Why should we not expect self-designated environmental leaders to practice what they preach?

Donald Trump is the least unpopular thing about today's Republican Party. I mean, the idea that a Mitch McConnell or a Paul Ryan could say, "Let's toss Trump overboard and return to our program of plutocratic politics, health care removal, massive income tax cuts for the affluent, deregulation of finance" - if they cut loose from Donald Trump, it's like, you know, storm in channel, continent cut off. If they cut loose from him, they are much likelier to sink.

There is no right to work in a think tank, and these are very privileged positions.

As thrilling as it was, speechwriting is ultimately frustrating for someone who wants to be a writer.

Democracy requires you to learn how to lose as well as how to exercise power when you win. And that requires restraint all around. One of the reasons it works is because when you win you don't do things that are so upsetting to the losers that they feel like they have less, they have more to gain by turning over the system.

Donald Trump, as a businessman, he's not much of a builder and he's not much of dealmaker and he certainly isn't very good at making expenses line up with income. But he is a marketing genius. He must have seen an empty market niche that no one but him filled.

Partly because of the desperate economic situation in the country, what were once the leading institutions of conservatism are constrained.