Yuval Levin

To a greater degree than has been the case in other shutdowns in this century, both sides entered this one unexpectedly and without a plan, and neither really has much leverage over the other.

Imagine a world where the legislative branch actually legislates, courts interpret laws and executive agencies faithfully execute them.

Twenty years ago, even ten years ago, bioethics was a prominent national issue, and an active and intensely contested political question. Such intense focus on bioethics seems almost strange now. But in order to think about why, and about what lessons we can learn about where things stand today, we might recall a couple of facets of that unusual period of intense focus on bioethics, particularly the stem cell debate in the first decade of this century.

Recovering the distinct purposes and characters of our different institutions, rather than seeing them all as interchangeable platforms for screaming at each other about the culture war, is the essence of what a renewal of American civic life would require.

The closing of the Weekly Standard is tragic not so much for the loss of a venue for conservative political opinion writing, or the loss of an outlet for clear-eyed political journalism. The Standard was both of those things, and its demise would have been bad news even if they were all it did. But it is tragic news because the magazine did so much more.

We are likely at a moment of sustained stalemate on health care rather than on the brink of another progressive breakthrough.

As befits his general pattern, President Trump is going about replacing his chief of staff in an absurd, shambolic fashion.

In mourning George H.W. Bush’s passing, we should pray for the wisdom to build on what the 41st president and his generation left behind.

Over the past few days, a very interesting and worthwhile debate has arisen among several thoughtful conservatives about growth, work, and prosperity.

The results of the midterms were hardly signs of a coming political revolution, and they don’t even put this election on the level of the 2010 recoil from the Obama Administration’s first two years. But within the important swing block of suburban voters, which both parties need to attract if they are to build and sustain durable coalitions, the Democrats did significantly better than they first appeared to on election night.

The peculiar mixed result of Tuesday’s midterms should help us see the distinct and troubling character of our politics now: It is the weakness of all sides, and the strength of none, that shapes this moment.

In Washington, as at the state level, a period of significant Republican dominance is ebbing some now without having achieved much that is likely to endure.