I have not given up my faith in democracy - it remains the worst form of government except for all the others - but I have given up my youthful expectation that it would inevitably triumph.
— Max Boot
Everyone from Silesians to Sicilians to Scots seems to want autonomy or independence. The British voted to leave the European Union, and hostility to the superstate is rising across the continent.
Protests are the very essence of America! It is a country founded in protest.
Political paralysis and partisanship are sabotaging American power.
Having emigrated to the United States as a small boy from the Soviet Union, I am instinctively suspicious of socialism and inveterately opposed to communism.
You can debate when the conservative movement became a racket - I nominate 1996, the year Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes created Fox News Channel to monetize right-wing outrage - but there is no doubt it has long since passed that point.
Well, a general danger of punditry is that there's very little incentive to change your position or admit error. If you reverse your position, the people who backed you before will be unhappy, but a lot of the people who now agree with you will still pillory you.
The 60th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, has not so far provoked the kind of anguished debate that accompanied the 50th anniversary. The lack of controversy is fitting because there wasn't much soul-searching at the time.
The ur-conservatives of the 1950s - William F. Buckley Jr., Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan and all the rest - were revolting not against a liberal administration but against the moderate conservatism of Dwight D. Eisenhower.
There is no evidence that Republican leaders have been demonstrably dumber than their Democratic counterparts.
No President can achieve everything or please everyone.
Often the process of writing can feel like spitting into the ocean.
Once upon a time - in the days of Margaret Thatcher and John Major - I would have rejoiced in a Conservative Party landslide in Britain. But now, Prime Minister Boris Johnson's victory fills me with fear and foreboding.
Hillary Clinton is a centrist Democrat who is more hawkish than President Obama and far more principled and knowledgeable about foreign affairs than Trump, who is too unstable and erratic to be entrusted with the nuclear triad he has never heard of.
I have been a Republican as long as I can remember.
I saw America as a land of opportunity, not a bastion of racism or sexism.
For years, as a seller of real estate and star of reality TV, Donald Trump made a living wooing customers and viewers. His selling skills were good enough that he even convinced voters to elect him as president in spite of his near-total lack of qualifications.
Thirty years on, I am no longer as certain about anything as I was at age 20. I now regret my support for the war in Iraq and kick myself for the naive expectation that freedom was destined to prevail.
It is, in fact, precisely to defend the right to free speech that countless patriots have given the last full measure of devotion.
The crisis of the old order in Europe produced nearly 80 years of often bloody conflict between democracy and its foes from 1914 to 1991.
Air superiority, which the United States has taken for granted since World War II, is no longer assured. And, without control of the skies, U.S. ships and soldiers would be vulnerable in ways that are difficult to imagine.
Diplomatic eminences often natter on about preventive action, making the obvious point that it's better to cure festering ills before they metastasize into something much worse.
There is a small group of 'Never Trump' conservatives. But it is a small group, and I've actually been surprised that there are not more of us. There's enough of us for a dinner party, not a political party. I wish there were more.
And I think the only way you're going to improve US foreign policy and set a sound course for the future is if you're willing to look back at what went wrong before.
The history of the modern Republican Party is the story of moderates being driven out and conservatives taking over - and then of those conservatives in turn being ousted by those even further to the right.
Upon closer examination, it's obvious that the history of modern conservative is permeated with racism, extremism, conspiracy-mongering, isolationism and know-nothingism.
The John F. Kennedy presidency, with its glittering court of Camelot, cemented the impression that it was the Democrats who represented the thinking men and women of America.
Every four years since 1988, I have voted for the Republican presidential candidate.
I find contentment in the craft of writing and fulfillment in self-expression.
The genteel conservatism of 'Downton Abbey' is not a rigid, extremist ideology whose adherents are bent on power at all costs.
My allegiance to the GOP was cemented during the 1980s, when I was in high school and college and Ronald Reagan was in the White House. For me, Reagan was what John F. Kennedy had been to an earlier generation: an inspirational figure who shaped my worldview.
I still have admiration for the vast majority of police officers, but there is no denying that some are guilty of mistreating the people they are supposed to serve.
As a Jewish refugee from the Soviet Union, I felt it was ridiculous to expect me to atone for the sins of slavery and segregation, to say nothing of the household drudgery and workplace discrimination suffered by women.
The United States has been locked in an escalating confrontation with Iran ever since President Trump decided to pull out of the nuclear deal in 2018 and to impose unilateral sanctions in 2019.
Some people, such as the unemployed coal miners and steelworkers of the Rust Belt, have been left behind by growing prosperity.
Protests, such as those in favor of labor rights, women's suffrage, civil rights and gay rights, helped to make America as great as it is.
History suggests that economic upheavals such as the Industrial and Information Revolutions eventually play themselves out and leave the entire world better off.
France has had socialist presidents on and off since the 1920s, and it remains a free country. Socialists have ruled in many South American countries without ushering in disaster.
Mexico attacked United States troops in 1846 because they had moved into disputed border territory; President James Polk used this as a convenient casus belli, but he was preparing a war message for Congress even before the attack.
Before Donald Trump, the Republican Party was a majority conservative party with a white nationalist fringe. Now it's a white nationalist party with a conservative fringe.
I remain troubled by the deliberate killing of civilians, whether by the United States or by its enemies.
In 1964, the GOP ceased to be the party of Lincoln and became the party of Southern whites.
Catering to populist anger with extremist proposals that are certain to fail is not a viable strategy for political success.
Stupidity is not an accusation that could be hurled against such prominent early Republicans as Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Elihu Root and Charles Evans Hughes.
I don't know if I can ever change the world, but at least I can change the oil in my car.
I love what I do and realize I am supremely lucky to be able to make my living by writing and speaking about the news of the day.
As someone who has spent much of my life identifying as a conservative, I can't stand what American conservatism has become.
Joining the Grand Old Party seemed like a natural choice for someone like me who fled the Soviet Union as a boy and came to Los Angeles with his mother and grandmother in 1976.
Whether I realize it or not, I have benefitted from my skin color and my gender - and those of a different gender or sexuality or skin color have suffered because of it.
Republicans used to bash President Barack Obama for alienating American allies, but Trump is turning off our partners like no one ever has.
