ĢƵ

close

Columnists

Consoling the nation fairly new role for U.S. president

Among the duties we ask presidents to perform is to express grief over the many senseless tragedies in American life — such as the recent shooting deaths of eleven men and women at the Tree of Life Synagogue in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh.This secular-pastor function is not ...

Donald Trump: The-Blamer-in-Chief

<em>“Those engaged in the political arena must stop treating political opponents as being morally defective. The language of moral condemnation and destructive routine, these are arguments and disagreements that have to stop.”</em>President Trump at a Wisconsin ...

Defining nationalism

An American nationalist loves his country, its democratic institutions and traditions. He, or she, wants the country to be its very best self and to live its ideals.The other night, in Texas, Donald Trump told a cheering crowd: “A globalist is a person who wants the globe to do well. Frankly, ...

The wacky world of Trump

Donald Trump has spawned a whole industry: the novelty Donald Trump industry. Fans and critics alike are in on the game of making a buck (or two) off the image, sayings, and plain wackiness of the 45th president of the United States and the wacky, wacky world we all inhabit, thanks to him.The ...

All the Best Word Salad

<em>“I went to an Ivy League school. I’m very highly educated. I know words. I have the best words.”</em>Presidential candidate Donald J. Trump, Dec. 30, 2015President Trump once told the American people that he knew the “best words”, and he hinted he knew ...

An asymmetrical history

“In the waning decades of the 20th century, liberals and conservatives alike cast the lingering divisions of the 1960s less as a matter of law-and-order than as a matter of life-and-death. Either abortion was murder and guns meant freedom, or guns meant murder and abortion was freedom. How ...