Author

Every four years since 1988, I have voted for the Republican presidential candidate.

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.

What's true for New York is true for most of the country: We are a long way removed from the double-digit interest rates and unemployment rates, and the soaring crime rates, of the early 1980s.

France has had socialist presidents on and off since the 1920s, and it remains a free country. Socialists have ruled in many South American countries without ushering in disaster.

Upon closer examination, it's obvious that the history of modern conservative is permeated with racism, extremism, conspiracy-mongering, isolationism and know-nothingism.

The John F. Kennedy presidency, with its glittering court of Camelot, cemented the impression that it was the Democrats who represented the thinking men and women of America.

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.

There is no evidence that Republican leaders have been demonstrably dumber than their Democratic counterparts.

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.

In 1964, the GOP ceased to be the party of Lincoln and became the party of Southern whites.

Americans are in vital need of the instruction that historians can provide.

Often the process of writing can feel like spitting into the ocean.

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.

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.

My allegiance to the GOP was cemented during the 1980s, when I was in high school and college and Ronald Reagan was in the White House. For me, Reagan was what John F. Kennedy had been to an earlier generation: an inspirational figure who shaped my worldview.

Olga E. Kagan was the strongest woman I knew - and probably the reason I've spent my life with other strong women.

I don't know if I can ever change the world, but at least I can change the oil in my car.

On both sides of the Atlantic, politics has come to be dominated by vitriolic name-calling and pervasive dishonesty.

My mother and I were alike in one crucial respect: We may have been Russian by birth, but we were English in spirit. She was intensely reserved and private, and seldom showed what she was feeling.

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.