When you put party over principles, you can't avoid tripping over your own hypocrisy and contradictions eventually. The GOP establishment refused to stand up to Trump during the primary because they wanted his voters in order to beat Hillary Clinton. Then he won the primary, and then the general, and the GOP both times decided it was better to cling to their grasp at power, to cling to Trump and all he stands for, a decision that should destroy the party or drag it down for a generation.

If we keep an optimistic view about the future, we definitely have to look for our place. Not to be redundant. And that means we have to emphasize what makes us unique.

Throughout my chess career I sought out new challenges, looking for things no one had done before.

Karabakh conflict has a strong influence on the political climate both in Azerbaijan and Armenia. It is obvious, too, that the Azerbaijani leadership can capitalize indefinitely on this topic to underpin its legitimacy even in a situation in which democratic institutions are virtually eliminated.

It's quite difficult for me to imagine my life without chess.

To my surprise I found that when other top players in the precomputer age (before 1995, roughly) wrote about games in magazines and newspaper columns, they often made more mistakes in their annotations than the players had made at the board.

Dictatorships can exist with free markets - not that China is really a free market - especially in poor countries where the regime insists that it's a choice between food and liberty, a false choice. But increasing affluence will inevitably result in political pressure.