Steve Chapman: Car collisions with big rigs don’t have to be so deadly
Anytime I’m driving down the highway behind a semitruck, I look for the horizontal metal bar that spans the space underneath the trailer. It makes me feel a bit safer. And it reminds me of Jayne Mansfield.
Steve Chapman: Americans are living high at the expense of posterity
When the first world war ended 100 years ago, no one had to be told that it was an important event. Every story on the front page of The Chicago Daily Tribune on Nov. 11, 1918, had something to do with it.
Steve Chapman: America vs. the World is a losing game
The Trump administration is full of people who think that if you’re making the rest of the world mad, you’re doing something right.
Steve Chapman: The unindicted co-conspirator in the Oval Office
“Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.” — Matthew 7:17
Steve Chapman: The Trump administration is a sinkhole of sleaze
The State Dining Room in the White House is adorned with a quotation from John Adams: “May none but Honest and Wise Men ever rule under This Roof.” His wish has often gone unfulfilled.
Steve Chapman: On North Korea and Iran, Trump is deluding himself
Take a tough Republican president, a Chinese government committed to help us and a North Korean government faced with demands for denuclearization, and what do you get?
Steve Chapman: Why Trump supporters will regret his trade war
Donald Trump, who assembled a winning coalition that included manufacturing workers, farmers, ranchers, people who ride Harleys and capitalists resentful of Barack Obama, is now doing his best to turn them all against him.
Steve Chapman: Kavanaugh and the myth of strict construction
When Donald Trump announced his nominee for the Supreme Court on Monday, he said he wanted someone who could set aside his political views “to do what the law and the Constitution require.”
Steve Chapman: The Debt Clock keeps spinning
In 1989, a New York businessman who was worried about chronic federal budget deficits erected the National Debt Clock in midtown Manhattan to keep a running tally of how much the U.S. government owes.
Steve Chapman: Roseanne Barr and the persistence of prejudice
The tweet that caused an uproar that led to the cancellation of Roseanne Barr’s ABC sitcom was a reminder of the most illuminating and depressing reality of our time: the stubborn centrality of race and racism in our national life.
Steve Chapman: Sports betting will complete the gambling revolution
We think of revolutions as sudden, spectacular events, much like earthquakes or erupting volcanoes that transform the landscape overnight. But sometimes they occur so slowly and quietly that it’s possible to overlook how much change they bring about.
Steve Chapman: McCain has chosen not to forgive and forget. Can you really blame him?
If you want to lose faith in humanity, just glance at a few of the many angry comments posted on social media, especially the ones published under a political column.
Steve Chapman: Undocumented immigrants make us safer
From the beginning of his campaign for president, Donald Trump portrayed illegal immigration as a forest fire that threatens to spread rapidly and engulf us all.
Steve Chapman: Overdose deaths are the product of drug prohibition
During Prohibition, drinkers never knew what they would get when they set out to slake their thirst.
Steve Chapman: To protect Mueller, Republican silence may be shrewd
For congressional Republicans, having Donald Trump in the White House is like carrying around a vial of nitroglycerin. It can be useful in getting your way with others, but it puts you at perpetual risk of making a wrong move and being blown to pieces.
Steve Chapman: Trump should do the state of the union every week
This year’s State of the Union address was in line with past ones: a tedious and bloated exercise in Washington pageantry that ate up a lot of cable news time despite its almost complete irrelevance to how Americans will actually be governed.
Steve Chapman: The lessons we failed to heed
In Kabul, Afghanistan, American Embassy personnel who want to meet with their counterparts at the nearby U.S. military base have to travel a mere 100 yards. But they don’t make a practice of walking or driving.
Steve Chapman: The case for pessimism in the Age of Trump
If there is any single trait that defines Americans, it is optimism.
Steve Chapman: Donald Trump’s most serious flaw
Donald Trump has many serious flaws, including incorrigible dishonesty, rampant narcissism, contempt for women and a fashion sense that makes him think that hairstyle is flattering.
Steve Chapman: Politically expedient, fiscally irresponsible
The U.S. economy is humming like a bee in clover.