James H. Rudy Professor of Political Science at Indiana University, Bloomington

Uncategorized

Being Against Biden

It is important to oppose him without demonizing him

June 25, 2019 • by Jeffrey C. Isaac

Everything that has happened since his entry has confirmed this judgment. On the one hand, Biden has tripped over a series of hot-button issues -- #MeToo, the Hyde Amendment, and now racially coded language -- with his unique combination of tone deafness and stubborn self-righteousness. On the other hand, he ...

Blue Monday

How Much Longer Can Pelosi Keep Fiddling While Constitutional Democracy Burns?

What we need now is a Democratic leadership that believes in democracy.

June 17, 2019 • by Jeffrey C. Isaac

It has been two and a half years since Donald Trump first took his presidential wrecking ball to America’s very flawed system of constitutional democracy. It has been more than two and a half years since the Justice Department -- the FBI, the Special Counsel, lesser federal prosecutors -- first began ...

Blue Monday

Trump, Impeachment, and the Question of Democratic Legitimacy

To allow Trump to continue to act as if he has legitimacy is simply to continue to legitimate him and his party

June 3, 2019 • by Jeffrey C. Isaac

Trump declares boldly and angrily that he is President because he won the election; that as President he is entitled to disparage long-standing governmental norms, break the law, declare national emergencies on a whim, assault the civil rights and liberties of immigrants, minorities, and women, and treat his critics, in ...

North America

Is Impeachment Really Optional? Sometimes a strong offense is the only defense

May 24, 2019 • by Jeffrey C. Isaac

Yesterday (Thursday) the White House announced that Donald Trump has authorized Attorney General William Barr to unilaterally declassify any documents necessary to perform an investigation of the Mueller investigation. The New York Times headline accurately summarized the move: “ Trump Gives Attorney General Sweeping Power in Review of 2016 Campaign Inquiry .” Today (Friday) Trump ...

Is Impeachment Really Optional? Sometimes a strong offense is the only defense

North America

Impeachment Will Succeed If the Process Demonstrates Very Publicly That Trump is a Tyrant Who Is Unfit for Office and the Republicans are his Enablers

That is all that can be expected, and it is enough!

May 22, 2019 • by Jeffrey C. Isaac

The Trump administration continues to refuse all Congressional oversight and make a mockery of the rule of law, while Trump himself continues to denounce the Mueller team and his political opponents as “traitors” and to rally his mobs against “enemies of the people.” Democratic Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi continues ...

Impeachment Will Succeed If the Process Demonstrates Very Publicly That Trump is a Tyrant Who Is Unfit for Office and the Republicans are his Enablers

Blue Monday

How to Move Toward Impeachment, Now

A carefully orchestrated process could help strengthen the Democrats for 2020

May 13, 2019 • by Jeffrey C. Isaac

The Trump administration continues to defy Congress and to demonstrate its contempt for constitutional democracy, refusing to share an unredacted copy of the Mueller Report with House committees, citing “executive privilege,” and refusing to comply with a number of lawful subpoenas for information, about counterintelligence, obstruction of justice, and tax ...

Blue Monday

Nancy Pelosi May Be Too Clever for Our Own Good

Why only unambiguous opposition to Trump can save us

May 6, 2019 • by Jeffrey C. Isaac

Last week a New York Times profile of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi reported that Pelosi wants the Democrats to “stay in the center,” insisting that for the party to succeed in 2020 it must “own the mainstream.” Pelosi, currently the most powerful Democrat in public office, has surely sought ...

Nancy Pelosi May Be Too Clever for Our Own Good

North America

The New “Infrastructure Deal” is a Political Disaster

Why legislative tacticians make bad political leaders

April 30, 2019 • by Jeffrey C. Isaac

In the past 24 hours four things of direct political importance to the ongoing saga of the Trump Maladministration have occurred: (1) the Barr Justice Department, and the Trump administration more generally, has escalated its battle of wills with the House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees, refusing to comply with requests for ...

The New “Infrastructure Deal” is a Political Disaster

Blue Monday

On Trump’s Dangerous Words

Why We Need to Use the Word “Impeachment” Now

April 29, 2019 • by Jeffrey C. Isaac

We humans are many things. One is that we are beings who understand, construct, and change our world in and through language. In the beginning there were words. The late great writer and dissident-citizen-president, Vaclav Havel, said it well in his powerful 1989 acceptance speech to the German Booksellers Association, “Words ...

Feature

Trump and the San Diego Synagogue Shooting

The President Plays with Fire, and The Rest of Us Get Burned

April 28, 2019 • by Jeffrey C. Isaac

My mind was reeling. I was writing a column about Trump’s speech to the National Rifle Association in Indianapolis when I learned of yesterday’s (Saturday) synagogue shooting in California by a white supremacist. The connection between these two events was immediate and obvious to me, as I will briefly explain in ...

Trump and the San Diego Synagogue Shooting

Feature

Further Thoughts on Impeachment as Political Strategy

Do it to expose and weaken Trump and the Republicans for 2020

April 25, 2019 • by Jeffrey C. Isaac

The argument about impeachment continues, as it should. Yesterday I laid out the general case for impeachment. My argument was not ethical or legal, it was political: impeachment is a legitimate constitutional process that ought to be pursued not because it will remove Trump from office -- Senate Republicans will surely ...

Further Thoughts on Impeachment as Political Strategy

Blue Monday

Two Cheers for Impeachment

The political “risks” are not that great, and they are worth taking

April 22, 2019 • by Jeffrey C. Isaac

In an ideal world, the thought of impeaching Donald Trump would warrant at least three cheers, along with some somersaults and a marching band (my preference would be for a New Orleans Second Line led by Trombone Shorty). Yet in an ideal world Donald Trump would be nothing but a ...