As the Democratic field narrows and the political commentariat speculate which candidate is best placed to defeat Donald Trump in 2020, America’s national conversation continues to ignore an elephant in the room – the profound threat to democracy posed by this irascible, irrational President. Biden, Sanders and Warren are auditioning for a role they may never be allowed to play. Historically, incumbency offers a first term President significant advantage when it comes to retaining power. Every President since FDR has […]

The internet adage ‘Godwin’s Law’ suggests that the longer an online debate goes, the more likely it is that someone is going to make a reference to Adolf Hitler, and at that point the discussion becomes redundant. Nazi comparisons are often lazy and reductive, but the recent media frenzy about whether internment facilities housing immigrant children on America’s southern border can be labelled ‘concentration camps’ has brushed up against Mike Godwin’s law. It’s becoming chillingly more difficult to avoid some […]

Until this week, it was possible to claim that perhaps this President was just an unhinged egotist, a bumbling criminal who stumbled into the top job but would be unable to enact a broad political agenda because of the cumbersome weight of his own stupidity and incompetence. That view is no longer tenable. Attorney General Bill Barr’s May 1st performance in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee confirmed that a complete takeover of government by Trump is in fact well […]

Well, it’s a setback. But what did you expect? Bill Barr sent an unsolicited 19-page memo to the Justice Department in June last year, arguing that Robert Mueller’s investigation was ‘fatally misconceived’, based on his belief that a sitting President cannot, by law, obstruct justice. It was widely viewed as a job application, and in due course Barr was indeed appointed Attorney General of the United States by the man who is the principal focus of Mueller’s report. That the […]