the NYT doesn't make it mainstream.
Thank you for your comment. I’d like to be clear I’m not defending Moyn’s or Chait’s arguments.
My point is that Farrell’s piece is not well-founded - not based on systematic analysis. Chait was not trying to be outrageous, here, in my view.. He’s kind of within the 40 yard lines. The argument that - pragmatically - if you want to make a legal case against Trump, it had better be air tight - is mainstream. You’re right, being published in the NYT doesn’t make it mainstream. But my read of the discourse is that this is a mainstream opinion you see advocated on the left (Moyn) and the non-crazy right (Harvard’s Jack Goldsmith.) The idea Chait was trying to be outrageous just doesn’t hold up.
This misconception leads down a not-great path - for example the prof. above who advocates ad hominem attacks. Chait’s argument may be weak. But you can reply with reasoned argument. I’d actually take that position even if Chait were trying to be outrageous.
I think Chait is trying to be outrageous, especially in the last paragraph.
“ To deny the voters the chance to elect the candidate of their choice is a Rubicon-crossing event for the judiciary. It would be seen forever by tens of millions of Americans as a negation of democracy. It is not enough that their belief is plausibly wrong or likely wrong. It must be incontrovertibly wrong to support such a momentous step.”
This is some swinging for the fences rhetoric. Millions of people do support Trump and will be more furious if he’s denied a ballot presence. The fact that the Colorado justices are threatened attests to that. Trump supported the assault on the Capitol. He attempted to keep Pence from doing his job. If that’s not insurrection, I’m not sure what would count.
Unfortunately Trump quoted the first part of that on Truth Social! Chait took exception.
https://x.com/jonathanchait/status/1739767616418337054?s=61&t=EUEPNorcS2G_uwppF61fMQ
We’ll have to agree to disagree on whether Chait is trying to be outrageous. Anyway, Farrell’s argument is that Chait is in the outrage business. I don’t think that’s true, if you look at his work as a whole.
I covered the 2000 election, and a very esteemed liberal Constitutional scholar told me he hoped no court would overturn Bush’s victory because too many Americans would never accept it. Akin to the “outrageous” argument Chait is making. He wouldn’t express it publicly. Anyway, pragmatic adjudication is a thing.
There's an interesting connection between this and how we evaluate language models. At some point AI researchers realized a great way to test language models was to look at perplexity, which is something like how good of a job the model does predicting the next word of a text sequence. So your point about creating a great ChaitGPT is actually very similar to what model builders do right now...
There's a thread that I am not at all technically competent to follow from Shannon's arguments about information (which were seminal for LLMs) through to the the analogy I draw with Iain Banks' notion of interestingness via The Awesome Power of Handwaving.
The APoH effect is going to be my new buzzword! But seriously there’s something interesting about how LLM-world started pulling together once people decided the predictability was the right way to evaluate things. Though I'm not smart enough to know when that runs into a dead end.
[immediately sends email to local bookstore asking if they have a copy of Feersum Endjinn]
Adored this piece. Thank you. I did a trip through the centrifuge of, if not internet fame, a sufficient level of reach and recognizability to put a person at the crossroads you describe so well here. You either lean into being milled down to hyperbole or you intentionally opt out via some means. If you choose the latter, it makes watching the evolution of people who chose the former... interesting. This was such a good read. Thank you again.
Likely he gets attention this way but he bugs me so much I cancelled my subscription to New York Magazine. I give him not attention at all. One cannot learn anything from anything he ever says. It is clutter for the brain. They are all like this--incredibly predictable. I am not immune to attention hooks but some of them make me so impatient, I cannot bother.
This piece is based on one quote.
Is Chait a contrarian?
How about some more data?
Do the data maybe support the contrarian take he’s not the contrarian he’s made out to be?
Here’s a data set. His last 50 columns. How would you code them?
1.
THE NATIONAL INTEREST December 20
Disqualifying Trump From the Ballot Is a Step Too Far
The political case against Colorado’s legal ruling.
2.
THE NATIONAL INTEREST DEC. 18, 2023
Trump Touts Endorsements From Global Dictators His most consistent belief is that authoritarian rulers know best.
3.
We Were Told Biden Is Secretly Running the DOJ. Why Is His Son Being Charged?Maybe Merrick Garland is actually independent.
THE NATIONAL INTEREST DEC. 12, 2023
4.
