Marc JohnsonMay 14, 20206 minThe Next Wave“The Republican states are in strong shape,” Donald Trump said last month. “I don’t know — is that luck or is that talent?” The president...
Marc JohnsonApr 17, 20206 minKnow Nothings…My political education began in the 1970s in South Dakota. An uncle served in the legislature as a Republican and later a top aide to a G...
Marc JohnsonApr 9, 20207 minToo Big For One Man…“A pandemic is a lot like a forest fire,” then-President George W. Bush said in 2005. “If caught early it might be extinguished with limi...
Marc JohnsonMar 6, 20204 minDon’t Do It…More than 80 years ago, spurred on by sportsmen worried about creeping politicizing of management of the state’s wildlife resources, Idah...
Marc JohnsonJan 23, 20205 minThe Senate on Trial…You may have heard a number of references this week to the Senate impeachment trials of two former presidents, Andrew Johnson and Bill Cl...
Marc JohnsonJan 17, 20205 minThe GOP Prairie Fire…In his scathing takedown of the modern Republican Party – How the Right Lost Its Mind – the conservative former Wisconsin radio talk show...
Marc JohnsonNov 8, 20194 minIt Will Get Harder…The Trump defending Idaho congressional delegation was reminded yet again this week of the dangers involved in shielding a president who ...
Marc JohnsonOct 4, 20194 minWhere Will They Find Their SoulsIdaho has had its share of political scandals and usually they involve money or sex — or, not infrequently, stupidity. The state’s politi...
Marc JohnsonSep 20, 20195 minSunshine…The half-life of a failed political campaign is normally about 15 minutes. You lose and you’re forgotten pretty quickly even though the l...
Marc JohnsonSep 13, 20194 minShow Up, Ask a Question…Republican Congressman Greg Walden represents a vast swath of Oregon in the House of Representatives. His huge district stretches from th...
Marc JohnsonAug 30, 20195 minLeadership FailureThe shambolic, incoherent, incompetent, lie-infested and often just plain crazy foreign policy of Donald Trump was on full display in rec...
Marc JohnsonJul 19, 20194 minIt’s the Racism, Stupid…(This piece originally appeared in the Lewiston, Idaho Tribune.) It is hardly news that in the space of less than a week 28 hard right Re...
Marc JohnsonJul 5, 20195 minDelusional…Idaho Republican elected officials, with a couple of notable exceptions, seem unable to control, let alone influence their party. In poli...
Marc JohnsonJun 7, 20194 minA Nothing Burger…Nine days ago Robert Mueller III, the decorated former Marine Corps officer, the former assistant attorney general who prosecuted Panaman...
Marc JohnsonMay 3, 20194 minOperating at the FringeMy father used to joke that every little town has its town character; an odd, interesting or off-the-wall person who everyone in town und...
Marc JohnsonApr 12, 20194 minThe Tyranny of One Party Rule…In his brilliant little book, On Tyranny, the historian Timothy Snyder offers citizens in a modern democracy 20 lessons from 20th century...
Marc JohnsonMar 15, 20194 minUtter Disdain…On July 7, 1938, three avid Idaho outdoorsmen — R.G. Cole, Homer Martin and Dan McGrath — walked into the Idaho Secretary of State’s offi...
Marc JohnsonMar 8, 20194 minWait. Wait.By all appearances Idaho State Senator Brent Hill, the Rexburg Republican who is the president pro tem of the state senate, is a thoughtf...
Marc JohnsonFeb 15, 20194 minA Short History of Reapportionment“The past is never dead,” the great novelist William Faulkner wrote in Requiem for a Nun. “It’s not even past.” In the spirit of Faulkner...
Marc JohnsonDec 14, 20184 minMoral Rot…My weekly column from the Lewiston Tribune ———– In the wake of the latest revelations about the president of the United States the extent...