Carter Wrenn
Gary Pearce
A TAPster had good advice for Trump in light of yesterday’s news conference: “It should be a basic rule of politics to not say nice things about Nazis.”
Read MoreNow that even the morally obtuse Trump has been forced to say white racist terrorism is wrong, we move on to a knottier issue: Should Confederate statues and memorials stay, or should they go? Here’s a case in point. If you drive down Hillsborough Street toward the State Capitol in Raleigh, you come to a…
Read MoreThe other night Gary and I spoke at Quail Ridge Books about Hillbilly Elegy and as the two of us argued about what diseases shuttered Ohio steel mills, addicted mothers to opioids, split our country into armed camps and left white working-class voters supporting Trump a lady in the back of the room stood up…
Read MoreIt’s not at all surprising that Trump couldn’t bring himself to condemn Nazis, Ku Kluxers and racists bent on terrorism. As with Putin, he’s reluctant to criticize those who got him elected. He was harsher on Jeff Sessions and Mitch McConnell. Trump failed the moral test of leadership. Will the rest of the Republican Party?…
Read MoreTwo days ago, I blogged about Trump’s lifeblood: picking fights and starting feuds. It’s like Burr and Hamilton with tweets instead of pistols. Then he started two more feuds. The first is with Kim Jung Un, the only world leader as egotistical and unpredictable as Trump. The second is with Mitch McConnell. The McConnell feud…
Read MoreDemocrats love policy. We dream of being policy advisers and writing policy papers. We just know that those working-class whites who voted for Trump would love us if they got a load of our worker-retraining policy. That’s the impulse behind the “Better Deal” policy agenda that Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi rolled out this summer.…
Read MoreWe know what he does badly. He lies. He is willfully and woefully ignorant about the world. He lies. He is vain, volatile and thin-skinned. He lies. His leadership style is chaotic, unpredictable and incompetent. He lies. His chumminess with Putin is suspicious. He lies. He has no principles, character or sense of decency. And…
Read MoreCarter and I had a good time, a great crowd and a rousing discussion last night at Quail Ridge Books’ “Bridging the Divide” program. If I was Trump, I’d say there were about a thousand people there. And that the bookstore manager called and said it was the biggest crowd they’d ever had. More than…
Read MoreThere’re two ways for a President to pass his bills: One is old-fashioned back-room arm-twisting, cajoling, and deal-making. Presidents like Lyndon Johnson have been masters of that art but, oddly, Donald Trump isn’t. The other path is the bully pulpit: A President explains his ideas, convinces voters he’s right and, after he does, it’s…
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If you seek political asylum the next four years, try Iceland. We went there last week…
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The tumult and the shouting dies; The Captains and the Kings depart: Still stands Thine ancient…
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Bert Bennett of Winston-Salem, the legendary political godfather to Terry Sanford and Jim Hunt, had a…
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