Political Correctness for Jews Won’t End Campus Antisemitism You can worry about antisemitism without going crazy about it.
THE NATIONAL INTEREST DEC. 7, 2023
5
The College Presidents Were Right About Campus Antisemitism Schools should regulate conduct, not speech.
THE NATIONAL INTEREST DEC. 6, 2023
6.
Why Trump Refuses to Deny He Plans to Become a DictatorIt’s because he loves dictators.
THE NATIONAL INTEREST DEC. 4, 2023
7.
Trump Denies He Ate Too Little After Losing, Claims He Binged InsteadA strange confession of post-coup-attempt gluttony.
THE NATIONAL INTEREST DEC. 2, 2023
8.
Nikki Haley’s Rocket Ride to Second PlaceHer boomlet is the GOP’s weakest challenge to Trump yet.
THE NATIONAL INTEREST DEC. 1, 2023
9.
‘Anti-Chaos’ Candidate Ron DeSantis Has a Dumpster Fire CampaignHis big promise was to end the staff drama!
THE NATIONAL INTEREST NOV. 30, 2023
10.
Elon Musk Doesn’t Understand What ‘Blackmail’ MeansCompanies refusing to pay for your ads is not blackmail.
THE NATIONAL INTEREST NOV. 30, 2023
11.
McCarthy Forgave the Insurrection Because Trump Was Getting Too SkinnyMission accomplished?
THE NATIONAL INTEREST NOV. 27, 2023
12.
Why a Second Trump Presidency Might Try Again to Repeal ObamacareA Republican Congress might do it.
THE NATIONAL INTEREST NOV. 26, 2023
13.
Just Stop Making Official Statements About the News
A simple answer for every CEO, school president, and City Council.
THE NATIONAL INTEREST NOV. 20, 2023
14.
Ron DeSantis Embodies the Republican Surrender to antisemitismOnce again, the “mainstream” Republican refuses to condemn Jew hatred.
THE NATIONAL INTEREST NOV. 17, 2023
15.
Republicans Have an Antisemitism Problem. The Democratic Party Doesn’t.The antisemitic left hates Biden. The antisemitic right loves Trump.
THE NATIONAL INTEREST NOV. 16, 2023
16.
John Podhoretz Is America’s Saddest Twitter AddictThe Commentary editor keeps falling off the wagon.
THE NATIONAL INTEREST NOV. 15, 2023
17.
Selling Bidenomics Is Biden’s Only Chance to Beat TrumpIncumbent presidents can’t run away from the economy.
THE NATIONAL INTEREST NOV. 14, 2023
18.
Democratic Staffers Who Can’t Accept Democratic Support for Israel Should Quit
Anonymously protesting your boss is a weird choice.
THE NATIONAL INTEREST NOV. 14, 2023
19.
President Biden Is Too Old to Campaign Hard But Still Able to Govern
Claiming he can’t do the job is just false.
THE NATIONAL INTEREST NOV. 10, 2023
20.
The Big Ten Suspending Jim Harbaugh Is InsaneIf the scandal is such a big deal, why is the league lying about it?
THE NATIONAL INTEREST NOV. 9, 2023
21.
Trump’s ‘He Did It First’ Rationale for Locking Up His CriticsThe lie hiding behind the other lie.
THE NATIONAL INTEREST NOV. 8, 2023
22.
The Special Elections Tell Us Nothing About Biden’s Chances Against TrumpDemocrats have a Biden problem, not a party problem.
THE NATIONAL INTEREST NOV. 5, 2023
23.
It Is Actually Possible to Oppose Bias Against Jews and Muslims at the Same Time
A revealing conservative complaint.
24.
THE NATIONAL INTEREST NOV. 3, 2023
The Authoritarian Right’s Code-Phrase: ‘Do You Know What Time It Is?’ The Sinister Implications of a Piece of Jargon
25.
THE NATIONAL INTEREST NOV. 2, 2023
Bob Knight Was a Misogynistic BullyI grew up hating the Indiana basketball coach, and I was right.
26.
THE NATIONAL INTEREST NOV. 2, 2023
Why Haven’t the Free-Speech Liberals Denounced This? (They Have.)Not every free-speech advocate is a hypocrite.
27.
THE NATIONAL INTEREST NOV. 1, 2023
Joe Biden Is a Morally Decent President in a Time of HateAn appreciation of the administration’s response to 10/7.
28.
