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Ben Beckett is an American writer in Vienna.
Tax leniency for the rich and austerity for workers and young people are standard Republican fare. What’s notable this time is using government default as leverage for those tax breaks and austerity. If the GOP pulls it off, it will set a frightening precedent.
When he faced prosecutors in New York yesterday, Donald Trump appeared worried about pending cases against him in Washington, DC, and Georgia. Those charges are far more serious than the New York case, indicating that his problems have only just begun.
When asked about America’s gun violence and mass shooting epidemic after the recent horror in Nashville, Republican congressman Tim Burchett said the most honest thing a Republican has said in years: “We’re not going to fix it.”
Donald Trump deserves to be indicted and prosecuted. But his legal troubles may not end his political career, much less stop the rise of the broader Trump-inflected right. We’ll only defeat Trumpism by building an attractive political alternative.
Donald Trump has implored conservatives to hit the streets if he ends up indicted in New York. It might be cause for worry — if Trump had any ability to mobilize mass numbers of supporters anymore.
Republicans say they want to “protect” kids by stopping them from learning about LGBTQ identity and racism. Yet they are simultaneously rolling back child labor laws to allow children to work in industrial laundries, construction sites, and meatpacking plants.
CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference, is usually one of the biggest events of the year for conservatives, but this year it was a huge flop. Has the Right given up trying to speak to anyone beyond its most unhinged followers?
Republicans hate Social Security and Medicare, but the programs’ universal structure makes them too risky to take on. We need more programs like that.
In 2020, Fox News anchors Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity pushed Donald Trump’s election fraud claims for weeks. New documents suggest they never believed any of it.
Charles Koch and other big-money GOP donors are showing signs that they’re done with Donald Trump. Only one problem: the base isn’t ready to move on.
The idea that judges are objective interpreters of the law is a polite fiction. With their ability to carry out a far-right agenda through democratic means declining, the GOP is embracing judicial partisanship.
Given the programs’ popularity, the only way to break Social Security and Medicare is an economic shock. It’s possible that manufacturing such a shock is behind Republicans’ refusal to raise the debt ceiling.
The Right plans to seize on the debt ceiling to ram through unpopular ideas. The strategy could force Democrats to choose between government paralysis or draconian cuts to the federal budget — possibly even Social Security and Medicare.
Republicans don’t have enough power to pass anything on their own. But they still have plenty of power to cause chaos and, depending on how Democrats react, force terrible budget cuts on the country.
With dueling investigations into Donald Trump and Hunter Biden, low-energy presidential campaigns based on not being the other guy, and maybe a government shutdown, 2023 will see political gridlock. Except in the conservative Supreme Court, that is.
Donald Trump’s call to “terminate” the Constitution is every bit as outlandish as we’ve come to expect. But it’s also a political dud, reflecting the low-energy mood that pervades his newly announced presidential campaign.
Democrats’ midterm strategy was to campaign on issues where they had an edge and little else. If they don’t start to offer voters a meaningful comprehensive vision for the future, Republicans are poised to emerge victorious from the coming period of gridlock.
Over the last decade, the American right has developed a successful organizing model that combines national messaging with local mobilizations. The stalled-out left could stand to learn a thing or two.
Voters agree American democracy is in trouble, but they’re divided on why and don’t seem too concerned. The Left needs a strong message condemning right-wing attacks on democracy and connecting the topic to the bread-and-butter issues voters care about.
GOP leaders are threatening to cut Social Security and Medicare if they take back the House this fall. Elected Democrats won’t have the will or power to stop them unless ordinary Americans are willing to put up a real fight.