North America Archives - Page 16 of 22

North America

The Four Hurdles and The Four Temptations of Bernie Sanders

February 25, 2020 • by Andrew Arato

The final hurdle is the Constitution. This involves the separation of powers, a powerful Supreme Court, and federal decentralization. Each hurdle also suggests a temptation inherent in populist politics, which Sanders represents on the left, as Trump does on the right. Securing the Democratic nomination in 2020 is a tall order for ...

The Four Hurdles and The Four Temptations of Bernie Sanders

North America

The Specter of George McGovern’s Defeat in 1972

Similarities — and Key Differences — with the Prospects for Sanders in 2020

February 25, 2020 • by Bruce Miroff

Now that Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, a self-proclaimed democratic socialist, has emerged as the clear frontrunner for the Democratic nomination in 2020, the old warnings echo even louder. Veteran media commentator Chris Matthews is typical of alarmists in prophesying that Sanders as nominee would match McGovern in losing 49 states (presumably Vermont ...

The Specter of George McGovern’s Defeat in 1972

North America

Buttigieg’s Nevada Speech Was Terrific if the Goal is to Defeat Sanders Rather Than Trump

Slandering the party’s leading candidate is bad

February 24, 2020 • by Jeffrey C. Isaac

This does not obviate the real limits of the Sanders campaign and the challenges it must address moving forward, if Sanders is to successfully claim the nomination much less the presidency. On Saturday night Jacobin, the organ of Sanders’s hard-core ideological supporters, declared that “After the Nevada Blowout, It’s Bernie’s Party Now” (indeed, ...

Buttigieg’s Nevada Speech Was Terrific if the Goal is to Defeat Sanders Rather Than Trump

North America

Revisiting the Netroots, 2020 Edition

Recent reports that Russia has been interfering with the election are no surprise — but this is what to do about it

February 22, 2020 • by Claire Potter

But at Public Seminar, we have been paying attention to the corruption of what blogger Jerome Armstrong dubbed “the netroots” in 2002: grassroots political activism that occurs primarily online. In collaboration with our friends in the Eurozine network, we have a cluster of articles in this week’s issue about Disinformation. Adam Ramsay shows how disinformation, on its ...

North America

No Candidate Who Cannot Win a Majority of Delegates Deserves the Democratic Presidential Nomination

February 21, 2020 • by Jeffrey C. Isaac

I know that DSA is not a party (though it surely wishes it could be), but I wonder if the organizational rules would allow its leadership and platform to be decided by a simple plurality of the votes in open primaries throughout the country in which in most places anyone ...

No Candidate Who Cannot Win a Majority of Delegates Deserves the Democratic Presidential Nomination

North America

A Post-Impeachment Roadmap for Congress

Impeachment may be over, but President Trump is continuing his assault on the Constitution. The House can check him. Here’s how.

February 17, 2020 • by Jeffrey K. Tulis

The problem is that Donald Trump does dwell on the past. His recent impeachment has replaced his 2016 presidential election the primary focus of his resentment. He seeks to magnify the significance of his acquittal and diminish that of his impeachment. As Americans turn their attention away from impeachment, Donald ...

North America

Why Bloomberg is a Disaster for the Democratic Party

And it will take a healthy Democratic party to defeat Trumpism

February 17, 2020 • by Jeffrey C. Isaac

Enter Mike Bloomberg, billionaire tycoon, former Republican mayor of New York City, master of social media, sincere adherent of some liberal causes (gun control, environmentalism) and sincere partisan of the new Gilded Age capitalism, and -- did I forget to mention it? -- mega-billionaire. Can Bloomberg outspend Trump? Surely. Can he outsmart ...

Why Bloomberg is a Disaster for the Democratic Party

North America

The Bloomberg-Clinton Ticket is a Myth

But it points to the troubling fact that political disinformation is being deliberately spread by legitimate news outlets

February 16, 2020 • by Claire Potter

What was also predictable is that Donald Trump’s media handmaidens would find a way to bring Hillary Clinton into it. They will do this regularly for the rest of the 2020 cycle. They will do this, not just to increase the chaos, but to divert attention from the charges of ...

North America

Democrats are Haunted by 1972

Re-examining McGovern’s devastating loss — and the collapse of party unity that changed everything

February 13, 2020 • by Claire Potter

Worse, the pundit class, which should be challenging the electorate with ideas and analysis and instead seems to be taking a cultural studies approach to covering the candidates, is engaged in endless handwringing, triggered by the emergence of a viable left in the Democratic party. Because if this, they predicted a Biden boom that ...

North America

Why Bernie Is the True Feminist Choice

For feminists, this election presents a clear choice — between advancing the interests of 1 percent of women and fighting for the liberation of the rest

February 12, 2020 • by Nancy Fraser and Liza Featherstone

Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar, and their supporters, including those on the New York Times editorial board, are strongly making the case that the time has come for a woman to be president. Warren and her supporters have been especially persistent in these appeals to gender politics. If Bernie Sanders weren’t in the ...

North America

Things Fall Apart?

Perhaps, but in the shadow of Trump this is not a good thing

February 10, 2020 • by Jeffrey C. Isaac

Bruenig is one of many young writers on the left to take heart from the mainstream Democratic panic over Sanders’s ascendancy. On Facebook, Alex Gourevitch, a fine political scientist and frequent contributor to Jacobin, was even more emphatic. “The jury is out on what Bernie’s ultimate effect will be,” wrote Gourevitch, adding that ...

North America

The Trump Party Rises from the Ashes of the GOP

Retribution against those who sought to make Trump accountable begins

February 6, 2020 • by Heather Cox Richardson

“The grave question the Constitution tasks senators to answer is whether the president committed an act so extreme and egregious that it rises to the level of a ‘high crime and misdemeanor,’” Romney said. “Yes, he did.” The fact that Romney voted yes on one of the articles was really the ...

North America

The Four Hurdles and The Four Temptations of Bernie Sanders

The Specter of George McGovern’s Defeat in 1972

Similarities — and Key Differences — with the Prospects for Sanders in 2020

Buttigieg’s Nevada Speech Was Terrific if the Goal is to Defeat Sanders Rather Than Trump

Slandering the party’s leading candidate is bad

Revisiting the Netroots, 2020 Edition

Recent reports that Russia has been interfering with the election are no surprise — but this is what to do about it

No Candidate Who Cannot Win a Majority of Delegates Deserves the Democratic Presidential Nomination

A Post-Impeachment Roadmap for Congress

Impeachment may be over, but President Trump is continuing his assault on the Constitution. The House can check him. Here’s how.

Why Bloomberg is a Disaster for the Democratic Party

And it will take a healthy Democratic party to defeat Trumpism

The Bloomberg-Clinton Ticket is a Myth

But it points to the troubling fact that political disinformation is being deliberately spread by legitimate news outlets

Democrats are Haunted by 1972

Re-examining McGovern’s devastating loss — and the collapse of party unity that changed everything

Why Bernie Is the True Feminist Choice

For feminists, this election presents a clear choice — between advancing the interests of 1 percent of women and fighting for the liberation of the rest

Things Fall Apart?

Perhaps, but in the shadow of Trump this is not a good thing

The Trump Party Rises from the Ashes of the GOP

Retribution against those who sought to make Trump accountable begins

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