David Atkins

What a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive. This week the world was treated to the leak of the President’s conversations with the Australian and Mexican heads of state. Among the many eye-opening details was the American president begging his Mexican counterpart to help him keep an outrageous campaign promise he […]

I know the first rule of is politics is “don’t punch down.” In this case, using space at Washington Monthly to respond to rightwing talking points at Townhall seems in some ways like a waste of time. But there is a widespread meme on the right that the ongoing isolation and neutering of the Trump […]

Yesterday I wrote about the need for both sides of the 2016 primary battle to come together in solidarity by respecting one another’s core concerns. It should be possible for class-focused and identity-focused progressives and liberals to come together in mutual support on most issues. One superb example of the potential for productive unity lies […]

What interesting times we live in. Just over six months into the Trump presidency that helped sweep the Republican Party back into total control of Washington, a bevy of GOP insiders and would-be candidates are already looking into a 2020 primary campaign: Senators Tom Cotton and Ben Sasse have already been to Iowa this year, […]

The Democratic Party may seem deeply divided between its neoliberal and progressive wings (and yes, “neoliberal” is a real thing), but that perception is more an artifact of social media and comments section wars than actual reality. In the real world, the progress toward unity and healing has already begun at the topmost levels of […]

Today brings news that investigators and federal prosecutors are putting the pressure on Paul Manafort to flip on his employers, including potentially the Donald Trump campaign. U.S. investigators examining money laundering accusations against President Donald Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort hope to push him to cooperate with their probe into possible collusion between Trump’s […]

Earlier this morning I wrote that the 2018 election may be the last chance to save American democracy, if Trump does the unthinkable and the Republican Congress refuses to hold him accountable. The smart money says that Republicans will absolutely refuse to move against Trump. There has been almost no public break in the wall […]

Every two years, pundits and politicians tell the American people the same tired refrain: “This is the most important election in our lifetimes.” This time it may actually be true–and not just in our lifetimes, but in the lifetime of the great American experiment. That is no exaggeration. The last 48 hours have been a dizzying […]