Dec 26, 2021 | Democrats, Elections, Salon.com
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris Photo illustration by Salon/Getty Images
Now that Joe Manchin has sounded the death knell — at least for the moment — for Joe Biden’s Build Back Better package, Democrats are doomed in the 2022 midterm elections.
Or, wait: Are they? Sometimes the “laws” of politics (or economics) are characterized as immutable, akin to the laws of physics....
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Nov 21, 2021 | Democrats, Republicans, Salon.com
Woodrow Wilson, Joe Biden and Donald Trump Photo illustration by Salon/Getty Images
Republicans have an obvious race problem — one they prefer not to admit, even to themselves. The party’s voter base is overwhelmingly white, and Republicans are now actively trying to suppress Black voters (and other voters of color) through a range of Jim Crow tactics....
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Nov 1, 2021 | Democrats, Salon.com
Joe Biden and Joe Manchin Photo illustration by Salon/Getty Images
Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia — who has, along with Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, emerged as one of the two most prominent Democrats to hold up President Joe Biden’s legislative package — signaled on Monday that he may not be ready to back the already-watered down agenda....
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Oct 17, 2021 | Democrats, Salon.com
Richard Nixon and Joe Biden Photo illustration by Salon/Getty Images
American media, and especially the political press corps, has a history of failure when it comes to explaining the policies that could change people’s lives. Last week, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi raised eyebrows when she blamed the media for failing to do enough to “sell” Biden’s Build Back Better legislation....
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Sep 26, 2021 | Democrats, Salon.com
Joe Biden, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin Photo illustration by Salon/Getty Images
Allan Lichtman has a track record of accurately predicting presidential elections, and is generally an astute observer of the American political scene. So I paid attention when Lichtman, a political science professor at American University, told me it would be disastrous for President Biden to go war against Joe Manchin, Kyrsten Sinema and the other centrist Democrats jamming him up in Congress. ...
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Aug 15, 2021 | Democrats, Republicans, Salon.com
Former Presidents Donald Trump and Barack Obama, with George Washington, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt haunting in the back. Photo illustration by Salon/Getty Images
Strange patterns emerge from history. George Santayana famously wrote that “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” while Mark Twain supposedly said that history “rhymes.” ...
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Jun 6, 2021 | Democrats, Salon.com
If Donald Trump’s movement is destined to be America’s answer to Nazism, then the Joe Biden administration is currently a rough equivalent of the Weimar Republic — the unstable constitutional democracy that governed Germany before the rise of Adolf Hitler. The comparison is imperfect, but the cautionary tale is still clear. There is an obvious risk that Biden and the narrow Democratic majorities in Congress will fail, and that Trump or a successor will take over and then cement themselves into power for at least the next generation....
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Apr 4, 2021 | Democrats, Salon.com
Once upon a time, West Virginia Democrats played a crucial role in making their party more inclusive and breaking down the barriers of prejudice.
Tragically, the opposite appears to be true today. There is little question that the most powerful Democrat in the state is Sen. Joe Manchin III, who has been in the Senate since 2010 and previously served as West Virginia’s governor and secretary of state....
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Feb 28, 2021 | Democrats, History, Salon.com
It is no exaggeration to say that the fate of America, and perhaps the world, depends on Joe Biden being a successful president — and, beyond that, by most definitions a successful liberal president. We are less than six weeks into his administration, but so far he has not risen to the occasion. The stakes could hardly be higher....
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Nov 3, 2020 | Democrats, Elections, Republicans, Salon.com
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., leaves her news conference in the Capitol Visitor Center Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images
According to recent reports, President Trump believes that Republicans can retake a majority in the House of Representatives in 2020. He might be the only one. Political experts largely believe that the Democrats are overwhelming favorites to retain control of the House, extending Nancy Pelosi’s speakership for one more term — which she has suggested will be her last....
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