Free Republic

It’s time to go back to where we began: not only that Donald Trump will lose the Republican presidential nomination, but also that he could be so weakened by the end of the primaries that his party will not even have to worry about choosing someone else. I feel your skepticism. Hasn’t Trump so far defied all predictions of his demise? Absolutely. Hasn’t every claim that “now he’s gone too far” been wrong? Of course.

This time it really is the end of Trump. Really. That was the title of the E.J. Dionne's column in the April 3 Washington Post. It was so spectacularly wrong in its prognostications that it really does deserve an award. Really. If only Dionne's column had been published two days earlier he could at least save some face by claiming it was just an April Fools joke. Unfortunately for Dionne, he doesn't have that out and will forever be known for perhaps the most hilariously wrong political predictions now and forever unto the end of time. It wouldn't be so bad for...

Our convoluted primary system evolved to allow voters a more direct voice in choosing a candidate who can win a general election. Voters don’t always choose wisely -- after all, one party always loses. It’s a shame then -- in what should be a Republican year -- that GOP primary voters appear to want to lose the presidency once again.If the candidate at the top of the ticket is roundly defeated, the toll could also take down many Republicans running for the House and the Senate.The latest polls show that only one Republican candidate has a sure chance of...

Not so fast, everybody. To paraphrase Winston Churchill, Wisconsin will not be the end of Donald Trump. It will not even be the beginning of the end. But it might be the end of the beginning. To be sure, Trump had a terrible, horrible, atrocious week. But imagine the worst-case scenario for him: He wins none of Wisconsin’s 42 convention delegates in Tuesday’s primary, while his nearest rival, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), wins them all. Even with that improbable result, Trump would have a huge lead over Cruz in the delegate race, 736 to 505. A Wisconsin shutout would make...

David Brooks, the fake conservative half of public broadcasting on Friday – the one day they pretend to let conservatives on the taxpayer-funded airwaves – forecast on Friday's All Things Considered on NPR that Donald Trump has done one positive thing – destroyed the “dying husk” of obsolete Reaganism in the Republican Party. Naturally, his liberal radio counterpart E.J. Dionne agreed, hoping for a more liberal, domesticated GOP.

Donald Trump’s criticisms of Megyn Kelly have been weak, sexist, thin-skinned. His decision to back out of Thursday night’s debate is childish and reflects a fear of having to debate his competitors on issues facing the country. All that said, this dispute is turning into a spectacle with two losers. Fox News unwisely sent out a statement yesterday designed to mock the Republican front-runner for his decision to launch a Twitter poll on whether he should participate in the debate. Here’s what that statement said: We learned from a secret back channel that the Ayatollah and Putin both intend to...

"Doesn't it sound logical? Doesn't it sound safe?" Based on his latest column, it seems like Washington Post editor Fred Hiatt could get behind a rewrite of John Lennon's Imagine and release an updated version to reflect today's call for gun control. [Imagine] Prohibition… [Imagine] Mass buyback… [Imagine] A gun-free society... He liked that last line so much, he asked his readers to repeat it with him: "Let's say that once again: A gun-free society." Bliss, he thinks. Those words -- prohibition, mass buyback, gun-free society -- are what Hiatt says the NRA has rendered "unmentionable." And so he believes...

WASHINGTON — Republicans won't win the presidency in 2016 without making inroads in the Midwest. Happily for the GOP, two Midwestern governors are running for their party's nomination. Both won re-election in 2014. The one from the state with more electoral votes won with 64 percent of the vote with wide appeal to Democrats and independents. The one from the smaller state got just 52 percent of the vote after a divisive campaign. The former fought to have his state accept the Affordable Care Act's Medicaid expansion. He made his case on moral grounds, arguing that at heaven's door, St....

"........[Kasich] fought to have his state accept the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion. He made his case on moral grounds, arguing that at heaven’s door,St. Peter is “probably not going to ask you much about what you did about keeping government small. But he is going to ask you what you did for the poor.”[Walker] adamantly opposed expanding Medicaid under the health care law,and his speeches are compendiums of every right-wing bromide that party activists demand.“We need a president who—on the first day in office—will call on Congress to pass a full repeal of Obamacare,”...declared when he announced his candidacy....

(VIDEO-AT-LINK) New York Times columnist David Brooks and Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne join Judy Woodruff to discuss the week’s news, including whether presidential candidate Donald Trump is hurting the Republican party, the historic removal of the Confederate flag from South Carolina’s state house and whether Sen. Bernie Sanders’ momentum poses a viable challenge to Hillary Clinton.(AUDIO-AT-LINK) TRANSCRIPT JUDY WOODRUFF: And to the analysis of Brooks and Dionne. That’s New York Times columnist David Brooks and Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne. Mark Shields is away. Welcome to you both. E.J. DIONNE: Good to be with you. JUDY WOODRUFF: So, let’s...

