A Tough Question

A reporter asked House Speaker Mike Johnson, “Do you believe Biden’s presidency is God’s will?’ Johnson said he’s a Bible believing Christian and the Bible says God’s sovereign so, yes, Biden’s election was God’s will. Steve Bannon the MAGA Trumpster erupted on his podcast, ‘Be prepared for your heads to blow up,’ played the video…

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An Old Problem

Years ago sitting in a Republican convention I stared at a stranger standing at a microphone – I had no idea who he was but we were on opposite sides and when he finished speaking I had no doubt he’d handed us a problem. Back then Bob Orr was what I called a Mountain Republican.…

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Clouds on the Horizon

In a small Virginia church at the end of the Roaring Twenties my grandfather married my grandmother – a month later the Stock Market crashed. During the Great Depression he struggled for a decade.  Hitler marched into Austria and Czechoslovakia, German tanks rolled over Poland, Belgium, France, British soldiers fled Dunkirk. Staring at storm clouds…

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Swifties vs MAGA

The MAGA meltdown over Taylor Swift explains much about politics today – and for the last 70 years. It’s about old white men who are angry about being knocked off their perch by women, Blacks, Latinos, young people and LGBTQ people. It’s been going on since May 1954, when the U.S. Supreme Court declared school…

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Make Trump Lose Again

As always, Iowa and New Hampshire changed everything. President Biden is no longer running against a non-existent ideal. It’s him or Trump. America or MAGA. Democracy or dictatorship. Trump looks unbeatable in the Republican race. And unelectable in November. The New York Times, which for months harped on Biden’s liabilities, now notes: “Mr. Trump’s campaign…

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Fear and Loathing 2024

I’m optimistic about the 2024 elections, as I’ve written. But I’m fearful for our nation. Because of Trump and MAGA. It’s clear he will summon his mobs to violence, as he did January 6, 2021. He has promised “bedlam” if courts hold him to account for crimes. Already, there have been “swatting” calls, bomb threats…

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A Sacred Cause

In one stroke, with one speech, President Biden transformed the 2024 election. It’s about “a sacred cause:” the defense of democracy. In his speech near Valley Forge last week – a day before the third anniversary of the Trump-MAGA mob’s violent assault on the Capitol and the Constitution – the President invoked the spirit of…

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Politics Takes Control

After Roe vs. Wade for decades Republicans said, ‘Taking an innocent life is wrong. A fetus is alive. We can’t do that.’ After the Supreme Court overturned Roe vs. Wade, Republicans lost elections in 2022 and 2023 – eyes locked on the next election Republican political gurus started telling candidates: Voters don’t like banning abortions…

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Character

Richard Nixon beat George McGovern by a landslide in 1972, got caught in a lie – on tape – was out of office. Lyndon Johnson promised he’d never send American boys 10,000 miles across the Pacific Ocean to fight in Vietnam, beat Barry Goldwater in a landslide – after the election sent 500,000 boys to…

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A Forgotten Memory

The first speech I heard Ronald Reagan make was six weeks after Russian tanks rolled into Saigon in 1975 and we lost the Vietnam War. Voice mellow, soothing, humble, his speech wasn’t a history lesson it was a reminiscence, a man telling a story he’d watched, lived through, remembering storm troopers goose-stepping into Vienna, the…

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