Philip Bump thoroughly debunks Trump’s attempted rebuttal of the January 6 committee’s hearing yesterday. His analysis of Trump’s assertions is methodical and extensive, in Bump’s words, “not because they are deserving of serious consideration but to demonstrate why they aren’t.”… Continue reading

CNN reports.

New details in The Washington Post on the DOJ dimension of the plot to overturn the Electoral College outcome. An excerpt: ‘Around the time Donoghue entered, Clark was telling Trump that if he became attorney general he would “conduct real… Continue reading

The Washington Post has a deep dive, with a very helpful graphic, on the extent to which Big Lie election denialists are winning GOP primaries this year. The story leads with this Toledo-based example: ‘J.R. Majewski marched to the… Continue reading

I find it morally repugnant as well as politically reckless that Democrats are engaging in this strategy–and apparently doing so systematically rather than in a single isolated instance. If protecting democracy itself from the authoritarian impulses of Trump and… Continue reading

I guess he had to try to say something, given the testimony of Barr, Stepien, and many others heard today on how they told Trump directly that he had lost the election and that there was insufficient reality-based grounds to… Continue reading

Chris Stirewalt, the former politics editor at Fox News on Election Night in 2020, is receiving praise for the confidence he expressed during his testimony today, as well as for his candid expression of Fox’s desire to “beat the … Continue reading

Today’s hearing of the January 6 committee depicted a sharp contrast between “team normal” (as Bill Stepian, Trump’s campaign manager put it), who were able and willing to accept the truth if painful that their candidate had lost the election,… Continue reading

Jeff Wice has written this Newsday column with political scientist Steven Elliot.

I’m seeing a lot of commentary on whether the evidence at today’s hearing is enough to establish Trump’s criminality (because he knew his lies were false). But I would suggest that the more important priority is to reduce as far… Continue reading

Preliminary returns are in for the first round in the special election to fill the remainder of the current term for Alaska’s single congressional seat. Sarah Palin is grabbing headlines by leading the field of 48 candidates with about 30… Continue reading

In The Atlantic, Peter Wehner recounts the case that the real problem is the moral depravity of the Republican Party as an essential institution in America’s two-party electoral democracy. Alas, he does not offer here a roadmap to some… Continue reading

History is replete with examples of losing candidates disputing their loss in good faith—because there were plausible fact-based arguments as to why they, rather than their opponents, were the true winners according to the applicable rules governing those elections.  Bush v.… Continue reading

I’ve posted this paper on SSRN. Originally presented as part of a symposium on “The Constitution and Democratic Erosion,” it will be published by the Drake Law Review. Here’s the abstract: The Madisonian premises of the Constitution need… Continue reading