SINCERETALK

The cake is baked. The Republicans are cooked. The Post ran a story this morning on the effect of "vibes" on the congressional elections. The story's takeaway was that how people feel is probably not going to change from now until Election Day, regardless of the facts. And how they feel is mad. The context of the story is a new poll by YouGov. In October 2018, Donald Trump's approval stood at -4 among indie voters. Last month, it stood at -53. The Democrats won over 40 House seats six years ago. At the rate things are going, the Republicans really are looking at an " extinction-level event ." But the trouble the GOP is facing isn't just vibes. People are mad for good, solid reasons, primarily the Iran War and its economic consequences. Even Trump's most reliable cohort is turning against him, according to the same YouGov poll . On July 11, net approval among white people without college degrees was zero. On July 25, it was -6. On July 11, net app...

President Donald Trump’s Republican allies are trying to get him to rescind his endorsement of Rep. Max Miller (R-OH), who is accused of physically abusing two of his former romantic partners and his young child. Yet even after Democrats pulled their support from their nominee for the Senate in Maine, oyster farmer Graham Platner , when he was accused of domestic violence and sexual misconduct, Trump is reportedly struggling to do the same thing for Miller. “It's a very sad thing; I know Max,” Trump said during an Oval Office press conference on Monday. “He's a good person. I mean, I always thought he was a very good person. And I'm going to let the families figure that out. You know, those families, I know they're working on it. It's a very sad thing, but it's accusations, and I'm going to let them figure that out.” Miller, by contrast, has denied all of the accusations, falsely claiming that only his wife has accused him (Trump’s former press secretary S...

It may be that society is often described as being built on “lies,” which can refer to the collective myths, social constructs, and commercial narratives that keep civilization functioning rather than literal malicious deceptions, as a Quora.com online discussion has batted around. But that is about cultural lies we tell ourselves about the shared American Dream, for example, not about intentional lying of the sort we see daily from the Trump administration. We even expect self-promoting “spin” from our politicians, whether we accept it or not. For the Justice Department to have dropped its inane criminal charges of vandalism against Olympian David Hearn for noticing the big paint chips floating in the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pools is not just admission that the “damage” was from a botched painting job rather than criminal act. It was another in the long series of public policy lies that we endure from Donald Trump, who had insisted without evidence on his version of Truth. (Trum...

Republicans are beginning to panic, according to a new CNN report , as a major rift appears to be growing between President Donald Trump and a top party leader at a time when everyone needs to lock in for the midterms . As CNN noted in a new weekend report, Trump and Senate Majority Leader John Thune appear to have gone largely radio silent with one another, with "days, if not weeks" passing between times when the top senator hears from the president. Thune has suggested that the two only speak "more on an as-needed basis" lately, in stark contrast to Trump's dynamic with House Speaker Mike Johnson, who "sometimes can’t get [him] off the phone." Johnson has been noted as one of the more committed and enthusiastic lieutenants for the president in Congress, making their active relationship somewhat unsurprising. Thune, by contrast, has drawn significant ire from Trump in recent months over his insistence that the SAVE America Act is dead on arrival in ...

’m devoting the next several weeks to what I’m calling a “Realist’s Guide to the American System.” If you hadn’t noticed, almost everything’s going to hell. Why? Trump is horrendous, but he isn’t causing all the failures of that system. He’s a consequence of that system. Think of him as a boil on its backside — an infected pustule on the giant a-- of the American system. The boil would have become infected eventually because of deeper flaws in how the system has evolved. The best way of beginning is to introduce you to Jamie Dimon. In the spring of 2018, Jamie Dimon phoned me at my office at the University of California, Berkeley. I had criticized him publicly, and he was not pleased. He sounded off on the phone for several minutes without stopping. Dimon has a great deal of influence over the system. He heads the largest bank on Wall Street, JPMorganChase, which survived the 2008 financial crisis better than any other big bank. After the crisis, The New York Times gave Dimon the ba...

A newly unearthed detail is proving an "odd coincidence" in the ongoing saga surrounding Sen. Mitch McConnell's health, per The Daily Beast , with his wife once again casting doubt on the official narrative surrounding his health. McConnell, the Kentucky Republican senator best known for his years as Senate Majority Leader, has been hospitalized since mid-June, when he was found unresponsive at his home, and has not been seen or heard from in public since then. In light of the rampant speculation about his true condition, McConnell's office has insisted that he is on the road to recovery, and released two "proof of life" photos of the senator alongside his wife, former labor and transportation secretary Elaine Chao. Given the continued lack of video evidence showing the senator in good health, skeptics have remained unconvinced by these photos, a situation made worse by the questionable details in them that observers continue to unearth. In the latest edi...