Author: David Harsanyi

Republicans need to ask themselves a couple of questions before they battle over Barack Obama’s eventual nominee to replace Justice Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court. Is there any good reason to allow this president to change the ideological composition the Supreme Court radically? What is the political downside of denying him? For one thing, […]

Did one robotic moment in a single debate really bring down Marco Rubio in New Hampshire, probably finishing him off nationally? Unlikely. It’s difficult to believe that voters would turn on a candidate over one gaffe — yet, somehow, it can also make perfect sense in this cycle. Either way, let’s stop pretending 2016 voters […]

For eight years now, the president has reprimanded the American people for their attitudes about Islam. And Barack Obama’s big speech to the Islamic Society of Baltimore — granted, filled with many harmless platitudes — was no different, leaving little room for any honest dialogue about ideology or faith. Many of the president’s ideas about […]

There are many potential outcomes to a Donald Trump GOP nomination. And every one of them is a disaster for conservatives. Fact is, Trump fans will not be placated. Not if they lose, and definitely not if they win. Unless unforeseen events alter the dynamics of American politics, it’s difficult to imagine conventional Republicans and […]

As many conservatives grapple with the growing prospect of a Donald Trump presidential nomination, I’ve started to hear them asking one another the once unthinkable: “Would you vote for Trump?” Mostly, the answer is “of course not.” He’s a fascistic clown. He’s a clandestine liberal (not really that cagey about it, to be honest) who’d […]

“It’s one of the few regrets of my presidency — that the rancor and suspicion between the parties has gotten worse instead of better,” President Barack Obama lamented in a State of the Union speech packed with rancor and suspicion about his political opposition. What the president probably meant — as most of those who […]

Over the winter break, I finally got around to binge-watching “Parks and Recreation.” In case you missed the show’s seven-year run, it’s about a fascistic small-town councilwoman who believes it’s a politician’s job to impose her notions of morality, safety and decency on everyone, no matter what voters want or what the system dictates. She […]

This incessant clamoring by voters and punditry for better “leaders” and more “leadership” is one of the most unsavory, dangerous and un-American tendencies in political discourse. When Donald Trump was asked last week by Joe Scarborough what he made of an endorsement from Vladimir Putin — a thug who’s probably murdered journalists and political opponents […]

After the latest Republican presidential debate, The Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin argued that Ted Cruz had undone himself “courting” the “Trumpkin base,” sinking “further into the far-right brew of isolationism and xenophobia.” And to prove this contention, Rubin grabbed hold of two words Cruz used, “America” and “first,” to claim that the senator from Texas […]

“Is this what Germany looked like in 1933?” Joe Scarborough asked on “Morning Joe” this week. No. Not at all. Though many in my family were exterminated during the Holocaust — including one of my grandfathers, who died trying to make his way home from Mauthausen after years of forced labor — I’m not completely […]

What do you call it when elites fly their private jets to an international climate change conference to forge a deal with despots that caps American prosperity without our consent? You call it progressivism. It’s estimated that 50,000 carbon-spewing humans participated in the Paris climate conference. But while President Barack Obama was taking his working […]

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;” Unless we’re talking about a white chocolate-paneled cake for a gay wedding or perpetual funding for “women’s health” clinics because it’s the “right thing to do.” “or abridging the freedom of speech;” Unless that speech is used by boorish climate […]

“The U.S. Public Becoming Less Religious,” reads the headline from the new Pew Poll Religion in America series. The share of Americans who profess to believe in God has dropped from 92 to 89 percent since the Pew Research Center conducted its last Landscape Study in 2007. That said, the U.S. is still home to […]

Grass-roots conservatives have many unrealistic expectations and political objectives. And then sometimes they have a good point. The new budget deal arranged by John Boehner and Democrats — approving $50 billion of additional spending in 2016 and $30 billion in 2017 — will be split between domestic discretionary programs and defense. Cuts will supposedly take […]

Libya is in chaos. It’s a festering pit of radicalism, anarchy and death, epitomizing everything that can go wrong when Western intervention has no clear long-term purpose. And a woman who believes she should be president of the United States — ostensibly on the strength of her decision-making abilities as secretary of state — believes […]

