Donald trump

The Republican establishment is on the verge of extinction. Donald Trump’s first term wasn’t enough to kill it off: Trump came into office in 2017 with establishment figures such as Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan leading the party in Congress, and Trump’s own vice president, Mike Pence, had been chosen for that role as a reassurance to the old guard. Trump made some efforts to staff his administration with outsiders, but the likes of Steve Bannon or the ill-fated Rex Tillerson were heavily outnumbered by Republicans who would have been just as happy – or a great deal happier – to serve in another Bush administration.  This time, though, things are

Invade the world, invite the world. That pithy phrase was invented in the 2000s by Steve Sailer, the right-wing writer, to mock the then bipartisan consensus which supported George W. Bush’s war on terror abroad while pushing open borders at home. Or, as Sailer also put it: “Bomb them over there and indulge them over here.” Back then, such analysis was generally dismissed as the preserve of white supremacist cranks. Now, it’s fair to say that Sailerite thinking animates the spirit of the second Donald Trump administration. Disrupt the world, deport the world. That’s the order of the day. Since America’s stunning attack on Venezuela last weekend, almost everybody has

I hate to be the bearer of good news, but the US economy is doing quite well. A delayed government report shows that third-quarter GDP grew at 4.3 percent, hardly a record, but still healthy, the highest growth rate in two years. Last week’s inflation report showed a lower-than-expected number, and wage growth is exceeding inflation. Consumer spending is up, and, yes, the stock market is booming. Happy days are here again. The sky above is clear again. Many accounts on my X feed, which are either run by Democratic partisans or Iranian trolls or both, say that food-pantry lines are reaching record numbers this holiday season, and that poverty

When I was a boy, Friday nights were time for a new episode of The Rockford Files, a show about a hapless ex con PI, played by James Garner, who lived on a boat in a California marina. Fifty years later, Friday nights are for a different kind of files: the Epstein Files. Usually, government saves Friday evenings for the kinds of things it doesn’t want the news to cover, and the Friday before Christmas is generally a good place to hide. But in the age of the instantaneous news cycle in a world without a Santa Claus, they’re not going to get their holiday wish. This week’s episode of

President Donald Trump has reopened the healthcare debate with a mix of ideas that do not align. He has pledged to “terminate” Obamacare, then signaled openness to extending ACA subsidies, then endorsed personal freedom accounts that would send money directly to individuals. These proposals represent very different diagnoses of what is wrong with American health care. No serious reform effort can point in contradictory directions. But this problem extends far beyond Trump. Republicans have offered inconsistent signals, with some now willing to extend ACA subsidies again despite a decade of arguing – correctly – that these subsidies inflate premiums and entrench insurer dominance. Others want to preserve zero premium plans

Boris Johnson has urged European leaders to hand $247 billion of frozen Russian central bank assets to Ukraine – but says he fears they “lack the courage” to do so, in an interview with The Spectator. The former British prime minister also warned that Trump is at risk of “morally polluting” himself if he caves to Putin’s demands in peace negotiations and encouraged his negotiating team to stop the “nauseating deals” they are discussing about joint business ventures. “I think Europe is at a very difficult point because Europe has got to do the reparations alone,” Johnson said. “And I’m worried that they lack the courage. They must do it.