Jonathan Bernstein

Yes, the consumer-price index on Thursday came in high. On the other hand, economists have been warning for some time that we should expect some real but transitory inflation this summer — and also that year-over-year numbers would be skewed by prices plunging last spring due to the pandemic. Yet…

After four-plus months of Joe Biden’s presidency, we can finally say something about his polling numbers with a fair degree of confidence: His initially high disapproval numbers, second only to Donald Trump during the polling era, were likely an artifact of partisanship and had little to do with…

We have something new in US politics: a pretender. Former President Donald Trump is still claiming that he really won the election, and is now saying he’ll be “reinstated” to office by August, after an audit of some kind provides proof of voter fraud. Some of his supporters are egging him on;…

How worried should we be about the state of democracy in the US? A group of leading political scientists who study the issue say: a lot. A whole lot. In fact, they say: “our entire democracy is now at risk.” They’re correct. If they had asked me, I would’ve signed on. The problem is easy enough…

One of the startling adaptations to the pandemic was in how the 2020 US general elections were administered. It was a stunning success, on several levels, that few saw coming. And it was a success in the face of strong opposition from Donald Trump’s White House and from many Republicans following…

Joe Biden is getting a lot of things right early in his presidency. But his first steps with regard to the Federal Reserve? Not so much. For one thing, Biden isn’t attempting to affect monetary policy by making either public or private statements aimed at Fed Chairman Jerome Powell. Instead, he…

One of my favorite type of stories is dogs-not-biting: things that are not happening, and tell us a lot because they aren’t happening. With the new vice president finally moving into her official digs — delayed by previously scheduled construction — it’s a good time to reflect on the biggest non…

Why yes, the Republican Party is at it again. This time, it’s in Missouri, where former Governor Eric Greitens has announced that he’s running for that state’s open US. Senate seat in 2022. He’s probably the front-runner for the Republican nomination. Does his name ring a bell? Perhaps it’s…

We need better conversations about democracy reform. The Republican side is a complete mess. Making it more difficult for citizens to vote has become its top legislative agenda in state after state. Its arguments are based on preventing non-existent fraud, and an apparent belief that if everyone…

The folks over at FiveThirtyEight ran their first 2024 Republican presidential nomination mock draft last week. They were careful to label it “way too early.” In a normal presidential-election cycle, I would have been quick to run an item about how that wasn’t really true. Indeed, in a normal…