Trump has more understanding and insight than his opponents realize. For a man such as Trump to risk acquiring so many powerful enemies and to risk his wealth and reputation, he had to have known that the people's dissatisfaction with the ruling establishment meant he could be elected president.

The neoconservative doctrine declares that it is the principal goal of U.S. foreign policy to prevent the rise of any country that would have sufficient power to serve as a check on American unilateralism. This neoconservative doctrine puts Russia and China in Washington's crosshairs.

The concentration of U.S. income and wealth in the hands of the very rich is a new development in my lifetime.

Offshoring manufacturing jobs left Americans with fewer high-value-added, well-paid jobs, and the U.S. middle class downsized. Ladders of upward mobility were taken down. Income and wealth distributions worsened.

Where there is little or no public opinion, there is likely to be bad government, which sooner or later becomes autocratic government.

Leadership is important in politics.

If the economy is strained, then Social Security, like the rest of the government, will be, too.

I was a brand new senator in 2013. And the idiocy of Congress was to shut the government down for two weeks in October. And coming out of that, the pressure was put on the budget chair, Paul Ryan's shoulders and Patty Murray. Conservative Wisconsin Republican, progressive Washington Democrat, come up with a budget deal.