ArcaMax

Financial regulators subject banks to stress tests to see if they have enough capital to withstand sharp downturns.

Now America is being subject to a stress test to see if it has enough strength to withstand Donald Trump’s treacherous campaign to discredit the 2020 presidential election.

Trump will lose because there’s no evidence of ...Read more

Leave it to Donald Trump and his Republican allies to spend more energy fighting nonexistent voter fraud than containing a virus that has killed 246,000 Americans and counting.

The cost of this misplaced attention is incalculable. While COVID-19 surges to record levels, there’s still no national strategy for equipment, stay-at-home orders, ...Read more

In case you missed the news, Joe Biden was elected president of the United States. With almost all ballots counted, Biden has more than 75 million votes and Trump some 71 million. The Electoral College isn’t even close.

But Donald Trump still has not conceded, and some leading Republicans say he shouldn’t.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) ...Read more

Q: You’ve been in or around politics for more than 50 years. How are you feeling about Tuesday’s election?

A: I’m more frightened for my country than I’ve ever been. Another four years of Donald Trump would be devastating. Nonetheless, I suspect Joe Biden will win.

Q: But in 2016, the polls ...

A: Polling is better now, and Biden’s ...Read more

Amy Coney Barrett was confirmed on Monday as the ninth justice on the U.S. Supreme Court. This is a travesty of democracy.

The vote on Barrett’s confirmation occurred just eight days before Election Day. By contrast, the Senate didn’t even hold a hearing on Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland. Obama nominated Garland ...Read more

Donald Trump and many Republicans insist that the decisions whether to wear a mask, go to a bar or gym, or work or attend school during a pandemic should be personal. Government should play no role.

Yet they also believe that what a woman does with her own body, or whether same-sex couples can marry, should be decided by government.

It’s a ...Read more

“I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters,” Donald Trump boasted in 2016.

Trump’s 5th Avenue principle is being severely tested. Some 40 percent of voters have stuck by him even though more than 214,000 Americans have died from COVID-19. It’s one of the world’s highest death rates — ...Read more

For about a minute today I found myself feeling sorry for Donald Trump. The poor man is now “battling” COVID-19 (the pugilistic verb is showing up all over the news). He was hospitalized. He’s out of shape. He’s 74 years old. His chief of staff called his symptoms “very concerning.”

Joe Biden is praying for him. Kamala Harris sends ...Read more

What is America really fighting over in the upcoming election? Not any particular issue. It’s not even Democrats versus Republicans.

The central fight is over Donald J. Trump.

Before Trump, most Americans weren’t especially passionate about politics. But Trump’s M.O. has been to force people to become passionate about him — to take ...Read more

People in public life tend to fall into one of two broad categories — those who are motivated by principle, and those motivated by power.

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died Friday night at the age of 87, exemplified the first.

When he nominated her in 1993, Bill Clinton called her “the Thurgood Marshall of gender-equality ...Read more

The air outside my window is yellow today. It was orange yesterday. The air quality index is over 200. The Environmental Protection Agency defines this as a “health alert” in which “everyone may experience more serious health effects if they are exposed for 24 hours.” Unfortunately, the index has been over 200 for several days.

The West...Read more

Less than two months before one of the most consequential elections in American history, it’s useful to consider the economic reality that fueled Donald Trump’s victory four years ago.

No other developed nation has nearly the inequalities of income and wealth found in the U.S., even though all have been exposed to the same forces of ...Read more

To be re-elected, Donald Trump knows he has to distract the nation from the pandemic that he has flagrantly failed to control — leaving more than 180,000 Americans already dead, tens of millions jobless and at least 30 million reportedly hungry.

So he’s counting on the reliable Republican dog whistle. “Your vote,” Trump said in his ...Read more