Category Archives: President Trump

The Year 2020 in Three Phrases

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December 31, 2020 —  Consider the past year through the lenses of three phrases: “witch hunt,” “black swan,” and “exponential.”  Each of these terms is widely applied, but not necessarily in the most useful way.

  1. Witch hunt

Donald Trump has used the words “witch hunt” approximately once every three days on average during his presidency, just counting tweets alone.  It wasn’t just his impeachment trial, which ended with the Senate voting to acquit on February 5 of 2020. He continued during the year to use “witch hunt” to describe accusations that he mis-managed the Covid-19 response (April), inquiries into his tax returns (July), investigation into alleged criminal conduct at the Trump Organization (August), and other challenges. read more

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Biden is Better on Economics

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October 29, 2020 — In a few days, Americans will choose a president.  Polling suggests that voters favor former Vice-President Joseph Biden when it comes to social policy, foreign policy, the environment, and managing the pandemic, not to mention the question of personal character. But on economics, polls have reported that voters favored President Donald Trump, at least until recently.

A general impression that the US economy does better under Republicans is long-standing.  The facts do not support it, however. read more

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Will the Coronavirus Spur Action on Climate Change?

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October 3, 2020 — From early on in this pandemic, a common reaction has been “at least, maybe now we will get serious about addressing climate change.”  One can see the logic.  The terrible toll taken by Covid-19 should remind us of the importance of three things: the need for science, the role for public policy, and the usefulness of international cooperation.  With these three revelations firmly in mind, we can see that we also need them to respond to the problem of climate change. read more

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