Trump was right when he said that he’s “not a typical politician” in the final presidential debate last night. He has a talent for setting a low bar, so, compared to the last migraine-inducing debate, its easy to applaud his relatively subdued behavior in this one. But it’s worth noting and marveling at how before 2016, his lies, baseless attacks, constant blaming of others and endless braggadocio in any other candidate would have caused an uproar. We’ve now become so numbed to this behavior that we are impressed when he shows the least bit of restraint.

This presents a serious…

After the hyper-macho testosterone-charged presidential debate last week, the debate between the vice-presidential candidates, Vice President Mike Pence and Senator Kamala Harris, was expected to be more like a traditional, more policy-centered candidate debate. It delivered. In fact, it was borderline boring to the point that a fly that spent about two minutes on Pence’s forehead caused a Twitter uproar.

The issue that permeates and conditions absolutely everything in our governments and our lives right now, the coronavirus, took center stage. That, along with Trump and to a lesser extent, the economy and Biden received the most attention. This wasn’t…

At the end of August, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said, “I don’t think there should be any debates.” She went on to explain why, pointing out that Trump will “probably act in a way that is beneath the dignity of the presidency. He does that every day.” She was right.

It was impossible to not feel drained after these 90 minutes of chaos, lies and constant interruptions that overwhelmingly came from the president himself. There’s a very technical term we use for this sort debacle in the U.S.: a total shitshow. …

Now that both the Democrats and the Republicans have held their conventions and Labor Day weekend has passed, the US campaign for president is officially in full swing. This is exciting news for those of us who love to follow the polling, because now it actually means something.

That said, when talking polling, it’s critical to note that the polls aren’t crystal balls, they are snapshots of what is happening at the time the data is gathered. …

Losing the icon of women’s rights is painful. Losing her amid so much death and economic loss from the pandemic; violence, protests, fires and hurricanes; and a deeply divisive presidential campaign is just beyond the limits of grief a country should have to bear. But it gets worse, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s death sets up brutal fight in the coming months over who should pick her replacement.

Shortly before he learned of her death, Trump warned his supporters at a rally that “the next president will get one, two, three, four Supreme Court justices.” Changing the make-up…

Would it surprise you if I said that Joe Biden and Donald Trump have some common qualities? Maybe, maybe not, but here it is anyway: they both sell themselves as fighters for the working class and they both are politicians that make decisions with their guts. Also, both tend to look at foreign affairs as being about developing personal relationships with world leaders, although they have different sets of world leader friends.

Despite all this, the Democrats and Republicans presented stark differences between these two men in their conventions that have taken place over the past two weeks. You may…

“I know a predator when I see one,” Kamala Harris assured viewers during her acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention this week. This thinly veiled reference to Trump gained even more relevance when Steve Bannon was arrested on Thursday. You know, the architect of Trump’s 2016 campaign, especially the central theme of building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. Or perhaps you remember his more recent exploits here in Europe advising right-wing populist campaigns and even trying to create a Europe-wide populist ‘supergroup’. …

I was in the middle of a roaring mass of 50,000 Democratic leaders, donors, activists, political junkies and journalists sardined into a Philadelphia stadium, jumping up and down, waving signs, crying and yelling “I’m with her! I’M WITH HER!” Hillary Clinton was just officially nominated as the Democratic candidate for president of the United States, balloons and confetti rained down from the ceiling, the cameras were rolling and the whole world was watching.

There is no political show on earth that compares to the quadrennial U.S. party conventions that are organized to nominate the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates and…