Donald Trump

Despite a political career now in shambles, Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey made it clear last night that he still delights in the role of attack dog.

It’s a telling symbol of the Republican Party under the spell of Trump.

Typically one hopes a Christian benediction doesn’t refer to your political opponents as the enemy.

But when I listened to Pastor Mark Burns deliver the benediction to the Republican Convention on Monday, I realized that Trump has stained just about all elements of our civic discourse.

Clinton and Trump will make all manner of claims about their personal positions and policy preferences, but the truth is that neither of them would be able to lead in the manner they claim. We live in a hyper-polarized political age that makes presidents party leaders first and foremost. Campaign claims about rising above party or bringing the warring sides together or the classic promise to “work across the isle” for the best interests of the American people are utter nonsense. Presidents today cannot be “uniters” on policy and voters who think the quality or content of our politics depends in any significant way on the identity of the President are living in an alternate reality.

Barack Obama can't be president because he lacks a valid birth certificate. Judge Gonzalo Curiel can't rule on a legal case fairly because he is of Mexican heritage. So it is in the world of Donald Trump.  But it's Trump who is un-American.

Few political scientists or journalists foresaw the rise of Donald Trump. But Norman Ornstein did.

Now that he is all but assured the Republican Party nomination, it’s time to take stock. How will GOP nominee Donald Trump shape his party of choice? The early indicators are troubling.

GOP eminence grise Ron Kaufman is no doubt trying to pay homage to Ronald Reagan by following Reagan’s 11th commandment: though shall not speak ill of a fellow Republican.

Move over Jeff Jacoby, Eric Fehrnstrom’s appears to be gunning for your beat over at the Globe. A couple weeks back I gently debunked Fehrnstrom’s transparently weak argument that Trump could beat Clinton. This week, he has published an even more transparently weak attack on Hillary Clinton’s candidacy that I will herein debunk a bit less gently. Frankly, Mr. Fehrnstrom writes like a graduating senior taking a course pass-fail, though I’m not sure he deserves credit for giving it “the old college try.”

The Republican Party, like Humpty Dumpty, is poised for  a disastrous fall. Can all the king's horses and all the king's men put the GOP back together again?

Conservative social scientist Charles Murray and progressive economist Thomas Piketty come to different conclusions about the rise of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders.