For Jonathan Bernstein's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:
Americans favor abortion rights, but most aren’t intense pro-life or pro-choice partisans. A definitive Supreme Court ruling might alter the current landscape.
The argument that Trump has the nomination locked up is pretty straightforward. Still, we don’t know for sure that he’ll be running in 2024 but he is certainly running for 2024 right now.
A legal opinion affirming the “illegality” of a plan to overturn the 2020 election won’t end partisan polarization, but there’s value in stating what’s obviously true.
Biden’s first formal State of the Union checked off all the required boxes. It was fine, most of it wasn’t memorable and It will neither help him nor hurt him politically.
Be wary of anyone who is certain about how all of this will turn out. No one knows today whether the Ukraine invasion will be a great success or total disaster for Putin.
No matter the evidence and no matter how damning the information may be, it’s unlikely that the American people will rise up and seek to banish Trump and his followers from public life.
While the success or failure of Build Back Better has important consequences for the nation, it will likely have limited direct effects on midterm or presidential elections.
The U.S. president's biggest policy promise during the 2020 campaign was perhaps his vow to attack COVID-19 in a professional and competent way.
People are far more interested in the candidates than they are in policy and they’re most interested in the candidates who are already well known, whether or not they’re serious contenders.
One thing that Trump made clear was that nothing in the constitutional system makes presidents respect the U.S. political system and respond to that system’s incentives.
