By Rachel Wagner (January 8, 2019) Has anyone else noticed that Trump only talks about one issue at a time, like for months? For a while it was Hillary. For a while North Korea. Healthcare for a while. There were others. Now it’s nothing but wall wall wall. This successive “single issue” approach is likely intended to just keep us…
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By Mark Naison (December 17, 2018) Because of things we have in common-age, race, gender and size- I often compare myself to Donald Trump. Why didn’t I turn out the way that he did? Why am I not, in my public persona, filled with rage and bitterness? Why is spreading happiness more important to me than appealing to people’s fears…
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By Arun Gupta (November 8, 2018) Everyone should be deeply disturbed what happened in the election. One seasoned electoral activist told me it was “A blue wavelet with a strong red undertow.” The Democrats lost crucial Senate and gubernatorial races, made only modest gains in state legislatures, and had a middling performance in the House. This election should have been…
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By Marc Cooper (November 7, 2018) I don’t know about you, but I wasn’t expecting a revolutionary seizure of power in the midterms. I was hoping that a significant step would be taken to stop forward movement by Trump. It did. Taking the House by the Dems means that Trump is a legislative lame duck for the rest of his…
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By Mark Naison (November 5, 2018) There are going to be a lot of people who are going to wake up November 7 shocked at how many people voted for candidates who embraced a message of hatred and division. I won’t be. I am an historian of race and immigration in the United States. Electoral majorities passed the Jim Crow…
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By Joseph Orosco (November 2, 2018) Mark Bould shows us that if you know the science fiction of alien invasion you can pretty much analyze the reasoning behind Trump’s proposal for Space Force: “Vice President Mike Pence’s August 9 Space Force press junket made clear that this great big bullying blustering pussy-grab for space, this effort to Make America Great…
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By Joe Lowndes (October 31, 2018) I’m unsure whether the question of whether Trump has the Constitutional authority to revoke birthright citizenship is the right one. Almost all legal scholars from left to right appear to agree that he doesn’t. But it also seems like whistling past the graveyard to say that this is merely a ploy to rally the…
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By Mark Naison (October 27, 2018) My heart goes out to the families and friends of those killed and wounded in the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting, and to everyone who feels a little more vulnerable and a little less secure as a result of this horrendous act. Everyone stoking the flames of hatred bears some responsibility for the political climate that…
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By Mark Naison (July 26, 2018) Those who think that the low official unemployment rate signals a return to prosperity for working class and middle class Americans or that it guarantees Donald Trump’s re-election in 2020 are not seeing what I am seeing on the ground. In the working class neighborhood of Eastern Long Island where we have a home…
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By Mark Naison (July 17, 2018) I understand being angry at liberals and leftists. But when you are willing to first tolerate, and then applaud open appeals to racism to get back at them, you are walking down a very dangerous path, the path trod by Hitler and his German supporters. Make no mistake about it, those who continue to…
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By Todd May (July 12, 2018) Here’s something I don’t understand: a campaign against Kavanaugh. I get that Democrats are supposed to vote against him. But a real campaign against him? That’s where our energy is supposed to go? I think folks who want this don’t realize that they’re getting played. Kavanaugh is conservative Republican establishment. Is he awful? Yes,…
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