Democracy Archives - Page 50 of 57

Democracy

For Democracy / Against Cynicism

On Trump, McConnell, Pelosi and Company

July 31, 2019 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

“I believe the single most pressing challenge facing American society today is widespread public cynicism.” With these words, I opened my book The Cynical Society, published in 1991. I was deeply concerned by the interaction between the cynicism of politicians, on the one hand, and the cynicism of the media ...

Europe & Central Asia

Hungary: How Liberty Can Be Lost

Tyrannies always collapse, but whether Hungarians will escape with their sanity and sufficient clarity for a new start remains to be seen

July 23, 2019 • by Agnes Heller

As the Bible (Exodus) teaches and, more recently, Hannah Arendt warns, liberation is not yet liberty. The institutions of liberty must first be constituted, and people need to learn how to make them work while breathing spirit into them. The years 1989–1991 were a time of liberation for all the people ...

Democracy

Why I Believe in Communicative Action: A Response to Geuss

Discursive democracy is a culture and a praxis rather than a matter of theory

July 8, 2019 • by Laura Nelson

Raymond Geuss begins his insightful yet occasionally misleading essay, “A Republic of Discussion,” with the following three questions, each an entry point into his critical account of Jürgen Habermas’s treatment of deliberative discourse in his Theory of Communicative Action and elsewhere. Here’s my gloss on them: “Is ‘discussion’ really so wonderful?” Occasionally yes, equally occasionally no. ...

North America

The America of Small Things

“A Song for You”*

July 8, 2019 • by Maria Bucur

But I love to celebrate all those things that make the United States the place I love. Most of those “things” are the people in their beautiful diversity, with their words, looks, and especially songs. My family and I spent a good part of the July 4th holiday week with dear ...

Democracy

Thoughts on Donald Trump, George Wallace, Frederick Douglass, and the Meaning of the Fourth of July

Only we can save ourselves

July 4, 2019 • by Jeffrey C. Isaac

Donald Trump has decided to make this year’s July Fourth his own, complete with a nationally televised address in front of the Lincoln Memorial backed by a display of military force. As the Washington Post reports, “plans by President Trump to reshape Washington’s Independence Day celebration now include an area ...

North America

IHOP to Psychosis

Having Your Pancake and Eating it Too

July 4, 2019 • by Evan Malater

So hapless was this attempted rebranding that IHOB quickly became IHOP in short order. One would have thought they had learned their lesson, but a new campaign emerged that amazingly doubled down on the losing strategy of the prior failed rebranding. Only this time IHOP confusingly teased the new campaign ...

Democracy

Defeating the Prince of the Darkness of Our Times

On the 2020 Election / Against Ideology

June 20, 2019 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

I hope Elizabeth Warren will be the next President of the United States, though I would be satisfied with Joe Biden, and pleased with Bernie Sanders, Pete Buttigieg, Kamala Harris, Cory Booker or Jay Inslee, or with any one of the other sixteen or so candidates, none of whom has ...

Democracy

Brazil’s Universities Are Under Attack — And So Is Its Democracy

Brazilians are fighting to maintain their public universities

June 12, 2019 • by Daniel Peres

Cuts in the public budget are something usual -- not desirable, but normal nonetheless. What is not normal is when the cuts are justified in ideological terms. For Brazil’s new elect government, the Brazil University system is an enemy to be destroyed. Our universities, so they say, are all dominated ...

Democracy

The People’s Vote That Ended Communism

Lessons from Poland on the role of elections

June 8, 2019 • by Jim Bjork

On June 4th, 1989, Polish voters went to the polls to elect new members to the national legislature. The election was designed to produce a managed, incremental modification of the Communist regime’s four-decade-long rule. Only a third of seats in the lower house (the Sejm) were contested, and the newly ...

North America

Is Impeachment Really Optional? Sometimes a strong offense is the only defense

May 24, 2019 • by Jeffrey C. Isaac

Yesterday (Thursday) the White House announced that Donald Trump has authorized Attorney General William Barr to unilaterally declassify any documents necessary to perform an investigation of the Mueller investigation. The New York Times headline accurately summarized the move: “ Trump Gives Attorney General Sweeping Power in Review of 2016 Campaign Inquiry .” Today (Friday) Trump ...

Is Impeachment Really Optional? Sometimes a strong offense is the only defense

North America

Impeachment Will Succeed If the Process Demonstrates Very Publicly That Trump is a Tyrant Who Is Unfit for Office and the Republicans are his Enablers

That is all that can be expected, and it is enough!

May 22, 2019 • by Jeffrey C. Isaac

The Trump administration continues to refuse all Congressional oversight and make a mockery of the rule of law, while Trump himself continues to denounce the Mueller team and his political opponents as “traitors” and to rally his mobs against “enemies of the people.” Democratic Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi continues ...

Impeachment Will Succeed If the Process Demonstrates Very Publicly That Trump is a Tyrant Who Is Unfit for Office and the Republicans are his Enablers

Europe & Central Asia

Forming a New Polish Political Consciousness

Part Three: Confronting Polish Responsibility for the Shoah in Paris

May 8, 2019 • by Izabela Wagner

Editor’s note: in two prior essays on the challenges Polish scholars are confronting in their efforts to bring attention to Polish-responsibility for portions of the Shoah, Prof. Wagner discussed the origins of, and the historical and contemporary resistance to, the New Polish School of the History of the Shoah. In this ...