Projection: attributing to others what one is, in fact, doing oneself. Everything, in other words, that Trump and his defenders accuse Democrats, especially President Joe Biden, of doing. Prime example: Trump’s relentlessly repeated phrase in reference to those pointing out and prosecuting his crimes and lies: “Fascist thugs.” This, from…

On Monday, the twenty-second anniversary of the attacks on 9/11/01, I listened to a podcast in which the speaker remarked on the unity Americans felt that day. When our democracy is threatened, he posited, Americans come together. …

No politics today. Instead, I’ll try to describe what it’s like for a surgeon operating in a potentially disastrous situation. Even being as in command of yourself as you can possibly be, it tests everything you’ve learned, everything you can bring to bear. And, on some level, it’s scary. I’ve…

Mar-a-Lago, 8/23/23 (Some words may have been mis-transcribed): Serial Conspirator, Unindicted Malefactor #1: “If I may suggest, Your Heinous, can you tilt your chin down just a bit more? If you’ll note in the mirror, chins three and four are still showing.” #PO1135809: “I make the best tilt. No one…

No matter in what way one believes humankind came into existence, its current state shows the process was anything but perfect. Unable to grasp the rarity, the obligations of being alive, if ever so briefly, a subset of humans is ruining it, through selfishness, rancor, and intentional ignorance. Enough of…

“When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.” Applied to today’s Republican Party, this insight from Maya Angelou is especially pertinent. At the beginning of its abandonment of good governance, the party’s fall from rationality was cloaked in the “Aw, shucks,” play-acting congeniality of Ronald Reagan…

As much as public education and non-white, non-male, non-Christian, non-heterosexual, or immigrant Americans, so we’re told, Trumpists hate being condescended to. So this column assumes that all such readers have fully familiarized themselves with and assimilated the contents of Jack Smith’s January Six indictment. Because they value enlightenment, they will…

Tuesday’s long-awaited, overdue, thoroughly justified indictment for Trump’s crimes against the Constitution and all Americans, including conservatives, won’t change minds. Unconvinced? Then you haven’t watched interviews at his rallies. Actual quotes: “He could murder someone on the White House steps and it wouldn’t bother me.” “He loves America. (Except for…

Democracy is only as good as the people in it. Parchmented prescriptives have no plenary power. If it’s possible to enforce the law when individuals are involved, a two-party system crumbles when one party chooses to ignore it, as policy. …