RealClearPolitics Articles

A lot of numbers came out today, as the government gears up after the shutdown. One of the biggest themes in the jobs report for October and November was the continued restructuring of the economy, where President Biden’s big-government socialism is coming to an end. And President Trump’s re-privatization continues ahead. So far this year, federal jobs have fallen by roughly 270,000, while private jobs have increased nearly 700,000. Also related to Trump policies, native-born jobs are up some 2.7 million. While foreign-born jobs are down by almost a million. It was a decent...

Whenever Republican officials sit for an extensive interview or series of interviews with a liberal media source, their supporters ask: Why did you have to do that? Why does Donald Trump need to speak to Michael Wolff or Bob Woodward? Now, it's Trump chief of staff Susie Wiles talking to author Chris Whipple for the lefties of Vanity Fair. But if Republicans made an energetic policy of not accepting any interview requests from liberal journalists, the press would paint it as authoritarian "North Korea," because liberals dominate the media. It's much easier for Democrats to accept zero...

Remember when MAGA Republicans said that anyone so hateful as to blame Charlie Kirk for his own murder should be out of a job? Firefighters, teachers, and active-duty military personnel were fired as a result.  If the principle behind that outrage still holds, does it also apply to Donald Trump, who immediately responded to the news that Rob and Michelle Reiner had been brutally murdered by blaming them? Many on the right did criticize him for posting that the Reiners were dead because of Trump Derangement Syndrome. But this is not a one-time departure from otherwise rational...

Reading and math scores are abysmal across the country, as national testing results keep documenting. Illiteracy rates are rising: The number of 16- to 24-year-olds reading at the lowest literacy levels increased from 16% in 2017 to 25% in 2023, according to data from the National Center for Education Statistics. In some inner-city schools, less than half of kids are reading or doing math at grade-level proficiency. Many high school grads can't read their diplomas. As an economist, I would submit that this is our greatest crisis. It puts the future of American prosperity in grave danger....

Family members and friends of Jimmy Lai, a businessman and a pro-democracy newspaper owner in Hong Kong, are holding out hope that he can still be released after his guilty verdict on national security and sedition charges, if President Trump and other world leaders put pressure on Xi Jinping to free him. On Monday, both Trump and British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper called for Lai’s release. “I feel so badly. I spoke to President Xi about it, and I asked to consider his release,” Trump said. “He’s not well. He’s an older man, and he’s not well....

What can Donald Trump do to stop morphing into Joe Biden? The two presidents could hardly be more different in most ways -- but in the one that counts most with voters, Trump is in danger of resembling his predecessor. Americans rejected Biden and the Democrats last year because they were incensed at the lousy state of the economy. Right now, they're not much happier with Trump's economy. Inflation was the No. 1 concern on voters' minds last year, and it's still a top concern today. Trump's team say they plan to tout "affordability" as a theme Republicans can win on in next November's...

I’ve argued for years that health care is not a right because providing free health care automatically encumbers someone else to pay for it or to provide it. Our legitimate rights are a gift from God, not a forced contribution from our neighbors. I still believe that as a matter of principle, but unfortunately from a political perspective that argument is already lost. Most Americans now think they are entitled to the best possible medical care and the longest life available, and Democrats have gained enormous power by promising exactly that – with taxpayer money, of course, most...

Americans overwhelmingly favor strong borders, legal immigration, and the deportation of illegal aliens. Yet, fewer than half support President Trump’s immigration policies or ICE. Trump’s challenge is to reclaim our borders and security, while also fostering economic growth and preserving American values. In addition to halting illegal immigration at the border, the president has curtailed legal entries by imposing restrictions on work, student, and immigration visas, particularly impacting China and 19 high risk countries. In September, he generally limited H-1B skilled-worker...

Mike Pence has split with President Donald Trump once again. Giving voice to anti-abortion advocates increasingly frustrated with the inaction of the current White House, the former vice president is calling on his old boss to fire Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Pence alleges that Kennedy broke his promise to lawmakers, and the social conservatives who make up a large part of the MAGA base, when the Food and Drug Administration failed to follow through with a safety review of the abortion drug mifepristone. “It’s time to kick this progressive wolf in...

The new right’s fomenting of contempt for all things liberal and the swelling antisemitism among its members are of a piece. To reverse the rising tide of antisemitism within its ranks, new-right factions will need to reform their tendency to treat liberalism in all its manifestations as a blight on humanity. New-right intellectuals – national conservatives, common-good conservatives, and postliberals – like to conceive of liberalism as one long nefarious scheme running from John Locke’s 17th-century classic, “Second Treatise of Government,” to...