There is a rule in American politics: Hope and optimism nearly always defeat fear and pessimism. The Republican Party faces a long-term challenge in presidential elections because it is defining itself as a gloomy enclave, a collection of pessimists who fear what our country is becoming and where it is going. The party’s hope deficit helps explain why there’s a boomlet for Jeb Bush, a man who dares to use the word “love” in a paragraph about illegal immigrants. The flurry doesn’t mean that the former Florida governor is even running for president, let alone that he can win. But...

GHNS -- A not-so-small miracle is unfolding before our eyes. After nearly two decades in which established opinion insisted that it would never again be possible to pass sensible regulations of firearms, the unthinkable is on the verge of happening. This week, Sen. Patrick Leahy, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, is expected to announce plans to start marking up gun bills to send to the Senate floor, proposals that will include ideas put before the country by President Obama and Vice President Biden. The president’s agenda, in turn, was inspired by advocates and legislators, mayors and police chiefs,...

In an astonishing display of hypocrisy, NBC News repeatedly decried Mitt Romney using celebrity businessman Donald Trump to fundraise for his campaign. This is the same Donald Trump who hosts NBC reality shows The Apprentice and The Celebrity Apprentice and who routinely appears on the Today show to promote those programs, including just last week. On Tuesday's Today, correspondent Peter Alexander declared that Trump "causes heartburn for some in the Republican Party because of his insistence on renewing questions about where the President was born." He later wrapped up his report by parroting Obama campaign talking points: "The Obama campaign...

Can a nation remain a superpower if its internal politics are incorrigibly stupid? Start with taxes. In every other serious democracy, conservative political parties feel at least some obligation to match their tax policies with their spending plans. David Cameron, the new Conservative prime minister in Britain, is a leading example. He recently offered a rather brutal budget that includes severe cutbacks. I have doubts about some of them, but at least Cameron cared enough about reducing his country's deficit that alongside the cuts he also proposed an increase in the value-added tax, from 17.5 percent to 20 percent. Imagine:...

In a column entitled "Which Party Loves the U.S.A.?," the Washington Post's E.J. Dionne, Jr. presents an interesting formulation. Democrats love their country more than Republicans, because Democrats love it the way it is right now (with burgeoning non-white immigration, altering the demography), while Republicans (above all, Mr. Trump and Senator Cruz) "yearn for the United States of Then." It appears that Mr. Dionne has in mind more than a mere change in color among our people when he observes, "Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, and Martin O'Malley all stand for the rights of a younger America today's country that is...

WASHINGTON—Whenever I write sympathetically about religion, I get bombarded by tweets and notes from readers who normally agree with me but cannot abide the idea that religious belief should be seen as intellectually serious. And because I have written favorably about Pope Francis, I get more than my share of angry comments about the Catholic pedophilia scandal, which continues to haunt the church and troubles even its most loyal members. Getting lambasted doesn’t bother me. On the contrary, citizens talking back to the purveyors of opinion is a glorious aspect of free speech. But my correspondents underscore the existence of...

Just say no. The Senate's Democratic majority -- joined by all Republicans who purport to be moderate -- must tell President Bush that this will be their answer to any controversial nominee to the Supreme Court or the appellate courts. The Senate should refuse even to hold hearings on Bush's next Supreme Court choice, should a vacancy occur, unless the president reaches agreement with the Senate majority on a mutually acceptable list of nominees. And no Bush nominee to a lower court deserves any deference now that we learn that U.S. Appeals Court Judge Brett Kavanaugh may have misled the...

...The autopsy in the Terri Schiavo case provides a rare moment of political accountability. We should not "move on," as Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist suggested. No, we cannot move on until those politicians who felt entitled to make up facts and toss around unwarranted conclusions about Schiavo's condition take responsibility for what they said -- and apologize... So the big-government conservatives had to invent a story. They had to insist that they knew, just knew , more about Terri Schiavo's condition than the doctors on the scene. They had to question Michael Schiavo's motives and imply that he wanted...

Liberals have so little respect for conservatives these days that people on the left are genuinely astonished when people on the right have principled disagreements with each other. The left assumes the right marches in lock step under orders from the White House. Conservatives have so little respect for liberals that they see every liberal action as inspired by hatred of President Bush, opposition to religion and contempt for people in "the heartland." The paradoxical result of this mutual contempt is that each side is simultaneously underestimated and overestimated. As a result, current political arrangements are seen as permanent and...

To understand how polarized politics became in 2004, just glance at a columnist's e-mail -- mine, for example. At the end of this bitter year, I'm under the happy obligation of saying thanks to all readers, and particularly to the thousands of you who shared your views. I do read my e-mail, even if it takes awhile. Over the past few days, I printed out and went through about 1,000 pages of your comments, which were, among other things, smart, passionate, discerning, angry, puckish and occasionally obscene. Readers on my side of the political fence offered warm support, column ideas...