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The Dramatic Dangers of a Second Biden Administration
A second Biden term would be unusually dangerous for the country in a very significant way.
By Ross Douthat
Ross Douthat joined The New York Times as an Opinion columnist in April 2009. His column appears every Tuesday and Sunday. He is also a host on the weekly Opinion podcast, “Matter of Opinion.” Previously, he was a senior editor at The Atlantic and a blogger on its website.
He is the author of “The Deep Places: A Memoir of Illness and Discovery,” which was published in October 2021. His other books include "To Change the Church: Pope Francis and the Future of Catholicism,” published in 2018; “Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics” (2012); “Privilege: Harvard and the Education of the Ruling Class” (2005); “The Decadent Society” (2020); and, with Reihan Salam, “Grand New Party: How Republicans Can Win the Working Class and Save the American Dream” (2008). He is the film critic for National Review.
He lives with his wife and four children in New Haven, Conn.
A second Biden term would be unusually dangerous for the country in a very significant way.
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Three Opinion writers weigh in on the first presidential debate of 2024.
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How Latin Mass Catholics embody the spirit of Vatican II.
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The casual observer may see persecution, not just prosecution.
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The president has many problems this election. Is Kamala Harris one of them?
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Why left and right both need a little more cold-eyed realism.
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A taxonomy of post-religious conservatisms.
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What the former president’s V.P. shortlist tells us about his possible second term.
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A more traditionalist future for the church won’t do away with liberal impulses.
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How vaccine injuries and long Covid test our partisan beliefs.
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A reading list outside the progressive box.
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And the role politicians play in all of it.
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How Israel became the focus of so much of contemporary protest politics.
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If commerce demands constant songwriting, she needs new characters to play.
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Both parties experience echoes of decades past.
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Revisiting Michael Crichton’s prophecy of cultural stagnation.
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“It’s the worst story I’ve ever covered.”
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Not just a deepening of present discontents but a dramatic crash or rupture.
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There’s a difference between being aware of your base and being its prisoner.
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A geopolitical allegory whose meaning shifts from version to version.
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Does God have to be Republican?
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Abortion opponents are entirely misaligned with the Trumpist form of conservatism.
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His new statement criticizing gender change is a clear appeal to the conservative wings of his church.
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Comforted by neither God nor history, and hoping vaguely that therapy can take their place.
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Can we make our phones serve a family-friendly society rather than undermine childhood?
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Why ditching phones won’t save the kids.
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A new Scottish law criminalizes public speech deemed “insulting” to a protected group.
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Alignments are shifting and will continue to do so.
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How long can a populist party support a libertarian Congress?
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What Beyoncé, Taylor Swift and Donald Trump all understand.
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Has liberalism found a coherent sexual ethics?
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Does President Biden expect to win on a Jan. 6 strategy alone?
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Decoding blood baths and Washington bluster.
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That’s what he seems to be telling donors, but it’s not clear whether he’s serious.
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A theory of why Biden’s presidency has so far been a political flop.
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What the new “Dune” sequel says about the state of our world — and the movie business.
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If re-elected, how far will Donald Trump and his supporters go in pursuit of the MAGA agenda?
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A rule of the Trump era: The lower his profile, the higher his polls.
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How to think about the moral complexities in the Israel-Gaza war.
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A popular catchphrase, an elusive definition.
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The hosts disagree on where America’s abortion debate is headed.
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But a new working paper argues that a focus on the cost of goods and services understates the importance of the cost of borrowing money.
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Why the latest entrant in the great artificial intelligence race raised some eyebrows.
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When the best sequel technically isn’t one.
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He joins the hosts to talk inflation, bad vibes and how voters will respond in November.
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Two key presumptions are at the heart of the debate over Ukraine vs. Taiwan.
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It will make it easier to negotiate an armistice on terms favorable to Ukraine.
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How the internet is making everything nondenominational.
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What qualifies someone to be president, anyway?
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A post-neoliberal agenda, tilted left or right, has no answer whatsoever to inflation.
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Condense the Democratic nomination into the format that was originally designed for handling intraparty competition: the national convention.
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Should we want a new American genesis?
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On the mass cultural events that unite us — and where we’d be without them.
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There are non-Trump reasons the right is demanding that Biden act unilaterally.
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A strange but optimistic vision.
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From overpopulation fears to careful bourgeois life scripts.
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Gen Z is divided over politics. What will the fallout be?
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Girl meets boy and falls in love. Conservatives are furious.
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There’s no reason to imitate Chris Christie and Liz Cheney just yet.
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Toward a constructive politics of nostalgia.
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The hosts unpack the truism that voters don’t care about foreign policy.
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Trump’s win hints that we were only a few what-ifs away from a more competitive campaign.
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Her hawkish foreign policy vision won’t rescue America.
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Why Joe Biden’s problem is bigger than just fatigue with anti-Trumpism.
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Iowa didn’t reveal anything new. And here’s why the hosts aren’t holding their breath for New Hampshire.
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It’s absurd that there was no unified opposition candidate again.
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The G.O.P. coalition is poised to choose irresistible theater over a more effective but lower-drama alternative.
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Comparing the Capitol riot to the Beer Hall Putsch and the Whiskey Rebellion.
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The road beyond Iowa is paved with potential running mates.
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Is Trump just an American expression of the trends that have revived nationalism all over the world?
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The series’s end was less intriguing than the real future of monarchy.
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New year, new problems. The hosts try to make sense of it.
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How the left, not just the right, helped bring Gay down.
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Jan. 6 was not the same kind of event as the Confederacy’s secession.
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A dose of Christmas optimism for a divided church.
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Hopefully we are nearing a point of more clarity for the mystery of what’s in the public record.
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You asked. The hosts have opinions.
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Politicians used to feel shame over their scandals. Not anymore.
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What a dramatic birth dearth portends for South Koreans and the world.
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Is the Holocaust still seen as history’s ultimate example of absolute evil?
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Why the age of populism looks different outside Europe and America.
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