From the Left
/Politics

What You Need to Know About Trump’s Tariffs and the Rest of Trump’s Madness
Understand this: The reason Trump has raised tariffs on Canada and Mexico is not to have more bargaining leverage to get better deals for the United States from Canada or from Mexico.
Hours before the Canadian tariffs went into effect, Trump was asked if there was anything Canada could do to stop them. “We’re not looking for a concession,�...Read more

Trump’s First Week, the Real Story
The New York Times describes Trump as leading “a global wave of hard-line conservative populism.”
Rubbish.
What Trump is undertaking has nothing whatever to do with conservatism, which is about conserving institutions and shrinking the size of government. And it has nothing to do with populism, which is about confronting elites.
Trump is ...Read more

Why I remain hopeful about America
So many people I know — including, I suspect, many of you — are despairing over Trump’s second regime, which starts today.
I share your fears about what’s to come.
Yet I remain hopeful about the future of America. Here’s why.
Trump hoodwinked average working Americans into believing he’s on their side and convinced enough voters ...Read more

Will Trump Get Credit for Biden’s Successes?
Trump will try to take credit for the Biden economy. Don’t let him. And don’t let Republican enablers of Trump or the media give him credit, either.
In 2017, Trump inherited a strong economy from President Obama and never stopped congratulating himself for it. He claimed that “we created the greatest economy in the history of the world.�...Read more

Advice and Consent or Total Submission?
The cast of characters Trump has chosen to populate his second term is a Star Wars cantina of fanatics, extremists, conspiracy theorists, sexual harassers, and disreputable no-goods. They have little or no experience running government, let alone expertise in the issues confronting the agencies and departments Trump wants them to lead.
Over the...Read more

How About If Canada Annexes Blue America?
Trump wants to buy Greenland and annex Canada as the 51st American state.
When I first heard these ideas I thought he was joking, but as with all things Trump, he’s not … quite.
Last week, while naming a new ambassador to Denmark (which controls Greenland’s foreign and defense affairs), Trump made clear that his first-term offer to buy ...Read more

We the People Will Prevail
The holidays provide an apt time to pause and assess where we are.
You have every reason to be worried about what happens after Jan. 20. Many people could be harmed.
Yet I continue to have an abiding faith in the common sense and good-heartedness of most Americans, despite the outcome of the election.
Many traditional Democratic voters did ...Read more

How the DOGE billionaires plan to kill Medicaid
I’ve shared with you the plans of Trump’s unelected multi-billionaires, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, to undermine Social Security — the most popular and successful program in the federal government, into which you’ve paid your entire working life.
Today I want to share their plan to gut Medicaid.
Medicaid is less politically popular ...Read more

What Liz Cheney deserves from Joe Biden
When she was a member of Congress, former Representative Liz Cheney took positions on many issues that I abhorred. I suspect you did, too.
But on the transcendent issue of American democracy and Trump’s culpability in trying to destroy it, she’s been a rare voice of clarity and courage — and continues to be.
Yesterday, Cheney called out ...Read more

Musk’s Dangerous Bullying
No one better illustrates the sinister consequences of great wealth turned into unaccountable power than Elon Musk.
Musk, the richest person in the world, is not only claiming presidential authority to fire federal workers, but he’s posting the identities of those whose jobs he wants to eliminate — with the clear intention that his ...Read more

How to Hope in a Near-Hopeless Time?
It’s been a few weeks, but it feels like an eternity.
It feels like an eternity because of the immensity of the loss — not just the loss of the election but the seeming loss of America. Not just America, but the apparent loss of the world as we knew it.
In reality, we lost by a relatively small number of votes, but in our winner-take-all ...Read more

Trump’s ‘First Buddy’ is in Deep Trouble
The two finalists to become Trump’s Treasury Secretary — the person will have a major hand in cutting taxes for the wealthy and raising tariffs so everyone pays more — are Howard Lutnick, who’s CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald and Trump’s co-transition chair, and Steven Bessent, the founder of the investment firm Key Square Capital Management....Read more

How to root out Trumpism
So many of you have asked me how one of the most loathsome people in America was just reelected president that I thought you might find it helpful if I shared with you some personal history. This may also suggest how to root out Trumpism.
In the fall of 2015, I visited Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Missouri, and North ...Read more