Essays
Judgment / August 13, 2026
Everyone is watching the wrong end of the spear. The argument over populist authoritarianism usually asks which leader has the authoritarian instincts...
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Every two years the same ritual plays out. Attack ads flood the airwaves, funded by organizations with sanitized names like Americans for a Brighter Future...
The collective political judgment of Washington's permanent class in January 2010 arrived swift and unanimous: the Supreme Court had just committed an act...
The filibuster has become one of those Washington institutions praised not for what it does, but for what people imagine it prevents. Ask a defender and you...
Most Americans assume bicameralism was simply the deal cut in Philadelphia to keep the large states and the small states in the same room. There is some...
Most Americans grow up hearing the country called a democracy. It's in the speeches, the textbooks, the nightly news. We say it so often that the word has...
Every schoolkid who paid half a mind in civics class can recite the heroic version of Marbury v. Madison. Chief Justice John Marshall, cornered by Thomas...
Political scientists have a tidy term for the system Vladimir Putin built in Russia: competitive authoritarianism. Elections happen on schedule. A few...
Most Americans who have spent any time with the founding documents can quote a line or two from Federalist No. 51. "If men were angels, no government would...
Walk into any town hall meeting or scroll through a political thread online, and you will hear it within minutes: the word "democracy" tossed around as if...