WASHINGTON — The most venomous part of the Republican Party has seized control of the national dialogue. This forced President Obama to use his final State of the Union message on Tuesday to battle against intolerance, anger, pessimism and despair. Even more tellingly, the Republican designated to reply to him, South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, […]
E.J. Dionne Jr.
Posted inOp-Eds
Marco Rubio’s strategically gloomy detour
BEDFORD, N.H. — This year’s Republican presidential campaign is where hope and optimism go to die. Don’t pretend that Donald Trump is an exotic outlier. His spirit haunts a party that can’t get enough of gloom and fear. Among the GOP candidates, no one started out more optimistic about the United States than Marco Rubio. […]
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Ending the gun lobby’s con game
WASHINGTON — The apologists for the weapons industry — they pass themselves off as the gun rights movement — demonstrate their intellectual bankruptcy by regularly contradicting themselves with a straight face. On the one hand, President Obama’s modest initiatives to keep guns out of the wrong hands are denounced as an outlandish abuse of his […]
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Don’t let terrorists rob us of our humanity
WASHINGTON — Friday was not be the last Christmas wherein the world mocks the day’s promise, and religion finds itself a source of violence, hatred and, among many not inclined toward either, a dangerous mutual incomprehension. Killing in the name of God is not a new thing in history, and nothing does more to discredit […]
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Democrats have better answer for now
WASHINGTON — Which political party loves America? Not the United States that once existed, but the flesh-and-blood nation that we all live in now. The debates we have witnessed have provided an incontestable answer to that question. The Democrats embrace the United States of Now in all of its raucous diversity. Democrats are not free […]
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GOP candidates try to come across mean
WASHINGTON — It was billed as a foreign policy debate, but the latest encounter among Republican presidential candidates was in large part an acting competition over who could convey the impression of being the baddest, meanest foe of the terrorists — and of Hillary Clinton and President Obama. Before his re-election as governor of very […]
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Trump does not speak for America
WASHINGTON — Among the many maddening aspects of Donald Trump’s domination of American political discourse are the twin challenges he poses to clear thinking. You can overstate his significance and the power of the forces he is unleashing. You can understate them, too. We have heard the words “Trump leads in the polls” for so […]
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Ground zero mosque episode is instructive
WASHINGTON — Remember the “Mosque at Ground Zero”? With little fanfare this fall, the New York developer who had planned to build an Islamic community center north of the World Trade Center announced that he would instead use the site for a 70-story tower of luxury condos. Those who had rallied in opposition to a […]
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Class war element in GOP campaigns
WASHINGTON — Two events last week are exceptionally helpful to understanding the state of the Republican Party. They seem to point in opposite directions. In fact, they reinforce each other. The first is the CNN/ORC Poll released on Friday that showed Donald Trump as the overwhelming leader for the Republican presidential nomination. Trump had 36 […]
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The United States of contradictions
WASHINGTON — With election year a month away, American politics is caught up in tensions, ironies, and a certain amount of sheer madness. On the one hand: The U.S. economy is a marvel, driven forward by technological innovation, the promises of Big Data and Advanced Manufacturing, a relative independence in energy supply, and a population […]