Bannon’s fall = Democrats’ opening

It’s good that Steve Bannon has been eclipsed in the court of the Sun King. By all accounts, he’s a hate-spewing, fear-mongering, immigrant-bashing, Muslim-banning, dark force. But Bannon did have one important insight into today’s politics. And Democrats should take heed of it. Bannon has a clear focus on the anger that millions of Americans…

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Rx: the Democrats

Second of two parts More than 25 years ago, a little-known college president was running what looked like a hopeless U.S. Senate race in Pennsylvania. He was Harris Wofford, a Democrat. He was running against Richard Thornburgh, a former Governor and United States Attorney General. Wofford’s own polls showed him 40 points behind. Thornburgh had…

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Hillbilly Elegy

Gary told me, Read Hillbilly Elegy – it’ll make you see things you’ve been staring at for years in a different light. The story – a memoir – starts when a pregnant thirteen-year-old girl marries a sixteen-year-old boy and moves from Kentucky’s Appalachian Mountains to Middleton, Ohio in the late 1940’s. He went to work…

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A Welter of Echoes

Each roar lasts a second. But the echoes last days. Mexico wins. We lose. China wins. We lose. Wall Street wins. We lose. Washington Politicians win. We lose. Each had mantra-like precision. Each echoed across twitter, cable news, and newspaper headlines. Once, when Obamacare repeal failed, two mantras collided head-on. The President tweeted: The Democrats…

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Old Virtue

He was born a gambler. And he worked hard. He made a fortune, lost a fortune, and made another bigger fortune. Most men in his profession – he built skyscrapers – shunned the lime-light but he enjoyed celebrity and accepted an offer to star in a reality show and found he had a unique talent:…

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Tricks

In Donald Trump’s world whatever he says cannot be wrong. He’s infallible. Because as Trump says, I know how life works. And, if you ask, Trump will give you proof of his infallibility: He’ll explain how he predicted the outcome of the Brexit vote in advance and how he predicted – a hundred times –…

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Unraveling

Day in and day out for years I sat in meetings watching and listening to men who lived and breathed politics and, almost to a man every one looked on telling a lie (or, more precisely, being caught telling a lie) as a risk they dreaded. A lie was like a cancer. It could grow…

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Losers

When you run as the Greatest Winner Of All Time, you’d better win. Especially your first time. So there’s no way Trump can bluff or blame his way out of his health care debacle. He lost bigly. Republicans lost bigly. Paul Ryan lost bigliest. For seven years and through four elections, they promised to ditch…

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Bowling with Donald

When the average two-legged creature adds the title ‘Congressmen’ to the front of his name it can turn out to be humorous – but expensive. Last week at 10:30 in the morning House Republican Leaders rolled out their plan to repeal Obamacare; twelve and a half hours later the forty Congressmen sitting in the Ways…

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Trump Tower

Angry because Jeff Sessions wouldn’t run the Justice Department’s investigation into the Russians meddling in our election, Trump erupted at the White House staff then flew to Mar-a-Lago for the weekend. The next morning, up before dawn, holding his Twitter machine he pressed send and struck out at Obama. Some people figured Trump meant to…

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