Free Republic

As Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee said, “We couldn’t get in the front door or the back door, so we’ll try to go in through the window.” He claimed that, “The American people elected Democrats to get things done, and they aren’t going to accept ‘process’ as an excuse for failing to [enact a $15 minimum wage].”​ The “process” that Sen. Wyden brushes aside as an “excuse” refers to a U.S. law that governs what can be included in budget reconciliation bills that bypass the Senate Filibuster and thus allow for a simple fifty-one-vote...

A new survey from Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy revealed that DeSantis garnered an approval rating of 53 percent among Florida voters and a disapproval rating of 42 percent. An approval rating above 50 percent offers a strong foundation for a candidate heading into reelection, as DeSantis is on track to ramp up his candidacy for the 2022 elections in a bold position. The same poll released in July found his approval ratings in a rougher spot, with 45 percent approving and 49 percent disapproving. When compared to hypothetical competition for an upcoming election, DeSantis carries noteworthy margins over two potential...

RINO, the pejorative acronym for Republican In Name Only, wasn’t widely used if at all in 1868. But if it were, it would have doubtlessly been applied to the seven senators that voted to acquit Johnson. It’s a rather remarkable loop in history that the first Senate trial of an impeached president would have the same number of Republican defectors as the most recent. Every presidential impeachment has happened amid a political culture war—and the post-Civil War Johnson impeachment was over how to carry out Reconstruction. The cultural divide in the Trump era is vast—but not comparable to the postwar...

While Trump has clearly cemented a dominant position in the GOP, he hasn’t explicitly said whether he plans to take a crack at running for a non-consecutive term. Experts, however, say that waiting to announce a 2024 bid could be the best thing for his candidacy. “He has a lot to gain by waiting. He keeps his potential opponents off guard,” Ken Kollman, a political science professor at the University of Michigan, said. “Cruz, for instance, would not be able to go full force to run for president until he knows what Trump will do. Same with Hawley, Graham, Noem...

Experts suggested a spate of approaches that Trump may take in a hypothetical 2024 White House race if he and Biden were to face a rematch and even if the economy was restored. “If the economy is booming, he can always find other wedge issues to run on. He can rally voters by continuing to claim Democrats stole the election, he can point to various cultural excesses on the left, and he can say there might be Supreme Court justices who will retire and they need to be replaced with conservatives. And the Biden administration and congressional Democrats will no...