Eric Black Ink is a column by veteran journalist Eric Black covering national and state politics, policy, government and history.
It’s a small leap, or none at all, to argue that a president who thinks he has the power to do whatever he wants could try to cancel the next election if he thought he was in danger of losing, or postpone it until he thought his chances were better …
There are various proposals to modify the system for electing presidents, including some that would not require constitutional amendments, such as the “National Popular Vote” compact.
The so-called “objectivity” model of journalism is under tremendous pressure. It may be dying or already dead. It was always highly imperfect. But if it is abandoned, I believe it will be missed.
On a positive note, from a Trumpian viewpoint, it’s not his worst negative gap. That was late in 2017, his first year in office.
Rankin was the first woman ever elected to the U.S. Congress in her own name (not just to serve out the last portion of a dead husband’s term).
In an op-ed column, Hewitt decided to focus on a passing remark by Colin Powell that President Trump has “drifted away” from the Constitution.
If you rely on out-of-focus photos of the recent past to predict the future, Donald Trump’s chances of winning a second term as president are small and shrinking.
A Bill Moyers column seems to strengthen the similarity between Trumpisim and fascism, but also stops a few inches short of stating a final verdict on the is-Trump-a-fascist question.
In a smart essay for The Atlantic, the great James Fallows drifted into a Richard Nixon comparison, and then turned to Donald Trump.
Just a brief, humorous follow-up to my post of this morning about Gen. James Mattis, who finally decided to say a few of the many critical things about Trump that he might have said over recent years.
“Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people — does not even pretend to try,” wrote Gen. James Mattis. “Instead he tries to divide us.”
I recently wrote about a little book called “A Brief History of Fascist Lies” by Federico Finchelstein, who was asked about Trump’s behavior Monday night outside the White House.
I don’t recall ever seeing him this angry, disgusted nor calling for a rout of Republicans who, although he didn’t mention it explicitly, would likely be replaced by members of some other party.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar appeared by video from Washington to promote a federal bill to expand the use of early voting and voting by mail. However, it has zero Republican sponsors.
Personally, I would say it’s OK for Trump to dislike a talk show host who criticizes him a lot. But he’s supposed to be a grownup about it.
Nationally, the gap between approvers (43%) and disapprovers is 10.3 percentage points.
Of course by the time you read a poll result, it’s out of date. And the out-of-date snapshot is also somewhat out of focus.
The Al Franken podcast is about remembering a time when Democrats and Republicans could respect one another across areas of disagreement, and debate those disagreements using honest facts and logic.
What Eric Trump said was ridiculous enough. But it was a fair bit less ridiculous than a Slate headline suggested.
It used to be a big deal even to suggest that the president had said something inaccurate, and it was beyond imaginable to call his statements “lies.” Now it’s just another Thursday in Trumplandia.
