Author
Commentary: Losing my religion
By: Bruce Barry - October 26, 2020
Public officials doing the people’s business are entitled to govern with religiosity as a defining personal attribute, if that’s their bag. If the governor wants to praise Jesus fifty times in his state-of-the-state address it would be odd, but he’s welcome to have at it and let voters decide at the next election if he’s […]
Commentary: Survey says?
By: Bruce Barry - October 5, 2020
This is where I reassure panicky Democrats and assorted anti-Trumpers that it’s all going to be okay. With under a month to go, the polls paint a reasonably optimistic picture of 2020’s electoral landscape. At this point in the column, readers are urged to refrain from having a glance at my then-seemingly-spot-on August 2004 piece […]
To Hell With Absentee Ballots
By: Bruce Barry - August 31, 2020
With the bluster and propaganda of the political conventions in the rear view mirror we can turn our attention back to the things that really matter in life: fretting over operational details of the U.S. Postal Service, spiffing up our yards so they look nice when MS-13 members show up for the open house next […]
Show Me The Democracy
By: Bruce Barry - August 10, 2020
What do you do when your elected representatives ignore the people’s wants and decline to do the people’s business? I’m talking here about simple and direct refusal to enact measures that clear majorities of the voting public want. The good people of the great state of Missouri showed me an excellent answer just last week: […]
Column: Inbox Assault
By: Bruce Barry - July 27, 2020
With campaigns so thoroughly filtered through polls, press, pundits, and other words starting with p that will come to me eventually, sometimes it’s worth taking a step back, turning it all off, and looking at what candidates have to say directly to their supporters. In that spirit, then, comes the experiment in political self-harm I […]
Commentary: Home invasion
By: Bruce Barry - July 8, 2020
We can think of what Donald Trump has done to the Republican Party over the last four years as a perverse sort of home invasion: He kicked in the door, forced his way in, tied up the occupants, grabbed the silver, and busted up the place. Did the victims summon assistance? Did they call 911? […]
Commentary: When cult meets crisis
By: Bruce Barry - June 16, 2020
The cult of Trump is something that many of us have been trying to make sense of for the better part of the last four years. Conventional wisdom has it that around a third of the electorate harbors unbridled and unconditional political lust for Dear Leader, with another tenth pretty consistently disposed to like him […]
Commentary: Future Shlock
By: Bruce Barry - May 28, 2020
To judge by recent polls, Tennesseans are generally satisfied with how their leaders have handled the coronavirus pandemic, though marks are a lot higher for Nashville’s response than for the state’s. It is to be expected that political leaders will find their approval ratings juiced in times of crisis as long as they keep a […]
Commentary: Let it Bleed
By: Bruce Barry - May 11, 2020
Since the 2016 campaign, MAGAheads at Trump rallies have been regaled with the Rolling Stones’ “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” as Dear Leader’s post-bloviation anthem (over the Stones’ objections, but that’s how it goes). Whatever the song’s merits as a musical coda for the assembled agitations of red-capped masses, it turns out to […]