ArcaMax

The United States has rarely been as divided as it is today -- red states vs. blue states, vaxxers vs. anti-vaxxers, the woke mob vs. insurrectionists and Houston Astros fans vs. decent human beings. Some people think the problem is not that Americans are too divided but that they are not divided enough. They have a suggestion: a national ...Read more

The United States is one of the richest societies on earth -- but one with more than its share of poverty. While American capitalism has done wonders to raise living standards for the great majority of people, it has left millions out of this prosperity.

Whether our failure deserves sustained national attention is at the heart of the current ...Read more

There was a time when "coastal" was an innocent geographical adjective, as in "coastal islands" or "coastal flooding." It referred to events and places located on large bodies of saltwater. But somewhere along the way, "coastal" gained a sinister, shameful connotation.

Populists and pseudo-populists have long fulminated against elites. But ...Read more

A former Facebook product manager's claims about the company's impact on American society has inflamed members of Congress and everyone else who holds a grudge against Big Tech. Particularly alarming is the allegation that Instagram, which Facebook owns, is wrecking the psyches of teenage girls. But there is less here than meets the eye.

In her...Read more

Donald Trump's presidency was the era when liberals learned to love federalism. From California to Massachusetts, governors and legislatures in blue states decided that resistance to federal dictates was a crucial way to uphold progressive policies.

Those were the good old days. With Democrats in control of both Congress and the White House, ...Read more

A deadly plague continues to rage across America, and neither vaccines nor face masks nor herd immunity can stop it. The epidemic of drug overdose deaths has taken more lives than COVID-19 and is more intractable. But the Biden administration is showing a welcome openness to a new strategy.

That approach is known broadly as "harm reduction." ...Read more

Like many sports franchises whose owners want to augment their already immense riches, the Chicago Bears are pondering a relocation. After a full century of playing in the city, the Monsters of the Midway could move to suburban Arlington Heights -- unless, of course, Chicago wants to make it worth their while to stay.

Season ticket holder Lori ...Read more

It's a redistricting year in the blue state of Illinois, which means that Republicans are getting less consideration than a missionary on the Las Vegas Strip. Democrats have been winning in the Land of Lincoln for a long while, controlling the state House for all but two of the past 38 years. But they see no harm in running up the score.

...Read more

Having won a smashing victory in his recall battle, California Gov. Gavin Newsom can bask in his rout of the Republicans who dreamed of unseating him. But he may also remember W.C. Fields' joke about a contest whose first prize was a week in Philadelphia. Second prize? Two weeks.

Newsom raised some $83 million for this referendum -- taking ...Read more

The 21st century in America has so far been bracketed by two terrible mass-casualty events. The first was the 9/11 attacks, 20 years ago this week. The second is the COVID-19 pandemic. The radically different public response to these episodes reveals a lot about us, and much of it is not flattering.

The airline hijackings were the worst ...Read more

For nearly half a century, Americans have lived in a country in which safe, legal abortions were generally accessible to those needing them. The constitutional protection established in the Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v. Wade decision was firm and secure. That fact, paradoxically, worked to the political advantage of activists who reject abortion ...Read more

If Joe Biden were a typical politician, his choice on Afghanistan would have been easy. Political wisdom says you should never accept consequences today that you can postpone until after the next election, if not longer. Deceptive gimmicks and clever evasions are always preferable to painful solutions that pay off only in the long run.

Biden ...Read more

The suicide bombing that killed 13 U.S. service members and at least 169 Afghans was an atrocity that evoked horror in Americans of every political persuasion. But among those who want to continue the war, the loss was taken as proof that the U.S. should have persisted in a mission that had previously claimed the lives of more than 2,400 ...Read more

The spectacle of Americans and their local allies rushing desperately to evacuate from Kabul brought to mind similar scenes from Saigon in 1975. The repetition suggested that Americans and their leaders didn't learn from the earlier experience. In fact, we did learn. But then we forgot.

Maybe the surprise is not that we had to rediscover the ...Read more

A couple of years ago, as my 20-something daughter was heading out to run some errands, I asked her to stop at the liquor store to get a six-pack of nonalcoholic beer. Chatting with the clerk, she mentioned that it was for her dad. "How long has he been sober?" he asked. "Um, he's not," she replied.

She was right, in the sense that he meant. I'...Read more

Some time later God tested Abraham. He said to him, "Abraham!" "Here I am," he replied. Then God said, "Take your son, your only son, whom you love -- Isaac -- and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain that I will show you."

-- Genesis 22:1-2

Abraham, according to the Bible, was willing to do as God ...Read more

It's tempting to invoke Shakespeare in contemplating the surprising decision of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo to resign. "Nothing in his life became him like the leaving of it," says one character in "Macbeth" about a traitor who repented before being executed. Cuomo admitted that he "truly offended" 11 women, apologized to his victims and ...Read more

Americans made their break with kings, queens and other artifacts of royalty 246 years ago. The people of Britain still support their monarchy, but I suspect most of them, contemplating the fate of Princess Diana and Meghan Markle, would rather swim the English Channel than see their daughters marry a prince.

But Disney movies? From them, you ...Read more

Public health is normally the responsibility of government officials and agencies. But the rampaging delta variant of COVID-19 has shown public institutions to be inadequate to the task. So it may be up to the private sector to do the heavy lifting.

Early in the pandemic, the urgent danger forced governors and mayors to take drastic actions ...Read more

Someday, the past year or so may be remembered as a bout of temporary insanity among a large share of the American people. This group refused to take basic precautions against a devastating pandemic, swallowed the lies of a president who had lost an election, and excused a violent mob that attacked the Capitol to prevent Congress from doing its ...Read more