Why Gun Control in America Is So Hard

After each of the repeated mass shootings that now provide a tragic backbeat to American life, the same doomed dance of legislation quickly begins. As the outraged demands for action are inevitably derailed in Congress, disappointed gun-control advocates, and perplexed ordinary citizens, point their fingers at the influence of the National Rifle Association...

15h

Trump’s Double Defeat in Georgia

Last night’s primary in Georgia was a big, fat disappointment for former President Donald Trump: Governor Brian Kemp beat his Trump-endorsed opponent. And in a much more surprising turn of events, Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state who refused to play along with Trump’s election-fraud fantasy, won his race too.Raffensperger defeated...

20h

The Abortion-Rights Message That Some Activists Hate

The end of Roe v. Wade would be a devastating defeat for abortion-rights advocates and the millions who support a federally guaranteed right to terminate a pregnancy. It might also be the last, best hope for Democrats seeking to mobilize a frustrated, angry electorate and maintain their slim majorities in Congress this fall.Democrats appear to have...

22h

Is Larry Hogan Living in a Fantasy World?

Larry Hogan, the Republican governor of Maryland, gave a speech this month at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California, in which he declared that the GOP was “desperately in need of a course correction.” He called on the so-called Party of Reagan to end its dependency on Donald Trump and return to the heyday of the 40th president,...

2d

The Election Denier Who Could Run Michigan’s Elections

In the weeks after the 2020 election, one particular Michigan woman was trumpeting claims of fraud as loudly as she could. Kristina Karamo, a community-college professor who’d previously accused Democrats of having a “satanic agenda,” went on Fox News again and again to describe how illegal ballots supposedly had been tallied for Joe Biden at the TCF...

3d

No, Student Loans Aren’t Like a Mortgage

For the past two years, Americans who hold student-loan debt have had a reprieve. At the outset of the pandemic, lawmakers agreed that a pause on debt payments was in order; this stopgap measure has been extended six times. The current restart date is slated for the end of August, though experts already suspect that politicians will want to wait until...

5d

Trumpism No Longer Needs Trump

For all the talk about how Donald Trump’s endorsed candidates would fare in the Republican primaries this year, the results in this week’s races made clear: Whatever happens to Trump’s personal influence, Trumpism is consolidating its dominance of the GOP.The former president’s scorecard on Tuesday was mixed. Candidates he endorsed won the GOP nominations...

1w

Why the Right Went Quiet on Ukrainian Refugees

Last summer, anti-immigration advocates mobilized in opposition to the resettlement of tens of thousands of Afghan refugees in the United States. “It threatens the national security of the United States,” wrote Stephen Miller, the former top Donald Trump adviser. Miller charged in another tweet that President Joe Biden had “cruelly betrayed his oath...

2w

What’s the Point of Going to Brett Kavanaugh’s House?

CHEVY CHASE, Md.—A few of Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s neighbors were visibly annoyed last night as a dozen abortion-rights protesters marched down their tree-lined street, blaring music and chanting, “We are not your incubators!” A middle-aged couple in jogging suits scoffed and yanked their goldendoodle to the other side of the road. One woman driving...

2w

The Democrats’ Midterm Identity Crisis

President Joe Biden arrived in office with a throwback theory of how to expand his party’s support. He sought to focus his presidency on delivering kitchen-table benefits to low- and middle-income families—for example, with stimulus checks and an expansive child tax credit—while downplaying his involvement in high-profile cultural disputes and emphasizing...

2w