THE NATIONAL INTEREST OCT. 31, 2023
House Republicans: No Aid for Israel Unless Rich Tax Cheats Get a BreakThis is not a “pay-for,” it’s an add-on.
THE NATIONAL INTEREST OCT. 26, 2023
29.
Republican ‘Moderates’ Caved. Wow, That Never Happens.Except always.
THE NATIONAL INTEREST OCT. 25, 2023
30,
New Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson Was Mastermind of the January 6 PlotHow the Trump coup attempt propelled Johnson’s rise.
THE NATIONAL INTEREST OCT. 24, 2023
31.
Authoritarian Maniac Ron DeSantis Makes Anti-Israel Group Free Speech MartyrsThe answer to horrendous ideas is not censorship.
THE NATIONAL INTEREST OCT. 23, 2023
32.
Trump Is Actually Guilty of the Kind of Bribery Republicans Imagine Biden DidThe Mar-a-Lago scandal is way worse even than what Republicans can dream up against Biden.
THE NATIONAL INTEREST OCT. 20, 2023
33.
It Turns Out Joe Biden Is Actually In Charge of the Biden AdministrationSo much for the charge the president is a puppet of his left-wing staff.
THE NATIONAL INTEREST OCT. 19, 2023
34.
Ari Fleischer Enraged by Advice Not to Repeat 9/11 BlundersTitanic captain unavailable to weigh in.
THE NATIONAL INTEREST OCT. 18, 2023
35.
Why Are Anti-Ukraine Republicans So Hawkish on Israel?The revealing hypocrisy of the GOP’s pro-Russia wing.
THE NATIONAL INTEREST OCT. 16, 2023
36.
Hamas, the Jews, and the Illiberal LeftThe schism on the left is not just about the Middle East.
THE NATIONAL INTEREST OCT. 12, 2023
37.
Do Democrats Understand How Bad the Election Is Looking?Biden as nominee is looking more and more unsafe.
THE NATIONAL INTEREST OCT. 10, 2023
38,
Your Moral Equation Must Have Human Beings on Both SidesIgnoring universal humanity is the path to murder.
THE NATIONAL INTEREST OCT. 6, 2023
39
Running Spoiler Campaigns Does Not Protect ‘Democracy’The fatuous rationale for No Labels and Cornel West.
THE NATIONAL INTEREST OCT. 5, 2023
40.
Why House Republicans Keep Couping Each OtherAn even crazier Republican always comes along to claim the gavel.
THE NATIONAL INTEREST OCT. 4, 2023
41.
The News Media Is Not Trying to Elect TrumpThe mainstream media isn’t, at least.
THE NATIONAL INTEREST OCT. 3, 2023
42.
Why Democrats Shouldn’t Bail Out Kevin McCarthyLet justice be done, though the Kevins fall.
THE NATIONAL INTEREST OCT. 3, 2023
43.
Ron DeSantis: Trump’s Coup Attempt Was No Worse Than That West Wing AdBill Maher lets the Florida governor engage in absurd whataboutism.
THE NATIONAL INTEREST OCT. 2, 2023
44.
Conservative Columnist Thinks the Polls Are Rigged for TrumpDeSantis fan Andrew McCarthy gets very desperate.
THE NATIONAL INTEREST OCT. 2, 2023
45.
Anti-Trump Republicans Won’t Save Democracy. Can Anybody?The authors of ‘How Democracies Die’ have a hopeful answer.
THE NATIONAL INTEREST SEPT. 28, 2023
46.
DeSantis Forced to Say Why He Enjoys Denying Health Insurance to Poor FloridiansThe banality of “normal” American conservatism briefly surfaces.
THE NATIONAL INTEREST SEPT. 22, 2023
47.
Let’s Compare How Trump and Biden Treat Indicted Crooks on Their Own SideRepublicans won’t admit it, but Biden is respecting DOJ independence.
THE NATIONAL INTEREST SEPT. 21, 2023
48.
‘Biden or Bust’ Is a Risky Strategy to Save DemocracyThe unconvincing case for complacency.
THE NATIONAL INTEREST SEPT. 19, 2023
49
Now Liberals Are Unskewing Polls, TooStop it, the media isn’t faking the close race.
THE NATIONAL INTEREST SEPT. 18, 2023
50.
Trump Throws Anti-Abortion Activists Under the BusWhat Trump’s moderate abortion rhetoric says about the presidential race.
What was the “side comment”?