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Something much greater awaits us in 2026

National Columnists

The year 2025 passed pretty quickly, almost in the blink of an eye. It began with tragedy as soon as January hit, with 14 people being killed in New Orleans when a driver rammed his truck into a crowd on Bourbon Street. A similar deadly incident happened in Las Vegas when an active-duty U.S. Army Green Beret exploded a Tesla Cybertruck outside the Trump International Hotel and killed himself. The news continued to be filled with troubling and sad events as political disputes on issues like immigration and vaccines intensified, and beloved celebrities passed away. I did a quick ...

Time does not pause but moves forward

National Columnists

The hot take that floated into my inbox this week was that resolutions are passe. Apparently, thinking about “next year” is outdated. We’re in this grind of time and marking it arbitrarily doesn’t matter. But, really, we time-travel constantly. It’s one of the best things about being human. We can rehearse future sticky conversations in the shower. We can relive our moments of wildness while folding laundry. We can imagine a future version of ourselves who has it together, so she is not constantly behind on laundry. Yet every January, the naysayers trot out the idea that it ...

Republicans face some big questions entering 2026

National Columnists

“Are the Republicans going the way of the Whigs?” During President Trump’s first term, this question was asked a lot. The answer then: No. But one year into his second term it’s worth revisiting the question, not so much because the answer is different this time, but because the question illuminates how much our politics have changed in the last decade. Just in case you forgot — or never knew — the Whigs were one of the two major American parties from the 1830s to the mid-1850s. We’ll return to them in a moment. A decade ago, the conversation about the Whigs ...

Democrats get ready to rumble

National Columnists

A midterm election year is upon us, and that can mean only one thing: we have entered the realm of quickened speculation about the 2028 presidential election. On the Republican side, if President Donald Trump decides to abide by the Constitution in at least one respect, the nomination looks to be Vice President J.D. Vance’s to lose. Which leaves most of the tea leaf-reading to the Democrats, with a few gaggles of candidates eyeing a run. Congressman Ro Khanna and Senators Chris Murphy and Chris Van Hollen have telegraphed their strategy for winning support from the ...

Temptation to tax rich is understandable

National Columnists

There is something emotionally satisfying about watching a wealthy person call for higher taxes on people like himself. It feels civic-minded, even noble. A recent commentary by former Utah senator, Massachusetts governor and Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney fits squarely into this tradition. Faced with a looming fiscal cliff, Romney concludes that entitlement reform is unavoidable and that higher taxes on affluent Americans must be part of the solution. Don’t be fooled, though. Yes, the status quo is unsustainable, and pretending otherwise is reckless. But taxing the rich ...

On immigration, citizenship, listen to George Washington

National Columnists

As news reports proliferate of multimillion-dollar — and possibly billion-dollar — fraudulent diversions of government funds involving Minnesota’s Somali immigrant community, it may be time at one year’s end and the next one’s beginning to take a longer look at America’s experience with immigration, and to seek the guidance of the first and one of its two greatest presidents. The Founding Fathers were aware that their new nation was gifted with vast acreage, but only 4 million people were counted in the first decennial Census in 1790. The Constitution’s first words, ...