Masks were necessary, especially in schools, to prevent mass deaths. Or so we were told, at great and tedious length -- until suddenly, in the last 10 days, they weren't.
Are we returning to normalcy?
Do Americans really want transformative change? The evidence accumulates that they don't.
"California should abolish parenthood, in the name of equity." That's the headline of a Ventura County Star column by Zocalo Public Square's Joe Mathews. "Want true equity?" the San Francisco Chronicle headlined the same column three days later. "California should force parents to give away their children."
How do you explain why an ultra-experienced politician makes a major speech on the behalf of a legislative goal that is both doomed to fail and unpopular with voters? Especially when his speech is boycotted by the bill's chief backers and consists of one big lie after another?
One way to anticipate what may be ahead in politics is to gauge the balance of power in the nation's two political parties. The Republican Party has always been centered on people regarded by themselves and others as "typical" Americans but who do not by themselves comprise a majority. The Democratic Party has always been a coalition of out-groups, powerful when united but often at risk of division.
I want to add a few notes to my Christmas weekend column on the Census Bureau's July 2021 state population estimates and what stories they tell about growth and decline in the first 15 months of the coronavirus pandemic.
As a Christmas present to statistics lovers, the Census Bureau has released its estimates of the population of the nation and the 50 states as of July 1, 2021. The Bureau admits up front that, due to COVID, its numbers are subject to more uncertainty than usual. But overall, they provide important clues as to how Americans have coped with the pandemic, and how it may have changed the trajectory of national growth and contraction.
"If you pull the camera back and think about 1965, and think about last week, there's been massive improvement. The question is why so many people pretend that that's not true."
Here's a suggestion for those who think that partisan redistricting -- or, as is often the case with these plaints, partisan redistricting by Republicans -- threatens to destroy American democracy. Take a look at "The Long Red Thread," the recent history by Sabato's Crystal Ball analyst Kyle Kondik of House of Representatives elections from 1964 to the present decade.
The Supreme Court, as this is written, is hearing oral arguments in the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, challenging Mississippi's law banning, with a few exceptions, abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. There's a powerful argument that the Court can't logically uphold this statute, which is less restrictive than most other nations' abortion laws, without overturning Roe v. Wade, the 1973 case that overturned all 50 states' abortion laws.
What's wrong with the economy? Nobody seems quite sure, but it's clear that the Biden administration's $1.9 trillion stimulus package passed in March, on top of the $900 billion approved in December, the last full month of the Trump administration, has not had the intended results.
As in the 1880s, we live in an era of polarized partisan parity, in which changes of opinion among independent voters can sweep election results. One year ago, Joe Biden was elected president with 51% of the popular vote. Now, with his job approval down to 42%, his party is in trouble.
President Joe Biden returned the morning of Nov. 3 to a nation that no longer supports him or his party.
Confessions of error are rare enough in woke America that they should be strictly construed against the speaker. Two such confessions (the legal term is "admissions against interest") suddenly appeared last week.
State legislative special elections provide an interesting index of partisan sentiment these days. That wasn't so in the late 20th century, when clever local candidates and notables often got voters to cross party lines. But in this century of increasing partisan polarization and straight-ticket voting, local special elections are a proxy for opinion on national issues.
As his two terms as New York's mayor approach their end, and long after his presidential campaign ended with a whimper, Bill de Blasio has chimed in with one last act of destruction: a proposal to end the public schools' entry-by-exam gifted and talented program for first graders.
Here's a jarring thought: Most political analysts, and most political strategists for our two political parties, have been operating off flawed data and flawed assumptions. The result has been one political surprise after another, and the election of the two most unsatisfactory presidents, in the minds of many voters, since Franklin Pierce and James Buchanan in the 1850s.
"First you win the argument, then you win the vote." That advice from Margaret Thatcher has been ignored by President Joe Biden and Democratic Party leaders to their detriment.
It's the biggest political hoax since Titus Oates's allegations of a "Popish Plot" to assassinate King Charles II in 1678. Oates's charge of a Jesuit conspiracy swept through London and led to the execution of four innocent men before Oates was proved a fraud.
