Against the Religion of 'Woke Anti-Racism' by Michael Barone
"If you pull the camera back and think about 1965, and think about last week, there's been massive improvement. The question is why so many people pretend that that's not true."
Commentary by Michael Barone
Most Recent Releases
December 17, 2021
December 10, 2021
Redistricting Helps Republicans but Doesn't Guarantee Control By Michael Barone
Here's a suggestion for those who think that partisan redistricting -- or, as is often the case with these plaints, partisan redistricting by Republicans -- threatens to destroy American democracy. Take a look at "The Long Red Thread," the recent history by Sabato's Crystal Ball analyst Kyle Kondik of House of Representatives elections from 1964 to the present decade.
December 3, 2021
A Post-Roe Abortion Political 'Revolution' Is Unlikely By Michael Barone
The Supreme Court, as this is written, is hearing oral arguments in the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, challenging Mississippi's law banning, with a few exceptions, abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. There's a powerful argument that the Court can't logically uphold this statute, which is less restrictive than most other nations' abortion laws, without overturning Roe v. Wade, the 1973 case that overturned all 50 states' abortion laws.
November 19, 2021
Biden Stimulus Failures Could Produce 1920s-Style Republican Victories
What's wrong with the economy? Nobody seems quite sure, but it's clear that the Biden administration's $1.9 trillion stimulus package passed in March, on top of the $900 billion approved in December, the last full month of the Trump administration, has not had the intended results.
November 12, 2021
History Has Some Bad News for Biden Democrats by Micahel Barone
As in the 1880s, we live in an era of polarized partisan parity, in which changes of opinion among independent voters can sweep election results. One year ago, Joe Biden was elected president with 51% of the popular vote. Now, with his job approval down to 42%, his party is in trouble.
November 5, 2021
Biden Democrats Lose Big -- And on Cultural Issues by Michael Barone
President Joe Biden returned the morning of Nov. 3 to a nation that no longer supports him or his party.
October 29, 2021
Health and Education Elites Forced To Confess Error by Michael Barone
Confessions of error are rare enough in woke America that they should be strictly construed against the speaker. Two such confessions (the legal term is "admissions against interest") suddenly appeared last week.
October 22, 2021
Republicans Gain Big in Blue-Collar Elections But Narrowly in Affluent State Legislative Elections by Michael Barone
State legislative special elections provide an interesting index of partisan sentiment these days. That wasn't so in the late 20th century, when clever local candidates and notables often got voters to cross party lines. But in this century of increasing partisan polarization and straight-ticket voting, local special elections are a proxy for opinion on national issues.
October 15, 2021
Bill de Blasio Is On the Way Out, But His Mindset Lingers by Michael Barone
As his two terms as New York's mayor approach their end, and long after his presidential campaign ended with a whimper, Bill de Blasio has chimed in with one last act of destruction: a proposal to end the public schools' entry-by-exam gifted and talented program for first graders.
October 8, 2021
Both Parties' Ignorance of Electoral Reality Has Led To Our Present Discontents by Michael Barone
Here's a jarring thought: Most political analysts, and most political strategists for our two political parties, have been operating off flawed data and flawed assumptions. The result has been one political surprise after another, and the election of the two most unsatisfactory presidents, in the minds of many voters, since Franklin Pierce and James Buchanan in the 1850s.
October 1, 2021
Biden Policies Need Better Arguments Than 'Orange Man Bad' by Micahel Barone
"First you win the argument, then you win the vote." That advice from Margaret Thatcher has been ignored by President Joe Biden and Democratic Party leaders to their detriment.
September 24, 2021
Hillary Clinton Should Apologize for the Biggest Political Hoax Since Titus Oates by Michael Barone
It's the biggest political hoax since Titus Oates's allegations of a "Popish Plot" to assassinate King Charles II in 1678. Oates's charge of a Jesuit conspiracy swept through London and led to the execution of four innocent men before Oates was proved a fraud.
September 17, 2021
California Voters Get What They Deserve By Michael Barone
The nation's largest state has just voted in an election triggered by one of the nation's weirdest recall processes, and the results have come out just about where they've been before.
September 10, 2021
The Feminization of America: What Will It Look Like? By Michael Barone
Are we witnessing the feminization of America? And if so, is that a good or bad thing, or is it, like so many quiet but ineluctable trends, a combination of the two?
September 3, 2021
Joe Biden Is No Jimmy Carter By Michael Barone
"The worst president since Jimmy Carter."
August 27, 2021
A Tale of Two Airlifts: A Commentary by Michael Barone
"This is now on track," said White House press secretary Jen Psaki on Tuesday, "to be the largest airlift in U.S. history." On the process of bringing American citizens, Afghan partners and allies out, she continued, "I would not say that is anything but a success."
August 20, 2021
Fiddling While Kabul Falls: A Commentary by Michael Barone
Historians aren't actually sure that Nero caused or neglected a fire that consumed much of ancient Rome. Historians, however much they'd like to, won't be able to deny that President Joe Biden bears full responsibility for America's humiliating retreat from Afghanistan, and our neglect of the tens of thousands who aided us and now face torture and death from the Taliban.
August 13, 2021
California Liberals Flunking First Test of Government by Michael Barone
Will Gov. Gavin Newsom be the second Democratic California governor to be recalled and removed from office in this (or the last) century? Polls suggest that's one possible result of next month's recall election.
August 6, 2021
The Manhattan Project's 'Martians' Didn't Look Like America by Michael Barone
The Manhattan Project didn't look like America. Undertaken today, it would be criticized for failing to meet diversity and inclusion guidelines.
Today's human resources department professionals would be triggered if they looked at the list of physicists hired to produce what President Franklin Roosevelt was told could be a uranium-based bomb "with a destructiveness vastly greater than anything now known." They would be astounded that the president, in his haste to develop such a weapon, as he put it, "before Hitler got it," authorized the hiring of scientists without any attempt to match the diversity of the American population.
July 30, 2021
Do We Have to Watch Their Wretched Movie All Over Again? By Michael Barone
Why do I feel that I have seen this movie before?
