Thanks but no thanks, pundits
Yes, despite our national majorities and the encouraging results of the 2018 midterms, there are legitimate reasons to be concerned about Trump and the GOP in 2020. But over the past few days, the pundit class has been aggressively pushing the alarming notion that if...
The case for Democratic fusion
Enough about the Democrat Party being one big tent. It’s more like a refugee camp inhabited by multiple parties that would naturally — in a parliamentary system — squabble and scrap before elections, but then come together to form a coalition...
Adrift and aflame
Politicians, even the good ones, lie from time to time, and sometimes with good reason: Remember how Jimmy Carter tried to tell us the truth, and we repaid him with mockery and defeat? Governments lie, too. But then again, so do companies, and coaches, and churches,...
So, about this ‘soil blocking’ thing…
One of the new things we’re trying in Year Three here at stately Black Sheep Manor is a seed-starting system based on a U.K. technique called “soil blocking.” My stepfather, Michael Sasser, gave me his soil blocking equipment in the winter of...
26 GOP Senators who might turn on Trump
There are currently 53 Republicans in the Senate, and so long as 34 of them stand by President Trump, a successful impeachment in the Democratic-controlled House will fail to remove our criminal president from office. That makes reducing that number to 33...
The Last Patrician
A comment on the life and times of George H.W. Bush, after a day of eulogies: It seems proper, here in the chaos of the Trump Era, to feel a certain nostalgia over the passing of a man so closely identified with the Old Establishment values of discipline, restraint,...
One hundred and thirty-eight days
The first skirmish in the “President Puts Kids in Cages and Lies About It” scandal ended yesterday with a tactical retreat by the White House and little else. More than 2,000 immigrant children are still in cages. Trump’s executive order just sets up...
In all but narrowest sense, Trump is the target
Part of the game we’re all playing right now (and let’s be clear: Our role in the game is “public opinion,” which means what we believe is insignificant except in the aggregate) is “Who are the targets of the Mueller Investigation?”...
U.S. soccer’s future is expansion, not World Cups
Beau Dure, a Virginia sportswriter, has a column in The Guardian this morning (Why the US men will never win a World Cup — and that’s OK). It’s an entirely acceptable restatement of the current consensus among American soccer writers, a relatively...
Muddling through decline, happily
Today’s long but thought-provoking read is Dylan Matthews’ “The myth of an ending: why even removing Trump from office won’t save American democracy/It feels like this moment in history deserves a definitive ending. It won’t get one,” at Vox....
Dan Conover
Howdy
Howdy! This is my current blog,