Columns, pieces and posts
Washington This week in Trump: We are living through big history and no one here knows where it’s going or how this period ends. Everyone, left, right and center, feels the earth is unsteady under their feet. Too much is happening. Democratic senators boycott confirmation hearings, Iran tests ballistic missiles, President Trump has testy phone […]
To see Week One of the Trump administration clearly, you have to do two things. First, put to one side the incendiary comments, which now feel like small and daily data points within a greater cloud of crazy. Put aside the president’s preoccupations with crowd size, popularity, illegal voters—all the things he says that hurt […]
Last week’s column was on the inauguration. This week’s, up tomorrow night, will be a look at President Trump’s first days in office. Here I mention smaller things I saw or thought in Washington last week, as the Trump administration geared up to begin. Every new administration begins awkwardly. New White Houses are always herky-jerky, […]
Washington I was more moved than I expected. Then more startled. The old forms and traditions, the bands and bunting, endured. I thought, as I watched the inauguration: It continues. There were pomp and splendor, happy, cheering crowds; and for all the confounding nature of the past 18 months, and all the trauma, it came […]
This week was hail and farewell. Thursday morning William Cohen, the former Republican senator who became Bill Clinton’s secretary of defense, introduced and endorsed Gen. James N. Mattis,Donald Trump’s nominee as defense chief, to the Senate Armed Services Committee. “He has the nickname of ‘Mad Dog’—it’s a misnomer,” Mr. Cohen said. “It should be Braveheart.” […]
At just after noon on Friday, Jan. 20, Donald Trump will be sworn in as 45th president of the United States. He will stand on the west steps of the Capitol with Chief Justice John Roberts, who will hold a Bible, possibly two. (If the Bible is open it will likely be turned to a […]
I want to end this dramatic year writing of a man whose great and constructive work I discovered in 2016. He is the photojournalist Chris Arnade. I follow him on Twitter, where he issues great tweet-storms containing pictures and commentary about America. (His work has also appeared in the Guardian and the Atlantic.) He has […]
Donald Trump is our national obsession. Almost six weeks after the election and on the eve of Christmas and Hanukkah he is topic A at every gathering. People have Post Traumatic Trump Disorder and feel compelled to share their thoughts and feelings, their joy—“I can’t stop feeling happy!” said a normally contained editor and intellectual, […]
The other night I came across an internet exchange I’d had last June with a talented writer and editor, a journalist who is also conservative. The journalist mentioned how some of those writing on Donald Trump this year seemed to have replaced logic with emotion, even becoming “unhinged.” I agreed. It was a hot year, […]
What happened with the Carrier air conditioner company and its decision to keep its Indiana factory open is a very good thing. A thousand Americans who would have lost jobs will keep them. The New York Post captured reaction when it quoted the Facebook post of an employee named Paul Roell: “Thank you, Donald Trump, […]