Catering to populist anger with extremist proposals that are certain to fail is not a viable strategy for political success.

There are two kinds of people: Those who like active vacations and those who like sedentary vacations. I'm one of the weird hybrids who likes both. That makes me, I suppose, the Jekyll and Hyde of holidayers.

Hillary Clinton is a centrist Democrat who is more hawkish than President Obama and far more principled and knowledgeable about foreign affairs than Trump, who is too unstable and erratic to be entrusted with the nuclear triad he has never heard of.

Joe Biden stands out from other Democratic candidates not just by taking on President Trump directly but also by seeking to separate Trump from the rest of the Republican Party.

Logic, fact, morality, legality, ideology: All of it is irrelevant in understanding the Party of Trump. Republicans have made crystal clear that nothing matters to them other than partisanship.

Thirty years on, I am no longer as certain about anything as I was at age 20. I now regret my support for the war in Iraq and kick myself for the naive expectation that freedom was destined to prevail.

The scandal isn't that refugees want to come to the United States. It's that Trump is abusing these aspiring Americans and closing our doors to them.

Whether I realize it or not, I have benefitted from my skin color and my gender - and those of a different gender or sexuality or skin color have suffered because of it.

Democrats deserve credit for engaging with big issues such as climate change and income inequality and coming up with bold, imaginative solutions.

Unfortunately, history suggests that dictatorial regimes can withstand years, even decades, of economic sanctions.

Once upon a time - in the days of Margaret Thatcher and John Major - I would have rejoiced in a Conservative Party landslide in Britain. But now, Prime Minister Boris Johnson's victory fills me with fear and foreboding.

But while I am proud to be an American, I am ashamed of what the Trump administration is doing in our name. It is literally rewriting the meaning of America.

I still have admiration for the vast majority of police officers, but there is no denying that some are guilty of mistreating the people they are supposed to serve.

I am white. I am Jewish. I am an immigrant. I am a Russian American. But until recently I haven't focused so much on those parts of my identity. I've always thought of myself simply as a normal, unhyphenated American.

As someone who has spent much of my life identifying as a conservative, I can't stand what American conservatism has become.

The ur-conservatives of the 1950s - William F. Buckley Jr., Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan and all the rest - were revolting not against a liberal administration but against the moderate conservatism of Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Joining the Grand Old Party seemed like a natural choice for someone like me who fled the Soviet Union as a boy and came to Los Angeles with his mother and grandmother in 1976.

I remain troubled by the deliberate killing of civilians, whether by the United States or by its enemies.

The genteel conservatism of 'Downton Abbey' is not a rigid, extremist ideology whose adherents are bent on power at all costs.

Even being too good at teaching is risky at research universities; the joke is that a 'teacher of the year' award is the kiss of death for non-tenured professors.

Air superiority, which the United States has taken for granted since World War II, is no longer assured. And, without control of the skies, U.S. ships and soldiers would be vulnerable in ways that are difficult to imagine.

All acts of terrorism - all killings of the innocent - are an abomination, and one that is made all the worse when the victims are chosen for their skin color, ethnicity, sexuality or religious beliefs.

The United States has been locked in an escalating confrontation with Iran ever since President Trump decided to pull out of the nuclear deal in 2018 and to impose unilateral sanctions in 2019.

Protests, such as those in favor of labor rights, women's suffrage, civil rights and gay rights, helped to make America as great as it is.