“No,” proclaims the longtime fact-checking site Snopes, “Trump Did Not Call Neo-Nazis and White Supremacists ‘Very Fine People’.” It’s a puzzling headline, published yesterday and making the rounds through social media as users try to figure it out. Do they remember this wrong? Is Snopes wrong? What’s going on? The headline refers to the 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, the home of … Continue reading Snopes gets it wrong
A recent online exchange has me a little tense about a lot of things. Here, in short, is the backdrop. Donald John Trump, who was president of the United States for one term, is running for a second non-consecutive term. Trump now holds the distinction of winning more votes than any other candidate in an election except one candidate, who is, of course, Joe Biden. … Continue reading Once again, the Constitution is not a magic spell
Welcome to a surprise episode of Our Long National Nightmare because, after months of no one having the guts to do it, the Colorado Supreme Court held today that Donald Trumhop engaged in an insurrection and is ineligible to appear on the presidential ballot in the centennial state. The court’s basis is the Fourteenth Amendment, which may or may not actually say that. What’s the … Continue reading Colorado says Trump can’t be on the ballot. Is that allowed?
When a politician is looking to score some quick political points, there’s a well they consistently dip their bucket into: term limits. In 2018, President Donald Trump tweeted that he had met with lawmakers and discussed term limits, giving his “full support and endorsement for their efforts.” President Obama wrote in A Promised Land that, as a senator, he “questioned what might happen to me … Continue reading There’s no evidence that term limits work and a lot of evidence that they don’t
Donald Trump v. Twitter is a very silly lawsuit. It boils down to “Twitter says I can’t use its platform and that’s illegal because of the First Amendment.” Wise armchair lawyers are desperate to find a Pyramid comments section so they can wisely point out in a wise way that the First Amendment protects you from the government, not from private companies. But Trump’s lawyers … Continue reading In a court filing, Trump’s lawyers said the quiet part out loud
As is their unstoppable habit, Twitter users speculated about what would be the straw that breaks the filibuster’s back on Thursday in light of the news that it would apparently not be a vote by Senate Democrats. The Atlantic mused that opposition to the filibuster has now become a core belief in the Democratic Party, with most Dems unwilling to preserve the archaic (yet not … Continue reading Could We Be in the Era of One Term Presidencies?
Yesterday, America pondered what it has learned in the year since pro-Trump rioters tried to overthrow the federal government. The reality, which Republican politicians know but won’t admit, is that Donald Trump lost the 2020 election. His supporters, who said in advance they were gonna act up if he lost, acted up. They did a little teeny bit of terrorism that led to the deaths … Continue reading Donald Trump is the frontrunner for the Republican nomination in 2024, which is dumb and also important
As of the middle of the day on August 13, 2021, the Taliban controls roughly half of Afghanistan. Two decades after the beginning of the longest war in American history, the U.S. needs to confront a reality it has tried to avoid since the end of the similarly-long Vietnam War: wars are not always won by the bigger army. How did we get here, so … Continue reading The humiliating end of the War in Afghanistan
On September 17th, 2020, Donald Trump gave a speech promoting “patriotic education” which aired conservative grievances about educators who dare to talk about the effects of race and class in America. To those of us who came of age under a president who famously declared “either you are with us or you are with the terrorists”, a smug war criminal equating criticism of America with … Continue reading Catching Up With (and Cleaning Up After) the Critical Race Theory Panic
As reported by The Hill, a new Hill-HarrisX poll finds that 30% of Republican voters say it’s likely that former President Donald Trump will be “reinstated” as president later this year. You might recall that we’ve talked about this very concept at Pyramid specifically because it’s literally impossible without a coup d’etat, although admittedly it’s not like Republicans are necessarily opposed to that. If something … Continue reading 30% of Republican voters are insane
