Top of the Ticket

Top of the Ticket Political commentary from David Horsey
Will John McCain protect America from Trump’s strange affinity for Putin?

I would love to know what John McCain is thinking right now as he ponders the coming presidency of a man who appears to admire a Russian tyrant far more than he does the intelligence agents of his own country. Does a word like treason run through his mind?

The Republican senator from Arizona is a conspicuously honorable man in a profession filled with people who sell their honor rather cheaply.

Read more
House Republicans start the new Congress with an assault on federal lands

This week, House Republicans got so much blowback from their attempt to neuter the independent congressional ethics office that they quickly reversed course. The tone-deaf assault on ethics oversight was part of a bigger package of rules changes that included another provision that should also have been stopped, but was not: a scheme to give away federal lands.

Read more
Do Americans hate each other too much to find common ground?

In early December, a wildfire raged through the Great Smoky Mountains and destroyed nearly 1,000 homes in Gatlinburg, Tenn. Thousands were evacuated. Close to 200 people were injured or made ill by the blaze. Fourteen were killed.

In the midst of this tragedy, numerous messages appeared on social media that were as despicable as they were dispiriting.

Read more
A big cartoon vision of an epic year in U.S. politics
President Sanders? Bernie would have beaten Trump

If Democrats had made a different choice in the primaries last spring, Bernie Sanders would be assembling his Cabinet right now. A reading of voting patterns in the presidential election suggests that the Vermont senator would have beaten Donald Trump.

Trump won the election by prevailing in the Rust Belt states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania that, together, gave him 46 electoral votes.

Read more
Americans who voted against Trump are feeling unprecedented dread and despair

I have never seen anything quite like the grief being felt by the majority of American voters who did not vote for Donald Trump.

Back in 1980, there was disappointment among Democrats when Ronald Reagan won. In 2000, after the long Florida recount and the intrusion of the Supreme Court into the decision, there were plenty of upset people who thought Al Gore, not George W. Bush, deserved to be president.

Read more
51°