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Jonathan Alter is a columnist for The Daily Beast and an analyst for MSNBC. He worked at Newsweek for 28 years as a senior editor and columnist. His most recent book, The Center Holds: Obama and His Enemies, is now available in paperback.

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opinion

Dems Can Save Voting by Restoring the Mr. Smith Filibuster

TALK IT OUT

A reckoning is coming: They don’t want the Senate to fiddle while democracy burns.

Jonathan Alter | Published Nov 29, 2021
opinion

Biden’s First 100 Days Will Be the Biggest Since FDR’s

A NEW NEW DEAL

Even before being sworn in, Biden had devoted a series of speeches to his ambitious plans. When the action begins, it will be a tonic, as it was in 1933.

Jonathan Alter | Published Jan 20, 2021
opinion

Democrats Must Punish the House GOP’s ‘Seditious Seventeen’

CLOSE THE ‘TOUGHNESS GAP’

Of the 126 Republican House members who signed that brief, 17 essentially agreed to invalidate their own votes. So invalidate them.

Jonathan Alter | Published Dec 23, 2020
opinion

Today: Remind an Undecided Voter About Trump’s 4 Worst Acts

IN CASE YOU’D FORGOTTEN…

Public health menace. Dangerous autocrat. Racist demagogue. Incompetent whiner. It’s time to send him home for good.

Jonathan Alter | Published Nov 03, 2020

Carter Has Always Been Odd Man Out in the Presidents’ Club

EXCERPT

The unspoken rule among former presidents is that they keep silent on the actions of their successors. Carter has never felt bound by this.

Jonathan Alter | Published Oct 03, 2020
opinion

It’s Time To Recruit, Train and Supply a COVID Testing Army

‘ACTION NOW’

If Trump had acted in the winter of 2020 the way FDR did in the winter of 1933, we wouldn’t be in this predicament.

Jonathan Alter | Published May 10, 2020
opinion

Here’s How to Make Trump Pay for His Deadly Lost Months

STICK IT TO HIM

Trump needs to be tarred with his lack of preparedness the way “the emails” were stuck to Clinton, “the hostages” to Carter, “the pardon” to Ford, and “Hoovervilles” to Hoover.

Jonathan Alter | Published Apr 04, 2020
opinion

What Obama Saw in Biden

OLD SHOE

With Joe, familiarity breeds not contempt, but respect and even love.

Jonathan Alter | Published Mar 05, 2020
opinion

20 Tough Questions Dems Must Force Trump’s Lawyers to Answer

INSIDE THE 'STARR' CHAMBER

The next phase of this trial: question time. Here are the pointed questions the Democrats ought to ask Starr, Dershowitz, Bondi, and company.

Jonathan Alter | Published Jan 28, 2020
opinion

The People Speak: President Trump Is No King

POPULAR VERDICT

In a very real constitutional sense, the people declared Wednesday that it’s not OK for a president to solicit a foreign power to smear a political rival.

Jonathan Alter | Published Dec 18, 2019

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