Essays
Judgment / July 26, 2026
A handful of times each year, somewhere in a glass-walled office in London or New York, a committee of analysts finishes crunching a fresh batch of data and...
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Every four years Americans convince themselves that the latest election was stolen. One side points to shady ballot drops and dead voters. The other warns...
Most arguments for federalism waste their ammunition on a tired soundbite: "states' rights." The phrase conjures up musty legal briefs and political...
The ritual happens every election cycle. A party wins unified control of Washington, and the calls begin: "Kill the filibuster. End the 60-vote requirement...
If you want to understand why the United States has endured as a free republic for nearly 250 years while countless parliamentary democracies have...
Every schoolchild hears the same story. Andrew Johnson was a stubborn, racist president who stood in the way of noble Reconstruction, and the heroic Radical...
You remember the civics lesson: three branches, checks and balances, separation of powers. It is usually presented as a tidy diagram - Congress makes law...
You have heard the argument a hundred times. Caucuses are undemocratic. They are confusing, exclusionary, and time-consuming. They favor the most committed...
The word "franchise" gets thrown around in politics almost exclusively in the context of voting. The "franchise" is the right to cast a ballot. Who has it...
Let me say something that will make some people uncomfortable. The single most dangerous intellectual error in American politics today is the casual...