Thank you, Mary Trump, for plumbing the shallow waters of Jon Stewart's wit. A psychologist and sharp critic of her uncle Donald, Mary Trump accused the Daily Show host of long suppressing the liberal vote by telling his fan base that the candidates stink equally. She cites political research showing that his what's-the-difference jabbering helped elect Donald Trump in 2016. But Stewart's recent resurfacing with a nuance-free view of the current presidential choices was truly the last straw to drift off the bale. After reciting some antique jokes about AARP cards, Stewart shifted into his ol ..read more

On Monday night, Iowans slipped and slid over icy roads to give Donald Trump a 51% victory in the first Republican caucus. On Tuesday morning, the media seemed saturated with stories about Trump’s “landslide win.” The truth is the Iowa results can’t be seen as anything other than a weak candidate in a divided party. That’s because for the first time since 1892, when comeback Democrat Grover Cleveland beat incumbent Republican Benjamin Harrison, this is an election with essentially two incumbents. Trump is the leader of his party. He’s running against candidates who have repeatedly thanked hi ..read more

Rep. Jared Golden's about-face on gun laws is not surprising. He is a Democrat representing Lewiston, Maine, still convulsed by a mass shooting that took 18 lives. Formerly against tightening the laws, Golden now wants a ban on semiautomatic weapons. One can understand why elected officials in rural areas, even in generally liberal states, would put forth the argument that guns really aren't a problem. Maine, after all, is a low-crime place. Its murder rate is fourth-lowest in the nation, despite a strong gun culture. Many Mainers rely on firearms to hunt for dinner. Vermont, another New Eng ..read more

Never Back Down, the super PAC backing Florida Governor Ron DeSantis aired its first advertisement via Fox News Sunday lambasting former President Donald Trump for "spending millions on attacking"the governor, Axios reports. The ad titled "Fight Democrats, Not Republicans," was fueled by the former president's complaint that DeSantis has not shown enough support amid his legal troubles in Manhattan — but it also teases the governor's upcoming 2024 presidential bid. Additionally, the commercial raises the question, "What happened to Donald Trump?" saying, "Trump should fight Democrats, not li ..read more

To hear some people tell it, social media — Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, etc. — have driven Americans crazy. Our very democracy is imperiled by mis- and disinformation circulating online among angry crackpots fomenting civil war between rival “tribes” that sound like street gangs. The Crips versus the Bloods, for example, or the Libs versus MAGA. Each a partisan cartoon to the other; both dreaming of victory and the subjugation of their imagined (and often largely imaginary) enemies. Perhaps the most influential proponent of this view has been the eminent social psychologist Jonath ..read more

If Ron DeSantis had a Stormy Daniels problem, Donald Trump would probably have invited her to dinner. He'd have massaged the facts surrounding any possible indictment related to the hush-money payments. The cameras love a porn star, and Trump loves cameras. Trump would mock Ron DeSanctimonious with Stormy at his side. But the Florida governor and apparent candidate for president went after the New York district attorney for allegedly persecuting his chief political rival. Could you imagine Donald Trump doing that? Trump's more formidable opponent in this case is New York City. The devil cann ..read more

The religious right movement, which gained considerable momentum during President Ronald Reagan's 1980 campaign, has had a complex relationship with Catholicism over the years. The religious right is dominated by far-right white evangelical Protestant fundamentalists, who are vehemently critical of Catholic practices (the confessional, physical images of Jesus). Yet Republican evangelicals will work with the Catholic right when it comes to fighting abortion or same-sex marriage. The Catholic right is by no means universally loved by American Catholics. President Joe Biden and former House Sp ..read more

One week into the House GOP's follies in the majority, the Republican Party favorability rating plunged in Civiqs tracking Sunday to just 26 percent among registered voters—a two-year low point since hitting 25 percent in the weeks following the January 6 insurrection. The party also notched a 65 percent unfavorable rating—it's highest point in almost six years since the first year of Donald Trump's tenure. To be fair, the GOP's rapid descent doesn't fall entirely on the shoulders of House Republicans. The party's favorables have steadily declined ever since Republicans' 2022 midterm debacle ..read more

This week’s new vocabulary word is “decompensate.” Psychiatrists use it to describe mentally ill people who are totally losing their ... well, acting like former President Donald J. Trump: having Nazis over for dinner and then demanding that the Constitution be set aside and that he be reinstated, presumably for life. And then denying his own written words. Mary Trump, the clinical psychologist and would-be Fuehrer’s niece, has long predicted something like this. “He’s never been in a situation in which he has lost in a way he can’t escape from,” she told Politico’s Michael Kruse soon after ..read more

CNN White House correspondent John Harwood announced Friday afternoon that it was his last day at the network. Earlier that morning, he explained that the typical rules of political neutrality in mainstream journalism should not apply when covering former President Donald Trump and his continued dominance of the Republican Party, because those rules are designed for “honest disagreements” between the parties, and Trump is instead a “dishonest demagogue.” Harwood, a “harsh critic” of the former president, reportedly had two years left on his contract with CNN. His departure is not a promising ..read more