When Democratic Party presidential hopefuls were asked by CNN’s Anderson Cooper to list the enemies they have made during their careers that they are most proud of, the only candidate who didn’t include any fellow Americans was Jim Webb. Webb — who, it should be noted, didn’t exactly answer the question — explained that it […]

After the horrific mass shooting at a community college in Oregon, President Barack Obama made an impassioned case that gun violence is “something we should politicize”: “This is a political choice that we make, to allow this to happen every few months in America. We collectively are answerable to those families who lose their loved […]

If for some reason you needed additional evidence that the Republican Party is deeply incompetent, unprepared, uncoordinated and inexcusably lazy, then try watching Cecile Richards’ appearance in front of Congress earlier this week. Now, I get that these kinds of hearings are normally a waste of time, but in this instance, the GOP had some […]

Not always. Not everyone. But enough. This week, for example, while thinking about the pope’s take on global warming, I tweeted out this comment: “Celebrate climate change, an externality of the greatest poverty destroying program in the history of mankind.” There is plenty to disagree with in my observation, I admit. Although I believe what […]

Earlier this month, a 13-year-old boy in Maryland faced an assault charge after authorities say he kissed a 14-year-old classmate on a dare at school. He’s being charged with second-degree assault as a juvenile. He has not, as yet, been invited to the White House. In December 2013, a 6-year-old boy in Colorado was suspended […]

It’s probably true that Republicans won’t be able to force Planned Parenthood to shut down its human organ harvesting business. Not this year. Maybe not any year. And it’s probably true that Republicans won’t be able to stop the flow of over $500 million to the abortion conglomerate — at least not until the GOP […]

Working for the government is not an inalienable right. So Kim Davis, a county clerk in Kentucky, was wrong to refuse same-sex couples marriage licenses in her office. If you’re unwilling to enforce the law, you shouldn’t be an officer of the state. After all, it’s not a clerk’s job to ascertain the constitutionality or […]

Stop bellyaching about Washington. All the country’s best fascists are on your local city council. Not long ago, Colorado became a leader in the fight against religious freedom, when its Civil Rights Commission, self-appointed ministers of justice and theology, decided that a shopkeeper who refuses to participate in a gay wedding ceremony must be smeared […]

Just in case you need a refresher: Back in 2012, a baker in the Denver suburb of Lakewood was asked by a gay couple to make them a wedding cake — two years before gay marriage was even legalized in Colorado. The owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop, Jack Phillips, declined to participate in Charlie Craig and […]

In “Sleeper,” Woody Allen plays Miles Monroe, a cryogenically frozen owner of a Greenwich Village health food store who, when defrosted in the year 2173, finds himself in an authoritarian state filled with giant vegetables, android butlers and Diane Keaton. When an unnerved Miles is first unfrozen, Space Age doctors try to calm him down: […]

In an interview with Breitbart News, Mike Huckabee accused President Barack Obama of being “naive” for trusting Iran to uphold its part of the recent agreement struck by the nations. By doing so, Huckabee said, Obama is marching Israelis “to the door of the oven.” The Anti-Defamation League, self-proclaimed guardians of (imaginary) Jewish values, swiftly […]

At a Tehran mosque last week, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — amid chants of “death to America” and “death to Israel” — explained to a crowd that his nation’s interests are “180 degrees” in opposition to the United States. “Even after this deal, our policy toward the arrogant U.S. will not change,” he explained.   This […]

In America, it’s illegal to donate money to a candidate without first reporting it to the government. Even then, if you give more than is permissible, you could end up in jail. In this country, you can’t add trans fats to your foods or smoke cigarettes in your own bar. Here, Little Sisters of the […]

“The rise of Bernie Sanders is proving awkward for the Democratic Party,” contends Politico in a recent piece about the surprisingly popular socialist presidential candidate. Well, maybe it’s not that surprising. And it’s probably not that awkward. Politico could have just as easily declared: The rise of Bernie Sanders is a completely predictable outcome of the Democratic Party’s […]

The Food and Drug Administration issued a final decision this week, giving the food industry three years to phase out bad trans fats, still used in a wide variety of products, such as Pillsbury’s Ready To Bake cookies and cake frosting. Now, if you’re ingesting large quantities of either, perhaps partially hydrogenated oils aren’t your […]