North America Archives - Page 9 of 21

Democracy

The Showdown Between Democracy and Autocracy

Why the broad anti-Trump coalition must prepare for a post-election crisis

October 29, 2020 • by Claudia Koonz

Could democracy in the United States die? A number of troubling signs, such as Donald Trump’s refusal to endorse a peaceful transfer of power and his refusal to condemn white supremacists, lead many to worry about what has, until recently, been unthinkable. As a historian of Nazi Germany, I share this ...

Democracy

The Thin Blue Line

The Trump campaign weaves evangelicals and the alt-right more tightly into the president’s increasingly fragile base

October 26, 2020 • by Heather Cox Richardson

------ Recognizing that he is losing the demographics he needs to win reelection, Trump has clearly decided that his best bet is to spur his base to turn out in vast numbers and vote. To that end, he has given up any pretense of appealing to voters outside his base. At ...

North America

After Trump

Towards democracy and social justice

October 23, 2020 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

That, of course, is the problem. And the problem is grave. In 2016, we were worried about what Trump’s victory might mean. Now we know that things have become much worse than most of us ever imagined, and not only for us in the United States. Trump has been a revolutionary—he ...

Democracy

Why We Need to Defeat White Supremacy at the Ballot Box

North Carolina shows what can happen when anti-Black racism goes mainstream

October 22, 2020 • by Robert Korstad and James Leloudis

Across the nation, white supremacists are growing bolder while our president expresses his approval. Though we have good reason to fear the Proud Boys and other modern-day incarnations of the Ku Klux Klan, we should not focus only on these militant and sometimes heavily armed fringe groups. In the United States, ...

Why We Need to Defeat White Supremacy at the Ballot Box

Democracy

Biden is Changing What ‘Bipartisan’ Means

GOP demands used to be the beginning of Democratic thinking

October 22, 2020 • by John Stoehr

I don’t get annoyed by politicians. Not usually. I understand they must say and do things normal people would never say and do. I don’t hold them to standards I’d normally hold normal people to. Dianne Feinstein, however, is an exception. The ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee used precious minutes ...

Biden is Changing What ‘Bipartisan’ Means

Democracy

Why Are There No Protestants on the Supreme Court?

Protecting the rights of religious minorities may propel some legal scholars to the top

October 22, 2020 • by Peter Rutland and Şener Aktürk

President Trump’s decision to nominate Amy Coney Barrett for the United States Supreme Court led some Republicans to complain about anti-Catholic bias. Democrats, they charged, were suggesting that Barrett’s Catholic faith could prevent her from making independent judicial decisions. Their evidence? Senator Dianne Feinstein, during Barrett’s earlier confirmation hearing, saying: ...

Why Are There No Protestants on the Supreme Court?

Democracy

Donald Trump Politicized the Federal Bureaucracy: The Next President Needs to Reverse That

How to rebuild our broken government

October 21, 2020 • by Yevgeny Shrago and Mariama Eversley

In an effort to mitigate the political damage from failing to contain the virus and manage its corollary crises, the White House recently mandated that the Department of Agriculture include a signed letter from Donald Trump inside food boxes, claiming credit for the federal program providing food to families in ...

Donald Trump Politicized the Federal Bureaucracy: The Next President Needs to Reverse That

Democracy

Ghosts of Weimar

Is factual accuracy even the point when it comes to the discourse of antifascism?

October 15, 2020 • by Anton Shekhovtsov

Alexander Yanov, the emigré historian of Russia and Russian nationalism, was critical of major Western approaches towards post-Soviet Russia in the 1990s. He criticized the "devious simplicity" of the Western logic holding that, because a non-market Russia had been the West’s sworn enemy, a free-market Russia would become its partner. ...

Democracy

It’s…It’s…His Emails!

As voters stream to the polls, the Trump campaign frantically distracts from the GOP’s attack on democracy

October 15, 2020 • by Heather Cox Richardson

Tuesday began with a breathless story from a Murdoch tabloid, The New York Post alleging that, according to Donald Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani, Joe Biden’s son, Hunter dropped off three laptops for repair in 2019 and never picked them up again. Then, the story alleges,the FBI subpoenaed the hard drives, but ...

Democracy

The Question About Religion Someone Should Have Asked Amy Coney Barrett

This nomination brings a long-cherished Christian political project to fruition

October 15, 2020 • by Rose Thomas Bannister

I was taught at church, at school, and at home that America is a Christian nation. Judge Barrett has advocated against abortion rights, and she has two adopted children. I too was an adopted child, and in my unofficial career as a child preacher, I once sermonized that God had rescued ...

The Question About Religion Someone Should Have Asked Amy Coney Barrett

North America

Fascism for Our Time?

On the use and abuse of political concepts

October 15, 2020 • by Simon Garnett and James Miller

In August, in the midst of the Democratic Convention, the party’s most prominent progressive, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, declared on social media that this year’s Presidential race between Joe Biden and Donald Trump was about “stopping fascism in the United States.” Shortly afterward, in an essay for The New Republic, a trio ...

Democracy

Far-Right Populism is Bad Enough

On fascism, populism, and democracy

October 15, 2020 • by Jan-Werner Mueller

From more or less mad Roman emperors to -- of course -- Adolf Hitler, by now it would seem easier to name historical figures to whom Donald Trump has not been linked than ones whom he has been said to resemble. By the same token, there has been a deluge ...