  Catholics have been some of Trump’s most important voters. But right now, 55% of Catholics give Trump a D or F grade on handling inflation. Affordability is the central issue for most Americans, especially swing voters. Patriotic middle-class Catholic families feel the squeeze, so this new populist coalition is being tested. Back in 2016 Trump won the Catholic vote by 8 points, but in 2020 he split the Catholic vote nationally with Biden. Last November, Trump surged to a 12-point win among the faithful in 2024. That massive shift within the largest denomination in America drove...

Legally armed civilians, we’re told, pose a major danger. They shoot innocent bystanders, justifiably kill others whenever they personally believe “force is reasonably necessary,” and rely on racist self-defense laws. At least these concerns are the case in several recent news articles in the Wall Street Journal. On Monday, with the story on the front page of the Journal, reporter Mark Maremont continued his attacks on people legally carrying concealed handguns. His article presents four stories from 2021 to the present where citizens who used a gun in self-defense...

President Trump was onto something when he replaced Joe Biden’s White House portrait with a mocking picture of an autopen. Given our recent history of failed leadership, why stop there? To truly capture the impact of this century’s presidents, let’s replace George W. Bush’s photo with a picture of a small hole and a shovel. Instead of Barack Obama’s dazzling smile, how about a deeper hole with a longer shovel? And maybe an earth mover before a crater in Donald Trump’s first term. Maybe stick with Biden’s autopen as a tip of the cap to a great idea,...

Nothing bothers the European elite as much as American conservatives praising the European foundations of their shared, but threatened, Western civilization. Europeans especially resent having their social-welfare state system critiqued by upstart, crass Americans. Their pique only increases as they push back against the condescending American idea that the U.S. could possibly offer any constructive advice, much less help a more civilized Europe follow the "American model." Americans, in turn, are worried that Europe is not just stagnating but is on a trajectory of permanent decline -- with...

Historically, the sitting president’s political party loses congressional seats in a midterm election. That trend has held in 17 of 19 midterm elections since World War II. On average, the president’s party has lost 25-30 seats. The worst loss was in 2010 when the Democrats lost 63 seats. In Donald Trump’s first term, the Republicans lost 40 seats. The current polling strongly indicates that pattern will likely repeat itself in 2026. Trump’s approval rating has been steadily trending down since his reelection and turned sharply lower during the government shutdown....

KANSAS CITY, KANSAS—A vigil at dawn, on the empty square in front of City Hall earlier this week, was led by the “women who wait for justice,” a year after 71-year-old former detective Roger Golubski shot himself in the head rather than face them in court, on what would have been the first day of his first federal trial. Had he shown up, nine black women were going to testify that “while acting under color of law,” he raped, sexually assaulted, kidnapped, or otherwise preyed on them, in one case starting when she was only 13 years old.  Former Kansas City,...

People magazine and former Washington Post reporter Paul Farhi have made separate lists of insults President Donald Trump has recently lobbed at female reporters. It doesn't matter how the journalists behaved because apparently, women can't possibly be ill-mannered in press conferences. Or they think you can't possibly be as rude as Trump. The list of outrages started with "Quiet, piggy" to Bloomberg's Catherine Lucey. She was hogging the spotlight and asking more than one question. Trump could have said something without an animal insult, like, "You're done" or "Enough," but when reporters...

During oral arguments in Trump v. Slaughter, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor threatened America with a good time, warning that the administration is "asking us to destroy the structure of government." Great. It's about time an unaccountable fourth branch of the state was decimated. Trump v. Slaughter revolves around the president's ability to fire executive branch officials without cause at "independent" agencies. For one thing, nowhere does the Constitution empower Congress to create "independent" anything. The notion is a concoction of our worst former president, Woodrow Wilson, and...

WASHINGTON -- Two California Democrats could run for president in 2028: Gov. Gavin Newsom and former Vice President Kamala Harris. Republican operatives must be thinking: Bring it on. Under Newsom, California's image has become less golden than it used to be. The high cost of living has taken a toll. The IRS announced last month that California is the state experiencing the highest net loss of taxpayers, with one taxpayer leaving every 1 minute and 44 seconds. Nearly 39,000 Californians moved to Nevada last year. Hope that the Silver State newbies don't bring their progressive politics with...