Politics After Trump

Casey Burgat & Matt Glassman

What will be Donald Trump's lasting effects on American politics? Three conventional wisdoms have arisen in response to that question. In one view, Trump was an aberration, and his imprint will fade as President Biden reverses his executive actions and his sad attempts to remain relevant in retirement prove futile. A second view sees Trump as transformative, insisting his unconventional campaigning and governing styles decisively reconstructed the presidency and our broader political culture. A third view asserts Trump was mostly a symptom of larger forces in American and global politics. Can political science help us parse through and weigh these possibilities?

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daily findings by kevin lewis

February 25, 2021

Dealing with the Stimulus

February 24, 2021

Of Counsel

February 23, 2021

Bad Move

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February 07, 2021

Trump's Legacy with Casey Burgat and Matt Glassman

The National Affairs Podcast, Episode 22: A conversation about what might endure, and what might quickly fade, from Trump's presidency.

January 03, 2021

Building Bridges to Economic Opportunity with Glenn Hubbard

National Affairs Podcast, Episode 21: A conversation about economic populism and expanding opportunity.

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How to Think about Patriotism

Wilfred M. McClay

Patriotism in the American context has always involved both a devotion to an intricate latticework of ideals, sentiments, and overlapping loyalties, and also a commitment to our unique traditions, culture, history, people, and land. These two types of American patriotism are undeniably in tension, but the tension has been a healthy one throughout our history. Since its founding, our nation's universal ideals have meshed with, and derived strength from, Americans' local and particular sentiments.

the public interest

Summer 1972

Up and down with ecology—the "issue-attention cycle"

Anthony Downs

The Public Interest was a quarterly public policy journal founded by Irving Kristol and Daniel Bell in 1965. Throughout its four decades of publication, ending in 2005, it offered incomparable insight and wisdom on a vast range of challenges at the intersection of public affairs, culture, and political economy—helping America better understand and govern itself in a tumultuous time. National Affairs now hosts its archives, free of charge.

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Fall 2012

The Most Dangerous Branch

Joshua D. Hawley

Many conservatives felt betrayed by the Supreme Court's Obamacare decision, sensing they had lost an important political battle at the hands of a supposed ally. Justified or not, this sense of betrayal points to a much greater problem: the fact that the Court is viewed as capable of resolving political disputes at all. Today, the judiciary weighs in far too often on matters that should be left to the political branches of our government — a tendency toward overreach rooted in the Constitution itself.

Summer 2013

Religion and the American Republic

George F. Will

America has generally marked out a division of labor between the institutions of politics and those of civil society, including and especially those of religion. It is as the foremost of our civil-society institutions that religious organizations play a crucial role in sustaining our distinctive system of government — as shapers of citizens, and as limiting counterparts to the state. That is why citizens concerned for our tradition of limited, constitutional government should be friendly to the cause of American religion — even if they are not believers themselves.

Summer 2018

The First American Founder

James W. Ceaser

Americans revere the nation's founders, and it seems perfectly natural that we should. But we are never quite clear about exactly who counts as a founder, and exactly for what. Our country had more than one beginning, and has several uses for its several foundings. In fact, the idea of a national founding needed to be introduced into our political vocabulary and developed into the core of our self-understanding. The concept of the American founding itself had a founder.

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