Read about how the other side thinks: The danger of “lock them up” politics, why progressives should be wary of Tulsi Gabbard, and the six blocs Trump needs to survive.
The political news cycle is fast, and keeping up can be overwhelming. Trying to find differing perspectives worth your time is even harder. That’s why we have scoured the internet for political writing from the right and left that you might not have seen.
Has this series exposed you to new ideas?
Tell us how. Email us at ourpicks@nytimes.com .
• Jonathan S. Tobin in National Review:
“The problem is that both parties seem to have lost the ability to oppose an administration or candidate without seeking to ‘lock up’ the other side.”
Mr. Tobin is concerned about both parties’ impulse to respond to election losses with accusations of criminal misconduct. It’s possible, he writes, “that Trump, Flynn, and Kushner are guilty of serious crimes, but at the moment the public evidence for that assertion is virtually nonexistent.” Read more »
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• Rod Dreher in The American Conservative:
“A lot of us conservatives have made hay out of illiberalism on campus, but now we have an egregious, high-profile example of brutal behavior on our side.”
In addition to the spread of “lock them up” rhetoric across parties, this week Mr. Dreher saw another troubling trend in the coarsening of American politics. Beginning with an explanation for why he decided to turn down a speaking invitation from Middlebury College, Mr. Dreher writes that he’ d rather go to a school where the students will engage within the “bounds of civil discourse.” He then condemns those on the right who fail to rebuke Greg Gianforte’s violence. Read more »
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• Ben Domenech in The Federalist:
“What would that pivot look like? It begins with doing the same thing that he did all the time during the presidential campaign: running against Washington and refusing to even pretend to be a traditional Republican.”
For President Trump to reverse his slipping approval ratings, Mr. Domenech argues, he must change course in his leadership style. The key? Bringing Democrats in on the process to enact a populist and bipartisan reform on taxes, infrastructure and health care. Read more »
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• Jacob Sullum at Reason.com:
“That crime requires proof of intent, and it is not at all clear that Trump knew he was doing something he shouldn’ t do — the standard that Comey applied to Clinton.”
Did President Trump obstruct justice when he fired James B. Comey as the F. B. I. director? It depends, Mr. Sullum argues, on what the president knew. Read more »
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• James Pethokoukis in The Week:
“Paid parental leave obviously has real upsides. But we can’ t ignore the downsides either: Lower pay, stingier promotions, and a potential employer favoritism toward the childless.”
Conservative economic policy, Mr. Pethokoukis writes, “isn’ t really about balancing budgets or cutting taxes or deregulation, ” but about dealing with trade-offs. As such, the inclusion of paid paternal leave in the president’s budget marks an important question for Republicans, should they choose to embrace the policy: “How can we provide parental leave in a way that […] avoids creating a politically driven, one-size-fits-all policy that blankets America’s huge and diverse labor market?” Read more »
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• Joshua Holland in The Nation:
“The real story is that Trump’s negative coverage is being driven not by liberals or Democrats but by law-enforcement sources and pissed-off Republicans.”
According to Harvard’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy, media coverage of the Trump administration has been overwhelmingly negative, even relative to his predecessors. While some conservative voices have taken this study as evidence of an anti-Trump bias in the media, Mr. Holland draws attention to an underreported detail of this study: “Republican voices accounted for 80 percent of what newsmakers said about the Trump presidency.” Read more »
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• Patrick Day at Vox:
“I’ m hoping you can see that the reason I am pro-life is also the reason I am a Democrat. But in 2017, there is little room for nuance in politics. I feel like I am constantly prodded by both my Democratic and pro-life friends to see ‘whose team I’ m really on.’ ”
In this first-person account of what it’s like to be a “pro-life Democrat, ” Mr. Day explains that his strategy to “just avoid the topic” is no longer tenable. Heartened after Representative Nancy Pelosi of California told Chuck Todd, the host of “Meet the Press” on NBC, that people with anti-abortion views were welcome in her party, Mr. Day decided to stake out a place for himself in the “American political conversation.” Read more »
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• Branko Marcetic at Jacobin:
“Progressives will have to drop any starry-eyed admiration, and take a good, hard, honest look at who Tulsi Gabbard really is.”
Some on the left have pinned their electoral hopes on Tulsi Gabbard, the Democratic representative from Hawaii who was an early endorser of Senator Bernie Sanders during the 2016 primaries. However, Mr. Marcetic writes, progressives hoping to see Ms. Gabbard run for president in 2020 need to face some uncomfortable facts about her views on “radical Islam” and military intervention, which he calls “nationalism in antiwar garb.” Read more »
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• David Cole in The New York Review of Books:
“Together, Trump and Sessions pose a profound threat to our most basic freedoms. And because, unlike Trump, Sessions has been able to implement major changes to the agency charged with protecting the rights of all Americans, the attorney general may actually be the more dangerous of the two.”
Despite having had to recuse himself from the investigations into Russia’s election-meddling, Attorney General Jeff Sessions has been able to accomplish a lot — and inflict a lot of damage — during the early days of the Trump administration. This is, at least, according to Mr. Cole, who serves as the national legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union. Mr. Cole warns that, while Mr. Trump’s stymied executive orders and stalled legislative efforts may get more attention, the attorney general’s “radical remaking of the Justice Department” poses a greater threat to the country. Read more »
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• Amy Davidson in The New Yorker:
“Trump’s world view seems to combine a distaste for Islam with a predilection for monarchs of any background — for anyone with a decent palace, really.”
We should not be tempted, argues Ms. Davidson, to understand Mr. Trump’s praise for leaders in the Middle East as “a sign of budding tolerance.” In fact, Ms. Davidson writes, his visit to the NATO headquarters highlights yet another moment where the president refused to “affirm some of America’s basic principles.” Read more »
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• Eli Lake at Bloomberg:
“Normally if a U. S. official is suspected of treason, the government collects evidence before hinting to the public what it might be seeking evidence about.
