Any week of a Republican National Convention can be expected to be a week of Republicans comparing the presumptive nominee to the descent of the Messiah. This is not that sort of week, for the nominee in question is Donald Trump, breaker of norms, nationalist...
What is it about Donald Trump’s use of language that is such a shock? He seems incapable of making so much as a casual remark about the weather without sending the whole of the East Coast Literati into torrential avalanches of Hitler metaphor. One can dismiss the...
A recent Bloomberg poll put Hillary Clinton ahead of Donald Trump by twelve points. Spontaneous orgasm quickly spread along the barbarian horde of the Fourth Estate, along with ringing proclamations that The Donald is finally embarked on his his death spiral, doomed,...
Thomas Edsall often seems a cut above other Times writers because he likes to shore up his case with numbers. The problem is, making a case involves more than finding supporting data: it means seeking out all the data, including any data that disconfirms your...
Someone asked me the other day who I thought would be a good Vice Presidential choice for Trump. Monica Lewinsky sprang immediately to mind, but one can’t expect even this campaign to be that amusing. There are, of course, any number of potential candidates, and...
Certain writers, correct or not, are valuable and a joy to read. (G. K. Chesterton, for instance, with whom I agree less and less each year, but whose every page is sparkling.) They have style. So much style that it excuses even a feebleness of substance, if enough...
