Bloomberg.com • 22nd November 2025

The Military Is in a Bind Created by Its Commander in Chief

When President Donald Trump claimed that members of Congress deserved the death penalty this week, he showed yet again that he doesn’t respect the rule of law.The president turned to social media Thursday morning to accuse six Democratic members of Congress of “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH.” The commander in chief made this astonishing comment in reaction to a video these elected officials, all former members of the military or the intelligence community, had posted the da...

Bloomberg.com • 21st November 2025

ICE Is Testing Charlotte’s Biggest Employers. They’re Failing.

The reaction by residents in North Carolina’s largest city to the immigration crackdown that began on Saturday has been empathetic and broad. The reaction by the region’s largest employers? Notably silent.This week, hundreds of students walked out of Charlotte-area schools to protest the Trump administration’s immigration raids. Volunteers donned fluorescent vests and wore whistles as they patrolled the perimeter of schools to keep federal agents from coming on campus. Churches held packed train...

Bloomberg.com • 18th November 2025

The Property Tax Fight Is a Power Grab in Texas and Florida

As affordability politics take center stage across America, at least 18 states are attempting to lower or eliminate property taxes to offset the dramatic rise in property values. It’s a worthy debate, but wiping out property taxes, or dramatically limiting them, is dangerous. It not only strips local communities of an economically efficient tax , it also erodes their autonomy, making them more susceptible to any authoritarian-leaning lawmakers at the state level. There’s littl...

Bloomberg • 12th November 2025

The Irony of the RNC’s Latest Election Lawsuit

The US Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear a case brought by the Republican National Committee against Mississippi, challenging its law that allows mail-in ballots to be counted after Election Day. The RNC argues that accepting mail-in ballots that were postmarked on or before Election Day, but that arrived in election offices after that date, “undermines trust in elections.” It’s a specious argument.

Bloomberg • 11th November 2025

Republicans Just Got a Wake-Up Call on Their Midterm Maps

Republicans' strategy to create new Republican-leaning districts may have backfired, as last week's election results show the party losing support from the voter groups President Donald Trump won over in 2024.

Bloomberg.com • 6th November 2025

This Georgia Upset Is the Real Preview of 2026

Pocketbook issues took center stage in Democratic victories in Virginia, New Jersey and New York Tuesday night, as well as in a usually obscure election in Georgia. Both New Jersey and Virginia lean blue, but the Georgia election may be the real bellwether for 2026. With voters unhappy about higher electric bills and prices, and dissatisfaction with President Donald Trump rising, are Georgia voters telling us something?

Bloomberg.com • 3rd November 2025

The Strange Quest to Unseat MAGA Stalwart Thomas Massie

President Donald Trump’s months-long effort to find a primary challenger to Kentucky Congressman Thomas Massie, a fellow Republican and MAGA devotee, is the latest proof that Republicans in Washington were never truly intent on achieving the agenda they sold to voters last year. If they were, they would be endorsing Massie as exactly the kind of anti-establishment conservative they’d want to see more of in Congress.

Bloomberg.com • 26th October 2025

Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Pivot From Trump, Explained

Marjorie Taylor Greene, the firebrand Georgia Republican, has been breaking ranks with President Donald Trump and the GOP leadership in Congress on an increasingly long list of issues. She's not only reflecting the concerns of her district, her move is pragmatic. “Prior to these decoupling movements, she couldn’t run statewide,” a state legislator who represents part of her district told me.

Bloomberg.com • 20th October 2025

North Carolina’s New Electoral Map Resurrects Jim Crow

North Carolina Republicans will officially enter the redistricting arms race this week when lawmakers try to heed President Donald Trump’s call to create additional Republican seats. But carving out another safe GOP seat will only further unravel the state’s already frayed democratic institutions and leave the state’s rural “Black Belt” region without meaningful representation in Washington. That’s not the representative democracy these lawmakers swore an oath to uphold.

Bloomberg.com • 16th October 2025

National Guard Troops Didn’t Sign Up for This

“Nobody signed up for this.” That’s the reaction I keep getting from military and National Guard veterans about President Donald Trump’s deployment of troops to US cities over the objections of Democratic mayors and governors.They worry that the very thing military members enlist to do — to serve and protect the country — is being undermined by a president whose use of the military for a political stunt is making the nation less safe.

