This Campaign's Missing Issues: Foreign Policy and Economic Redistribution by Michael Barone
What issues are the candidates and the parties not talking about? It's worth asking, because sometimes these issues turn out to be important.
Commentary by Michael Barone
Most Recent Releases
October 28, 2022
October 21, 2022
Fundamentals, from COVID to Crime, Favor Republicans By Michael Barone
If Democrats take a drubbing in the off-year elections -- and it seems increasingly likely, but not certain, that they will -- it will be because they lost their moorings when the country seemed to go crazy with excessive COVID closedowns and irrational obsessions about systemic racism.
October 14, 2022
The Democratic Party's Risk Aversion Is Harming Us All By Michael Barone
Human beings differ in how much risk they will accept. Thus, as an analyst I quoted in a recent column concluded, Russian President Vladimir Putin "was too risk-acceptant" in invading Ukraine and Chinese leader Xi Jinping "has been too risk-averse" in imposing "zero-COVID" lockdowns.
October 7, 2022
It's a Hinge Year in History -- for Russia and China By Michael Barone
Will 2022 turn out be a hinge year, as a moment when long-standing trends in geopolitics suddenly shifted in a different direction? This week, two important writers, one a long-established and prolific historian, the other a provocative presence on the internet, have argued persuasively that the answer is yes. But there's one other interesting point in common: Neither sees the United States as having played a decisive role in the sudden shift.
September 30, 2022
Are Polls Understating Republicans' Support? By Michael Barone
Over the last three months, political journalists have been reporting a trend toward Democrats. The Supreme Court's reversal of Roe v. Wade, they have reported, has provided increased motivation for Democrats to turn out and vote. The easing of gas prices from their springtime peak has reduced concern about out-of-control inflation. Biden administration legislative victories have raised Democrats' morale.
September 23, 2022
Queen Elizabeth II Showed Monarchy's Surprising Resilience By Michael Barone
The funeral of Queen Elizabeth II and the praise pouring in from almost all quarters for her 70 years of service make a powerful case, even for small-r republican and small-d democratic Americans, for the institution of constitutional monarchy. There is much to be said for having a head of state who is politically neutral, culturally traditional but open to popular innovation, personally embodying the traditional strengths of a nation.
September 16, 2022
On Ukraine and on Welfare, Morale Trumps Materiel By Michael Barone
Morale matters more than materiel.
September 9, 2022
Political Careers Are Ending in Failure Because of Outdated 'Expert' Theories by Michael Barone
"All political lives, unless they are cut off at midstream at a happy juncture, end in failure, because that is the nature of politics and of human affairs." So said the British politician Enoch Powell, whose own once-stellar career ended in spectacular failure.
September 2, 2022
Student Loan Forgiveness: A Payoff for the Woke By Michael Barone
"A Bailout for Woke Higher Ed" reads the headline on the stringent analysis by the Wall Street Journal's Allysia Finley of the Biden student loan forgiveness program.
August 26, 2022
In 'Systemically Racist' America, Lots of Whites Vote for Blacks By Michael Barone
It was just a mini headline nationally on primary night this month, but one with some national implications and historic resonance. The city of Detroit, 77% of whose residents are Black, according to the 2020 Census, will not be represented by any Black members in the 118th Congress taking office next January.
August 19, 2022
The Espionage Act of 1917 Once Again Rears Its Ugly Head By Michael Barone
When federal agents removed top-secret documents from former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence last week, they carried with them a search warrant citing possible violations of the Espionage Act.
August 12, 2022
Will Dobbs Help Democrats? Will the Mar-a-Lago Raid Help Republicans? By Michael Barone
Are Republicans losing what seemed for months to be their overwhelming advantage in elections to the House of Representatives this November? The answer is unclear.
August 5, 2022
The West's Long-Lasting Enemies Cannot Be Cajoled b Michael Barone
Revisionist powers, nations whose leaders seek to undermine American leadership in the world, seem to be on the march.
July 29, 2022
Sorry, Progressives, But America Isn't Intersectional By Michael Barone
America isn't intersectional. That's something the left-wingers who call themselves progressives have been learning, painfully, over the past 18 months.
July 22, 2022
Sure, Ron DeSantis Could Beat Donald Trump in 2024 by Michael Barone
How inevitable is a third consecutive nomination of Donald Trump? Partisan commentators, when it suits their purposes, tend to assume it is so.
July 15, 2022
James Madison, 21st Century Pundit by Michael Barone
Could America's Founding Fathers see far, some 234 years, into the future? In declaring independence and fashioning a constitution, they were certainly trying to do so. And, in some cases, they succeeded. Consider this 78-word sentence written by James Madison and published as part of "Federalist 63" on March 1, 1788:
July 8, 2022
Who's Behind Joe Biden's Leftward Lunge? by Michael Barone
What's going on with Joe Biden? Why is a president who ran and was elected as a centrist Democrat supporting one left-wing proposal after another? What has prompted the politician whose sensitivity to public opinion was finely honed for four decades to take one unpopular stand after another?
July 1, 2022
United States of Diversity: The Founders and Dobbs by Michael Barone
DEI -- "diversity, equity and inclusion." University administrators, corporate human resources facilitators and politicians of a liberal stripe all assure us that America is now, suddenly, for the first time in history, a nation of diversity, equity and inclusion .
June 24, 2022
Can Government Build Things Again? By Michael Barone
Give the New York Times's Ezra Klein credit for identifying a problem with big government institutions. "Our mechanisms of governance have become so risk averse that they are now running tremendous risks because of the problems they cannot, or will not, solve," he tweeted. The subject was San Francisco's attempt to make permanent the parklets, or parking spaces used as outdoor restaurant space, through 60 pages of regulations.
June 17, 2022
The Secular Right Versus the Woke Left By Michael Barone
This month, I've come across two outstanding articles by writers I had not previously known on important trends on the political right and political left.
