elections
The key to understanding J.D. Vance's role in the contemporary Republican Party may be Mike Pence. Trump's last running mate was undeniably a traditional establishment Republican: a social conservative, a fiscal conservative, a former talk radio host—in 2016, this was as standard a GOP figure as you could get. But these days, Pence is a relic of a bygone party and the Ohio senator running with Trump this time represents its cutting edge. He's young, he's bearded, and his early forays into political commentary were on the internet, not the radio. If Pence was a link the party's past, Vance is a...
Reason
In the pages of his best-selling memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, Sen. J.D. Vance (R–Ohio) uses his life story as a model for how the children of down-on-their-luck Americans from outside the country's political and cultural power centers can find success. It is, sincerely, a compelling personal story. One that Vance retold in vivid detail to cap the third night of the Republican National Convention (RNC) in Milwaukee. He got out of his childhood home of Middletown, Ohio—"a place that had been cast aside and forgotten by America's ruling class in Washington," he said—to join the Marines, attend colleg...
Reason
Both major American political camps are convinced that democracy is under attack by the other side, and they probably are both largely correct. There simply are different styles and approaches for thwarting the supposed will of the people—or at least for undermining the complex system that allows people to choose the way their nation is governed. Our democracy may be the equivalent of "two wolves and a sheep voting on what's for dinner," as one aphorism puts it, but it's also "the worst form of government except for all those other forms," according to another. Our system certainly is flawed—l...
Reason
Next week, the Republican National Convention will choose Donald Trump to be its nominee for the third presidential election cycle in a row. Between then and now, Trump will also choose his vice president. No one can know Trump's mind for certain, but he is believed to have settled on three finalists: Sen. J.D. Vance (R–Ohio), Sen. Marco Rubio (R–Fla.), and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum. While the vice presidency is often derided as a relatively unimportant job, there are reasons to think that Trump's choice could have significant ramifications in the future. When Trump does, at long last, exi...
Reason
Two weeks: As of today, it has been two weeks since Joe Biden's disastrous debate performance that set off alarm bells for most of the Democratic Party as to whether he can be its candidate in November's presidential election. Initially, many prominent figures within the party stood their ground. Now, they're falling like dominoes. The first Democratic senator—Vermont's Peter Welch—has called for Biden to step aside, publicly declaring why in an op-ed for The Washington Post. Another—Connecticut's Richard Blumenthal—is making noises in that direction, while two others—Montana's Jon Tester and ...
Reason
House Democrats exert pressure: House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D–N.Y.) recently convened a virtual meeting of House Democrats to discuss whether President Joe Biden ought to be replaced by a Democrat with a better chance of beating Donald Trump. "Among those saying explicitly that Mr. Biden should end his candidacy were Representatives Jerrold Nadler of New York, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee; Adam Smith of Washington, the ranking member of the Armed Services Committee; Mark Takano of California, the ranking Democrat on the Veterans Affairs Committee; and Joseph D. Morell...
Reason
The results are in, and it's a landslide. After 14 years in power, Britain's Conservative Party has been expelled from office in the most dramatic of fashions—with its worst electoral result in decades. Rishi Sunak, the man who pledged to restore stability after a ruinous period of high inflation and political chaos, has already tendered his resignation to the King. His successor—the former lawyer turned center-left politician Keir Starmer—will now lead Britain's first Labour government for almost 20 years, having won as many seats in parliament as former Prime Minister Tony Blair back in 1997...
Reason
A voting method is the procedure at the heart of an election that specifies what information is to be gathered from voters, and how that collected information is to be utilized to determine the winning candidate. The U.S. Constitution is mute as to what voting method should be employed. The simplest, known as "plurality," has historically been the default, and still dominates as the voting method for U.S. public elections. Plurality allows each voter only to vote for a single candidate. The candidate receiving the largest number of votes is the winner. At about the time of the American Revolut...
Reason
The writer Tom Wolfe once quipped, "the dark night of fascism is always descending in the United States and yet lands only in Europe." After a series of elections culminating in the first round of a national vote won handily by France's National Rally, we might replace "fascism" with "populism," which has certainly landed feet-first in the old world and seems to be settling in for a stay across much of the continent. France's Populist Surge"French voters on Sunday put the National Rally (RN) in a commanding position in the first round of snap elections, placing the party founded by supporters ...
Reason
The first step is admitting you have a problem: Viewed as one big, televised retirement party for a sharply declining President Joe Biden, last night's debate was a success. Viewed as a showdown between two contenders jockeying for nuclear codes, last night's debate was a shitshow. Even Democrats who had up until this point been propping up Biden are finally admitting that they have a massive problem. At first, they went with "he has a cold" as the excuse for a stunningly poor performance. (Also: "He overprepared!") Then, as the night wore on, they began to concede deeper problems. "Right now,...
Reason
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