Bloomberg.com • 12th October 2025

Georgia Is Testing Whether Voters Still Cross Party Lines

It’s no secret that US politics has gotten more polarized. That means fewer voters split their tickets, voting for both a Democrat and a Republican. Between 2008 and 2022, the percentage of voters who crossed party lines fell from 12% to 5%, according to Daniel Moskowitz at the University of Chicago. But in Georgia, almost every candidate seems to be trying to win voters from the other party. That’s what our politics could look like if politicians had to do more than turn out their bases.

Bloomberg.com • 8th October 2025

Threats Against Judges Have Crossed the Line

The destruction of South Carolina Circuit Court Judge Diane Goodstein’s home in a fiery inferno over the weekend immediately led to speculation that it was an act of political violence. South Carolina officials are still investigating, and they said on Monday that “there is no evidence to indicate” that the cause of the explosion “was intentionally set.” But it says something about this moment that a judge being violently targeted was so easy to imagine.

Bloomberg.com • 5th October 2025

Did Trump Notice Where His Presidential Library Will Be Built?

Presidential libraries often attempt to elevate accomplishments and whitewash failures. Donald Trump and his family think that Florida officials have given them a prime location to do just that with his library. But by choosing this setting, they have instead found the perfect way to create a permanent reminder of how Trump’s presidency tested and upended every foundational value of freedom and democracy in America.

Bloomberg.com • 29th September 2025

This Florida Democrat Is a Test for the Party's Appeal

After Zohran Mamdani clinched the Democratic Party nomination for New York mayor in June, Democratic elected officials were slow to embrace him, worried about being tarred as socialists. A notable exception? The Democratic candidate for governor in the red state of Florida: David Jolly, a former congressman — and former Republican. He's not interested in pursuing more culture wars and his big tent idea of the Democratic Party is to focus on economic issues.

Bloomberg.com • 24th September 2025

The Texas A&M Purge Takes a Page From Authoritarian Playbooks

Across the globe, there’s a clear playbook for how authoritarians suppress academic freedom. The firing of an English professor, two university administrators, and the resignation of Texas A&M University President Mark Welsh last week took a page right out of it.

Bloomberg.com • 21st September 2025

What’s the Crackdown on Cities Really Accomplishing?

It was a busy week for the Trump Administration — a state visit to the UK, a crackdown on free speech following the assassination of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk, and more partisan pressure applied to the Federal Reserve. Amid all of that, you could be forgiven for barely noticing that on Monday, President Donald Trump announced that he had established the Memphis Safe Task Force, a precursor to the deployment of National Guard troops in yet another American city.And that’s perhaps what’s mo...

Bloomberg.com • 14th September 2025

Don’t Let a Generation Lose Faith in Free Speech

The First Amendment is in a sorry state, especially on college campuses. A survey of students released last Tuesday from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression shows a steady decline in support for free speech – with a new high of 34% saying that using violence to stop a campus speech is acceptable in some cases. These findings would be disturbing at any time in American history, but they are especially chilling coming the same week that conservative activist Charlie Kirk...

Bloomberg.com • 11th September 2025

Domestic Violence Is a Real Crime. My Mother Worked to Make It One.

President Donald Trump implied this week that he doesn’t consider domestic violence a crime. “Much lesser things — things that take place in the home — they call crime,” he complained during remarks at the Museum of the Bible in Washington on Monday. “If a man has a little fight with the wife, they say this was a crime.” Trump’s comments reflect the kinds of dangerous views my mother fought against.

Bloomberg.com • 9th September 2025

The ICE Raid on the Georgia Hyundai Plant Makes No Sense

It doesn’t make any sense. Last week, the Trump administration executed the largest single-site immigration raid in US history at a Hyundai Motor Co.-LG Energy Solution Ltd. battery plant in Ellabell, Georgia. The surprise raid antagonized South Korea, contradicted Trump’s stated immigration policy of removing the “worst of the worst,” and humiliated South Korean businesses and investment firms. What's the upside?

Bloomberg.com • 7th September 2025

Texas Republicans Are Ignoring Their Voters — Again

More than 800 new laws took effect in Texas last week, the result of a busy legislative session in the Republican-controlled state. While much of the new legislation was aimed at addressing the traditional nuts and bolts of government, some of the most sweeping bills followed a pattern: Texas Republicans enacted laws to concentrate power in the executive branch, regulate thought in public schools and universities, and ignore the opinion of the majority of voters.