By the time you read this, the 2018 midterm elections will be over. I’ve made my predictions about this being a sea change in American history, with the election of unprecedented numbers of Democratic women, and won’t readdress that. I could be wrong – I was with the Kavanaugh nomination – but I think enough progressive people are sufficiently committed to change that this year will signal the end of the white patriarchs who have reigned in Washington since the nation began. Women and racial minorities are going to prove themselves the true majority. I think.  Read More 

Of the many dangers represented by the tyrant in the White House, his poisoning of the free press is the most frightening. The “fake news” mantra was bad enough, as it encouraged his disciplines to believe in him instead of demonstrated facts. But now he has moved beyond even that, goading his thugs literally to attack reporters. You probably saw the video of him in Montana, praising a Republican congressman who assaulted a reporter. “Any kind of guy who can do a body slam,” he shouted, “that’s my kind of guy.” If a Democrat said that, he would be pilloried as inciting a riot.  Read More 

Nikki Haley’s surprise resignation as ambassador to the United Nations seems not to have attracted the media attention it merits, especially as she is the only major player in the Trump administration to call it quits so soon before the midterm elections. Reporters apparently accepted her excuse that she was tired after (almost) two years there and six years as governor of South Carolina. I think that is patently false – and if true, a complete insult to women who work year in and year out without falling to fatigue. Imagine the ridicule if Hillary had said that!  Read More 

I was wrong. In my last two columns, I predicted that justice would triumph and we would not have a man with Brett Kavanaugh’s record of partisanship, arrogance, and temper on the Supreme Court. I was too optimistic, too willing to believe that Jeff Flake of Arizona and/or Susan Collins of Maine would separate themselves from Mitch McConnell’s narrow Republican majority. In the end, only one did – Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. She paired with the guy whose daughter’s wedding was the day of the hurried vote, and with the defection of West Virginia Democrat Joe Machin, the Senate confirmed Kavanaugh by two votes.  Read More 

Everywhere I’ve gone recently, everyone wants to talk about Brett Kavanaugh. My timetable was a little hasty when I predicted in my last column that he would be toast by the weekend, but I’m sticking with the general point. The potential loss to Republicans if their women desert the party over this issue is not worth it to them. Because there is no principle at stake other than a victory for Trump, party leaders should force Kavanaugh to withdraw. They did that in the 1974 midterms, when they forced Richard Nixon to walk away. Both men were endowed with lifelong arrogance that made them assume they were axiomatically entitled to do what they wanted to do, but with Kavanaugh it is simpler and can be expressed in just two words: judicial temperament. He displayed temper instead, and his smart-mouth treatment of Minnesota Senator Amy Klobucher alone should disqualify him.  Read More