Trumpsters, don’t even try to gaslight us into believing you’re not always in goblin mode — The words of 2022 were goblin mode, in the United Kingdom, and gaslight, in the United States. In these times of the right’s determined distribution of disinformation, conspiracy theories, and pursuit of lazy thinking, those choices make perfect sense. We are all now more than familiar with gaslighting, which dates…

After hundreds of mass shootings this year, and two in his own state, Glenn Youngkin can’t imagine why such things happen. — After a spate of mass shootings across the country, including two in his own state in November, Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin told reporters such an event was “unthinkable.” According to the Gun Violence Archive, more than 600 mass shootings have occurred in the United States so far this year.

For their next big CPAC conclave, hornet-mad Republicans could really benefit from a trip ‘in’ Colorado or Oregon. — Now that Coloradans have followed the Oregonians’ lead in legalizing the use of psychedelics, here’s a modest proposal: Perhaps Republican leaders could benefit from a trip in (not just to) Colorado, where they could work out their disappointment (rising to rage for some) in the results of the midterms and…

While the right fearmongers about immigrants, we know who’s really coming for us and all our stuff. — On a trip recently to help after the birth of a grandchild, my wife and I, out for a run, saw a yard sign saying EVERYBODY IS COMING TO GET YOU AND TAKE ALL YOUR STUFF. For the rest of our stay, we tried to figure out whether the homeowner…

As Republicans make voting more difficult, we should protect the nation by creating basic standards for who can run for office — A few years ago, I groused to some friends that I could pull together a better U.S. senate. I could, I thought, in a couple of hours, just selecting from my colleagues. At the time, I didn’t know that conservative intellectual William F. Buckley, Jr., had once had a similar…

The filmmaker/activist has a tsunami of reasons you should feel energized. — Filmmaker and political activist Michael Moore says he has a lot of reasons you should feel good about Democrat candidates’ chances in the midterm elections, now only a few weeks away. He is so certain about them, he is calling them “truths” (tweaking the former president’s latest failed venture). There…

They may know little of the song’s history, but old times there are decidedly not forgotten — The other day the song “Dixie” came up in conversation. My wife asked what was up with all the “looking away” in the song. You know: Look away, look away, look away, Dixie Land! What were they looking away from? Was it the vicious, inhumane toil that slaves faced every…

Christian “classical” education intends to undermine public schools and stymie progress on the real problems we face — For many American evangelicals and other religious fundamentalists, the religious book series “Left Behind” was a publishing sensation in the 1990s. The idea behind the novels, and later movies, was that when the “end-times” came, those of true faith would ascend to their rightful place in heaven while nonbelievers would…

Was it just a simple oversight that the Texas Republican Convention platform failed to mention stocks, pillories, and branding? — American historian Heather Cox Richardson has written indefatigably about so-called movement conservatives who decried the New Deal and vowed to return the country to the 1920s before our minimalistic social safety net became a thing and businesses were somewhat regulated.