Matt Bai
National Political Columnist
Yahoo News OpinionWhy Mueller's report won't matter much in 2020
Democrats already know how they feel about Trump. What they want is a nominee who won’t become inexorably swallowed up in Trump’s all-consuming vortex of personal insults and cultural smears.
- Yahoo News Opinion
Stephen Miller stokes Trump's nationalist vision
Of Trump’s advisers, only Stephen Miller has consistently proffered a grander notion of what this presidency might be made to mean — the retrenchment of white culture into nativism and national identity.
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John Hickenlooper wants to be the last Democrat standing. He'll need a plan.
Former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper puts himself forth as a politician who bridges what are supposed to be unbridgeable divides.
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Does the media owe Trump an apology?
Even the country’s best newspapers and websites present almost everything the administration does in dramatic tones beyond all proportion, as if the mere act of Trump trying to govern constituted an existential threat.
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Democrats are going big. They're certainly not bold.
The current crop of Democratic candidates seem to think the hallmark of boldness is a willingness to tell reliable primary voters exactly what they’re desperate to hear, in the most dramatic terms possible.
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Being Beto, on a trip to the mall
Inside the mind of Beto O’Rourke as he ponders the 2020 presidential race and the right pair of jeans.
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If you're interested in governing, maybe choose a governor
Governors just don’t get the kind of respect they once did in presidential politics. And that’s something Democratic voters should probably reconsider.
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Trump's in trouble, but he's not going anywhere
Unless both houses of Congress are willing to impeach and convict him, don’t bet on President Trump serving anything less than a full term.
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Pete Buttigieg is running for president. Also, he's gay.
Pete Buttigieg would rather talk about his record as the two-term mayor of South Bend, Ind., than about his identity as the first openly gay man to seek the Democratic nomination.
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Trump's rhetoric hits his wall
Our developer president could have focused his energy on building airports, high-speed rail lines and high-tech schools. But he can only think of one place to sink a shovel, and that’s turning out to be the sinkhole of his administration.
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Run, Howard, run
Howard Schultz is one of very few people on the planet who had the vision to transform the way we live. He saw where the culture was headed and figured out a way to get ahead of it. No one in politics is doing that.
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Kasich's choice: Fight for the party, or leave it behind?
The question facing former Ohio Gov. John Kasich, if he decides to run against Trump, is this: Do you try to take out the incumbent president in the primaries, or do you make an independent bid instead?
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Trump, like Gorbachev, has lost faith in what his country stands for
President Trump doesn’t think our defense of democratic values really works for America anymore, and in this he has more in common with Vladimir Putin than he does with his own Cabinet or his military.
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Trump and the shameless society: Which came first?
In Trump’s America, taking personal responsibility for anything you say or do is suddenly out of vogue, no matter which side you’re on or how petty the issue.
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Yes, Elizabeth Warren is a politician. That's not a bad thing for her.
Back in 2015, I sat down with President Obama, during a visit to Nike’s Oregon campus, to talk about the huge Asian trade pact he was trying to sell. It was what Obama said that day about Elizabeth Warren, who had become a vocal critic of the trade deal, that landed like a grenade. What crude and awful
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The 2040 plan for unexciting Democrats
The contrast to focus on in 2020 isn’t just right versus left. It’s short term versus long term. It’s quarterly returns versus a half century of peril.
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Yes, he really said that. What Trump gets about his presidency that critics don't.
When Trump flouts the conventions of the office, he’s winning with his core voters. It doesn’t matter what he’s saying — what matters is that he’s making the rest of us howl in indignation.
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It's OK to celebrate a president's life. What will we make of Trump's?
It was hard to watch George H.W. Bush’s funeral proceedings this week and not wonder how Donald Trump’s last farewell will someday compare.
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House Democrats agree: It's time for the same generation
A few of the Democratic Party’s young stars in the House took on Nancy Pelosi this week and proved mainly that none of them have anything like the political acumen to replace her.
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Portraying journalists onscreen in the age of Trump
In a movie where virtually all the characters live in a gray zone of morality, should the journalists be exempt? Do we have to choose between defending ourselves from a demagogue and reckoning with our role in having created him?
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Democrats got a sort-of wave. And now they have a choice.
By any historical measure, the Democrats had a pretty great night Tuesday, and the president’s party did not.
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You can oppose Trump's nationalism. But don't sneer at it.
Donald Trump calls himself a “nationalist.” You needn’t be a racist to believe that national identity and borders matter.
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Donald Trump is destroying the American brand
Trump makes no pretense of balancing moral imperatives, or even military objectives, against the economic agenda that is his only real priority.
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What matters about Kavanaugh, and what doesn't
The Supreme Court hearings are starting to feel less like the #MeToo movement and more like ruinous politics, Matt Bai says.
- Yahoo News
Republicans can do better than Kavanaugh
The fact is that at this elite level of the American judiciary, everybody's smart. But not everybody's good, Matt Bai writes.
