In his latest book, Age of Revolutions: Progress and Backlash from 1600 to the Present, Fareed Zakaria proffers his own 21st-century spin on storied historian Eric Hobsbawm’s seminal work The Age of Revolution: Europe, 1789–1848. Like the famed 20th-century historian, Zakaria recounts how the French and Industrial Revolutions profoundly shaped the structures, norms, and guiding principles that made our society what it is. The ubiquitous commentator also identifies a few more “revolutions” that aren’t generally considered revolutions, both pre-industrial era and contemporary. While Zakaria may ..read more

Do Americans Want a Two-State Solution? Today I wrote in the Washington Monthly that if you want a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Joe Biden is your only choice. Donald Trump told Eric Cortellessa of Time, “I’m not sure a two-state solution anymore is gonna work.” Whereas Biden said in the State of the Union address that “The only real solution is a two-state solution over time … There is no other path that guarantees Israel’s security and democracy.” But what do American voters think? The answer, after what’s leading the&nb ..read more

On Day Nine of the Trump hush money trial, a judge held a former president of the United States in contempt of court and threatened jail time if he didn’t stop attacking jurors and witnesses. Think about that for a moment. At any other moment in American history, this news would have produced banner headlines, some with exclamation points. Now, it wasn’t even the top story from the courtroom. That’s thanks to the testimony of Keith Davidson, the Beverly Hills lawyer who represented both Karen McDougal and Stormy Daniels. Davidson on the stand did more than bolster the prosecution’s narrative ..read more

As the 2024 campaign moves ahead to the general election contest, transition planning does as well. That’s because, months before this November’s election, Congress requires the White House to prepare to leave, even while President Joe Biden campaigns to remain. Extensive transition planning had not always been mandated by Congress, and many transitions have been marked by poor cooperation. But the well-prepared and widely praised handoff from George W. Bush to Barack Obama, in the midst of the 2008 global economic collapse, prompted Congress in 2016 and 2019 to strengthen the law that govern ..read more

We may look back at the second Friday of the Trump Trial as one of the most significant days of the entire case. That’s when Emil Bove—arguably Trump’s best defense attorney—failed to break David Pecker on cross-examination. But I’m going to start my Day Eight report with the story of my great view of Donald Trump’s scalp. Here’s how it happened: The 58 reporters credentialed to be in the courtroom do not have assigned seats. It’s roughly first-come-first-seated after the onerous clearance of both 1st-floor and 15th-floor metal detectors (twice a day) and a forced march of the favored reporte ..read more

The recent lawsuit brought by Elon Musk’s SpaceX challenging the constitutionality of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) might seem to have little to do with Starbucks. The Seattle-based coffee giant has publicly distanced itself from SpaceX’s frontal assault on the nearly 90-year-old labor law regulator. (See Elon Musk’s War on the New Deal—and Democracy by Caroline Fredrickson, the Georgetown Law Center professor, in the Washington Monthly.) However, when Starbucks argued before the Supreme Court last week, the two companies seemed to be aiming at a common adversary. The SpaceX case ..read more

This will be an unusually long post because my old friend and co-author, Cliff Sloan, a Georgetown Law professor who has argued many cases in the Supreme Court, agreed to assume the grim duty of telling you a few things you might not have read about Thursday’s SCOTUS oral arguments on Donald Trump’s claim that he is immune from prosecution for trying to stage a coup. See below. In the meantime, I’m holding down the fort inside what will very likely be Trump’s only criminal trial this year—or possibly ever.  Given the depressing display in Washington, let’s start with something inspiring ..read more

The latest economic news may seem sobering, but it has the proverbial silver lining. The Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), part of the U.S. Department of Commerce, announced Thursday that real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) grew at a 1.6 percent annual rate from January to March, down sharply from the blistering 4.0 percent rate in the second half of last year. Here’s an economic primer on why the new numbers from BEA are actually good news for President Joe Biden, his reelection campaign, and everyone else. Most importantly, the slowdown increases the odds that the Federal Reserve will cut in ..read more

A Disturbing Day at the Supreme Court Nothing shakes the confidence of an old-fashioned institutionalist like me more than listening to this Supreme Court conduct oral arguments. While the questions posed by the justices don’t always predict their votes, the incredibly obtuse arguments and ludicrous hypotheticals we heard suggests there are not five votes for simply declaring Donald Trump lacks immunity for acts conducted while president and allowing federal charges of election meddling to quickly proceed. More likely we will get five votes for limiting the charges, sending the case ..read more

In an attempt to pressure universities into divesting from companies tied to the Israeli military—and, in some cases, severing all financial and academic relationships with anything Israeli —student protestors and their allies are establishing encampments and occupying buildings on university campuses at a brisk clip. Mother Jones identified active protests on 13 campuses. With the arrest of more than 100 Columbia University students last week drawing national media attention, expect the number to grow. By those metrics—number of participants, amount of media attention—the protests are a succ ..read more