Author's Posts
Brazil’s politics mirror our own
November 9th, 20220 By Lee H. Hamilton Watching Brazil’s presidential election from the U.S. has been like looking into a funhouse mirror. The image looks a lot like us, for better or for worse. According to official results, challenger Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva ousted the incumbent, Jair Bolsonaro, and will take office Jan. 1. But the margin was...
We can do more to fight poverty
March 2nd, 20220 American policymakers have a very full plate. They’ve got to grapple with health care, education, the environment, economic growth and more. The list goes on and on. Along with these priorities, I have argued for some time that the policy community needs to do more to address poverty. How much time and resources should we devote to...
We must learn from the attack on the U.S. Capitol
January 20th, 20210 With a new administration taking office, it is tempting to put the disturbing events of Jan. 6 behind us. But we should not dismiss – or fail to learn from – what happened when the president of the United States incited his followers to storm the Capitol and try to overturn a lawfully decided election. The event was a dark moment...
America’s pandemic response: A national and global failure
November 25th, 20200 The COVID-19 pandemic has produced staggering levels of suffering and loss. It has caused more than 250,000 deaths in the United States while devastating the national economy. In addition, our failure to respond effectively has damaged America’s standing in the world. Every day, it seems, we set new records for infections and...
Hope is elusive in troubled Middle East
November 5th, 20200 Where is the hope for the Middle East? No matter how hard we try, it is hard to find grounds for optimism about the future of this troubled region. The Middle East has been a focus of American foreign policy for decades. The time, talent and resources that the United States has spent on challenges in the Middle East are staggering,...
America’s standing in the world
October 15th, 20200 Call it American exceptionalism or not, the American people have always embraced the idea that we live in an exceptional country. We are grateful to be Americans. We take a lot of pride in our country, as we should. Pride and patriotism are among America’s greatest strengths. Having said that, we need to be clear-eyed about our...
Nuclear weapons remain an existential threat
September 3rd, 20200 Seventy-five years ago, the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, bringing an end to World War II and sounding a warning about the devastating power of nuclear weapons. Remarkably, we have managed to avoid using these weapons in warfare again. But nuclear arms still present an existential threat and it is...
Five defining features of American foreign policy
August 20th, 20200 American foreign policy goes back to the late 1700s, when Benjamin Franklin lobbied France to support the colonies in their fight for independence from the British. Over 200-plus years, our foreign policy evolved essential features that helped make the United States the world’s indispensable nation. Robert Zoellick, a former World...
Rising China is here to stay
July 22nd, 20200 This is an election year, so we can expect a fresh round of China-bashing. American politicians love to use China as a punching bag; it never stops, really, but the trend accelerates when candidates are running for office. Some punches deserve to be thrown: China does a lot of things we don’t like. It challenges American interests,...
Talented and dedicated citizens are reason for hope in a divided nation
June 21st, 20200 Discouraging news surrounds us. It’s hard to hide from. It’s in the newspapers, on television and radio, and on the Internet. Our nation is divided and our politics are polarized. We are torn apart by disagreements over immigration and by racial divisions. A pandemic has killed more than 100,000 Americans and hobbled the economy....
Why representative democracy matters
June 6th, 20200 Over the last few years, the health of American democracy has come under great scrutiny. Polling routinely shows that Americans are concerned that democratic institutions aren’t working as well as they ought to. Inevitably, this brings up the question of whether we can mend our problems or if the system of representative democracy...
Opinion: Reasons for hope in a dark time
April 30th, 20200 We are living in a difficult time. Our country and its communities are deeply polarized; many Americans distrust one another as well as the government and other institutions. The novel coronavirus has deepened our problems in a way none of us imagined. The number of Americans who have contracted COVID-19 has surpassed a million. Tens...
How Congress has changed
April 22nd, 20200 If you feel like Congress has become less productive, less functional and more partisan… you’re right. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how it’s changed over the years since I served there in the ‘60s to the ‘90s, and several issues help explain why it often struggles to get things done. Heightened partisanship may...
Fixing the system is up to all of us
January 15th, 20200 You no doubt remember the old line attributed to Ben Franklin when he was asked what kind of government the Constitutional Convention had created: “A republic, if you can keep it!” Well, I’ve noticed an interesting thing in recent years: It’s got bi-partisan appeal. Last fall, for instance, within a few weeks of each other,...
How do we keep our democracy healthy?
November 20th, 20190 Representative democracy is based on a simple premise. It’s that ordinary citizens can make satisfactory judgments on complex public policy and political issues — or at least grasp them well enough to decide who should be dealing with them. But the significance of that premise isn’t simple at all. It means that our country’s......
There’s cause for both concern and optimism when it comes to democracy
September 3rd, 20190 Sometimes, you wonder if the world is doomed to descend into autocracy. Certainly, that’s what the coverage of the past few years suggests. We read about the nations that are already there, like China and Russia, of course, and Saudi Arabia and Iran. Or about countries like Hungary, Turkey and Poland that are nominally...
Democracy won’t die if we don’t let it
August 23rd, 20190 Democracy’s premise is that ordinary citizens can make solid decisions on complex issues. But this basic principle and the structure of laws and practices erected over the centuries to safeguard it are being questioned as rarely before. It’s not just that political leaders in various Western democracies seem to have little regard...
Let’s not just focus on elections, but on how we elect
July 22nd, 20190 A few years ago, I was at a polling place here in Indiana where a long line of people stood waiting to vote. A woman recognized me and called me over. “Why is it,” she asked, “that you politicians make it so hard and inconvenient to vote?” I thought of this the other day when I read the news reports about presidents Trump and...
How long can the federal debt keep rising?
June 27th, 20190 A few months ago, the federal debt we have accumulated over the past decades crossed the $22 trillion mark. That’s a record. And it’s surely not going to be the last. According to Congressional Budget Office estimates, annual federal deficits over the next decade — the deficit is the annual figure for how much more Congress and......
Compromise is the essence of our democracy
June 8th, 20190 You may not be ready for next year’s elections, but in political time, they’re coming up fast. Even politicians who aren’t running for president are crafting their stump speeches. Which means that at some point you’re almost certain to hear someone announce, sternly, “I. Will. Not. Compromise.” And if you’re there in the...
Political and policy skills are merging
April 2nd, 20190 Here’s a surprise: The skills that can be used to win in politics are increasingly the skills needed to produce good policy. I know. You look at the policy stalemates in Washington and wonder how this could be. The people who arrived there by winning elections haven’t shown much in the way of policy-making prowess. But let me......
What great legislators have in common
February 16th, 20190 Each of the great politicians and legislators I’ve known over the course of my career in Congress was very different. They were masters of the rules, or unassailably knowledgeable about a given issue, or supremely watchable orators or consummate students of people. But they also shared key traits that I wish more elected officials...
American politics’ great divide
February 15th, 20190 One of the more striking political developments of the last few years has been the partisan sorting of American voters. It used to be that both the Republican and Democratic parties covered some ideological ground. Now, it’s so habitual for conservatives to make their home in the GOP and liberals in the Democratic Party that party and......
