This is the second in an occasional series about Donald Trump’s statements and language and what’s at stake in the election. Do you remember the California electricity crisis of 2000 and ’01? I do, because I wrote about it a lot at the time and stuck my neck out by …
Read More »Opinion | Three Weeks to Go, and That’s All Anyone Is Sure Of
Gail Collins: Bret, Kamala Harris sure seems proud of her gun ownership, doesn’t she? Bret Stephens: Think of Aretha Franklin singing, “G-L-O-C-K (E), find out what it means to me.” Gail: Hadn’t thought about it until she told Oprah Winfrey that if someone breaks into her house, “they’re getting shot.” …
Read More »Opinion | Food Is What We Have In Common. Why Don’t We Hear More From the Candidates About It?
In a surprising turn of events, the presidential candidates have been talking about food. Food can be a winning topic, but we need to hear much more. Donald Trump (seemingly influenced by his new ally, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.), is talking about making “America Healthy Again.” How? “We’re going to …
Read More »Opinion | What China’s Leaders Grasp About Another Trump Term
At the beginning of the Biden presidency, many of us serving in the National Security Council gathered to read the intelligence and reached a key conclusion: The 2020s would be what we called the “decisive decade” in U.S. competition with China. Beijing seeks to displace the United States from its …
Read More »Opinion | Lawyers Should Not Assist Trump in a Potential Power Grab
As the presidential campaign begins its final sprint, Donald Trump has made crystal clear how he will respond if he loses. He will refuse to accept the results; he will make baseless claims of voter fraud; and he will turn, with even more ferocity than he did in 2020, to …
Read More »Trump Hits Coachella, Campaigning Once Again in a Blue State
Both presidential campaigns agree that seven swing states are likely to determine the outcome of this year’s election. California, which has not voted for a Republican in a presidential race since 1988, is not one of them. But that did not prevent former President Donald J. Trump from heading there …
Read More »John F. Kennedy Jr.’s 1990s-Era Magazine Is Back, With a QAnon Twist
On a Saturday morning in August, a few hundred people gathered at a convention center in Hot Springs, Ark., paying between $145 and $475 to hear from a cast of far-right speakers. They included a body builder-turned-pundit who carries a tomahawk and promotes an antisemitic conspiracy theory, and a pro-Trump …
Read More »Opinion | When Trump Rants, This Is What I Hear
I’ve never considered “immigrant” my calling card, even though it’s one I’ve always carried. I arrived here first as a 3-year-old boy in the mid-1970s, settling with my family in Northern California, in a small town with trees so thick that their branches mingled high over the roads. My mother …
Read More »Opinion | This Is Why Trump Imagines He Will Win
If Donald Trump wins, the people who voted for him would have a range of reasons for putting him in office. There are a lot of potential Trump voters who don’t like him that much or who really like only parts of his personality or platform and tolerate the rest. …
Read More »A Conversation With JD Vance
From the moment JD Vance came onto the national stage, he was inextricably linked to Donald Trump. As the author of the best-selling book “Hillbilly Elegy,” Vance was initially the Trump whisperer, explaining the Trump phenomenon and 2016 win to shocked liberals. Back then, Vance didn’t like Trump. He called …
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