Donald Trump has been pretending to run for president since 1988, but it took 21 years for him to act racist enough for conservatives to take him seriously. In 2011, it was his birtherism. In 2015, it’s him calling immigrants “rapists.” Rather unsurprisingly, serious people want to pretend his appeal is built on anything other than race. “A new Bloomberg […]

The biggest sign of Obamacare’s success is Republicans rarely bother to complain about it anymore. There’s the usual minor freakout about premium increases that upon a bit of investigation proves to be at least no worse than what we saw before Obamacare — and probably better if you shop around. And news that California, which has excelled in implementing the […]

It took corporate America about four years to get the subtext of Donald Trump’s birtherism. But when he decided to use his announcement that he was running for president to reveal his belief that immigrants are criminals and rapists, Madison Avenue was forced to recognize that they probably shouldn’t be tolerating a guy whose comments would get him kicked out […]

The Republican Party’s approval rating is now lower in the Pew poll than at any time since 1992. It’s lower now than it was during the government shutdowns in 2013 and the mid 1990s — lower than the absolute nadir of George W. Bush’s presidency when we were actively losing two wars as the global economy teetered on the edge […]

What is going on here and why does it matter? “Nope, zero.” That was President Obama’s response when Speaker Boehner asked him how much he was willing to cut from Planned Parenthood in 2011. Defunding the organization that has provided health care for 1 in 5 women in America has become a conservative obsession since the rise of the “non-partisan, […]

America is going through a strange sort of puberty. Since the late 1960s, the Republican Party has built a majority based on exploiting the Democratic Party’s “negro problem,” as it was described in the 1969 book The Emerging Republican Majority. In the late 70s found an activist army big and bold enough to counter organized labor by embracing evangelical furor, […]

Donald Trump’s Saturday afternoon anti-immigrant bro-down with fellow birther Sheriff Joe reminded me a lot of another Fox News-fed phenomenon that died off when it no longer became electorally convenient for the GOP: GOP elites bash Trump supporters now. But they sure loved these “nonpartisan political neophytes” when they were called the Tea Party. — LOLGOP (@LOLGOP) July 12, 2015 […]

We’re honored that our annual EclectaFundraiser won’t just be an opportunity to gather and sip EclectaGrog in support of Michigan’s best blog. We’ll also have a chance to bestow a living legend with a title that would have baffled the Founders: John Dingell will be named Dean of Twitter. Dingell will join us at the Arbor Brewing Company Microbrewery in Ypsilanti […]

Somebody has to pay off all those debts George W. left us A gaffe only matters if it reinforces a narrative. And that narrative only matters if it induces one reaction: “How dare you?” Jeb Bush said this on Wednesday: My aspirations for the country, and I believe we can achieve it, is for 4 percent growth as far as the […]

See that red line? That’s Donald Trump. His argle-babble about immigrants (who commit crimes at a lower rate than any ethnic group) has led to him being dumped by Univision, NBC, Macy’s and now Serta. Trump’s reputation is now so bad that businesses want nothing to do with him and Republicans do. It’s important to not read too much into […]

Millions of Americans are about to get a raise and billionaire Nick Hanauer is thrilled. If you thought last week was a great one for progressives and America then you will be giddy over #overtime. — Nick Hanauer (@NickHanauer) June 28, 2015 Through his TED talks, articles and artful trolling, Hanauer has become famous as a double agent for the […]