Jonathan Bernstein

Last week, I promised a bit of optimism about US democracy given the very real threats the republic is facing. I’ll repeat that no one should dismiss those threats. But the defeat of democracy is hardly a done deal. To begin with, imperfect democracy survived 2020, and as serious as the setbacks…

An interview with two new biographers of former President Jimmy Carter, Jonathan Alter and Kai Bird, makes the case for revisionism, arguing that just as Harry Truman was an unpopular president whose greatness was only recognized later, Carter too was … well, if not great, at least close to great. …

Republican dysfunction just keeps getting worse. The latest? A movement to strip the 13 House Republicans who voted for the infrastructure bill of their committee seats. Let’s go to Congress scholar Josh Huder: This is legitimately insane. These kinds of punishments are normally reserved for…

At a time when President Joe Biden’s competence is being questioned, let's talk about blocking and tackling — that is, how the administration is doing on the basics of the presidency. Note that this is very different from the question of whether he’s making good policy decisions, however one would…

In today’s exercise in whataboutism, it turns out that (as some pundits are keen to remind everyone) there are Democrats who have claimed that the 2000 election was stolen, which presumably is important to bring up because it somehow turns the behavior of Donald Trump and his apologists into normal…

Groups of congressional Democrats trekked down to the White House on Wednesday to meet with President Joe Biden in order to … well, no one is quite sure. Weeks ago, a wide range of outcomes seemed possible for the Democrats’ two-bill strategy for enacting bipartisan infrastructure legislation and a…

In the wake of President Joe Biden’s announcement on Thursday of new, more aggressive tactics against the Covid-19 pandemic, including expanded vaccine mandates, some of those who support vaccination are worried that it could all backfire. National Journal’s Josh Kraushaar put it this way: …

There’s some reporting that former President Donald Trump may announce soon that he’s running for the White House again. What — if anything — should we make of that? Early candidacy announcements are usually a sign of weakness. Longshots announce early, and begin campaigning early, because they…

The Afghanistan policy story over the last month has primarily been about the US presidency. It should not remain that way. It’s not hard to tell the story of US involvement in Afghanistan as a tale of failures by at least five presidents. Bill Clinton left a dangerous situation that he did too…

President Joe Biden gave a White House speech on the situation in Afghanistan Monday. Before he spoke, I suggested eight things he should try to do (the eighth being that he should make it short, which of course is a bit of a challenge when it’s the eighth item). But I’ll take a step back: What…