Charlie Sykes

For decades, conservatives have struggled with containing crackpottery, most notably William F. Buckley's famous excommunication of the John Birch Society in the 1960s. ”

On his first full day in office, Mr. Trump insisted that his inaugural crowd was the largest ever, a baseless boast that will likely set a pattern for his relationship both to the media and to the truth. ”

Ronald Reagan believed in America as the shining city on the hill - Morning in America. But Donald Trump has a much different vision of American greatness, of nationalism - a much darker view, I think, of the world. ”

We would naturally prefer not to reckon with the worst of what people do or say on the margins, but we have to. Especially if it seems possible to trace a line from vicious rhetoric on a computer screen to violent action. ”

The N.R.A.'s blessing of restrictions on bump stocks - devices that make semiautomatic weapons fire faster - is designed to pre-empt anything more serious by giving the illusion of action. It substitutes accessory control for actual gun control. ”

It turns out that many of the Trump voters who had said they wanted to burn it all down meant it, and they are taking to the task with great relish. ”

Reagan wrote out many of his radio commentaries and newspaper articles as well as many of his own speeches. He wrote poetry, short stories, and letters. Trump, in his own hand, writes 140-character tweets. ”

For the anti-anti-Trump pundit, whatever the allegation against Mr. Trump, whatever his blunders or foibles, the other side is always worse. ”

We desperately need to have a public that actually cares whether things are true of not. ”

As our politics have become more polarized, the essential loyalties shift from ideas to parties to tribes to individuals. Nothing else ultimately matters. ”