“Am coming around to your point of view.”
— Winston Churchill to John Maynard Keynes

“Sorry to hear it. Have started to change my mind.”
— Keynes to Churchill

Political commentary

Most political columnists tend to be highly predictable, serving their readers a helping of opinion they already share and showing them how to apply that opinion to the latest news of the day.

I have never been very interested in providing that service. I try to treat every piece of commentary I write as an act of discovery.

I often describe myself as temperamentally conservative but pragmatically liberal. I’ve also described myself as a mugwump. I’ve changed my views on many topics, sometimes multiple times. What has stayed constant is the commitment to understanding over advocacy.

Karl Marx’s tomb is engraves with the words of the eleventh thesis on Feuerbach from The German Ideology: “Philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point, however, is to change it.” I wish the phrase could be buried with him, because without proper understanding, positive change is impossible.

From 2015 through 2022, I was a political columnist for The Week. A complete archive of my work there can be found here. My work on politics, policy and current events has also appeared on the opinion pages of The New York Times, USA Today and the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, as well as in Heatmap, Persuasion, Politico, The New Republic, Foreign Policy, The American Conservative and of course at Gideon’s Substack.

highlights in political commentary

  • Welcome to America’s Fourth Great Constitutional Rupture

    The New York Times
    February 10, 2025
    The new administration may transform our constitutional order fruitfully yet again, or it may accelerate a final degeneration into Caesarism. Read

  • Trump-Vance Is Making Something Very Clear About Trumpism

    The New York Times
    September 5, 2024
    Some of the most institutionally destabilizing aspects of Trump-style populism may be inseparable from its core appeal. Read.

  • Only Voters Can Truly Disqualify Trump

    The New York Times
    January 21, 2024
    Who is sovereign, the people or the courts? Read.

  • Why Great Power Rivalry Might Just Save the Planet

    Heatmap
    March 8, 2023
    Let’s not work together to solve climate change. Read.

  • Why China Didn’t Liberalize

    Persuasion
    October 7, 2022
    Engagement with the U.S. was supposed to make China more free and democratic. What went wrong? Read.

  • Republicans May Have Set Themselves Up for a Showdown With the Supreme Court

    The New York Times
    July 6, 2022
    Two conservative critiques of the administrative state are in contradiction with each other. Read.

  • Are we on the brink of a new era of nuclear proliferation?

    The Week
    February 11, 2022
    Why a growing list of countries might conclude they need the bomb. Read.

  • Imagine It’s 2024, and Republicans Are Declaring Trump President

    The New York Times
    January 4, 2022
    Too many Americans are willing to believe in election lies, and their leaders are eager to cater to that mistaken conviction. Read.

  • America Needs to Break Up Its Biggest States

    The New York Times
    July 7, 2021
    How would you like to live in the state of New York City? Read.

  • The Scandal of the Declaration

    The Week
    July 3, 2020
    How do we celebrate lofty words when their author did not live by them? Read.

  • How Victory in the Cold War Led to Tragedy in the Years After

    The New York Times Book Review
    Jan. 7, 2020
    Andrew J. Bacevich’s “The Age of Illusions” details America’s failures in the years following 1989. Read

  • Seeing Lee Through the Eyes of Slaves and Planters

    The American Conservative
    September 5, 2017
    Lincoln's second inaugural address was carefully worded for times like these. Read

  • What If the Chinese Are Just Biding Their Time?

    The American Conservative
    July/August 2017
    Avoiding the 'Thucydides Trap,' but not the way Graham Allison envisions. Read

  • Would a Brexit Really Be So Crazy?

    The New Republic
    June 22, 2016
    It might be just the wake-up call the European Union needs. Read.

  • The African Century

    Politico
    May 5, 2015
    Africa is the largest place on Earth it’s possible to ignore. It won’t be forever. Read.

  • What Does Human Evolution Explain?

    The American Conservative
    September/October 2014
    Nicholas Wade's sweeping race-based analyses fail to convince, but the science itself holds great promise. Read