Politics Archives - Page 35 of 105

The Decline and Fall of American Exceptionalism

Why the perception of the Constitution will inevitably be a central part of an extended process of political self-reckoning

October 13, 2021 • by Anthony Barnett

It’s a fact that the United States is no longer the world’s pre-eminent superpower—a change that cannot help but transform America’s political conception of itself. Its decline in relative power will of course take time. The dollar still rules, the military reach of the States is unequalled. But the US has ...

The Decline and Fall of American Exceptionalism

Constitutional Politics

Chile Tries to Write a New Constitution

Progressives in the nation’s Constitutional Convention see an opportunity for creating a more just society

October 13, 2021 • by Jennifer M. Piscopo

In a national referendum held on October 25, 2020, nearly 80 percent of Chileans agreed that the country should have a new constitution, to be written at a convention attended by specially elected delegates. The vote was the climactic result of weeks of paralyzing demonstrations in 2019, as students, feminists, workers, Indigenous peoples, pensioners, and thousands of others had taken to the streets to protest economic and social injustice. With resounding majorities choosing change, Chileans ...

Constitutional Politics

Imagining a Post-Constitutional Political Culture

Amid a racial uprising and calls for “political revolution,” why pretend that our political disputes turn on the “best” reading of an eighteenth-century text, the Constitution?

October 12, 2021 • by Ryan Doerfler and Samuel Moyn

Aziz Rana’s genealogy of American constitutional veneration overturns the conventional wisdom, not merely about the chronology, but also about the reasons for this worshipful attitude towards a document drafted in the late eighteenth century. At the same time, his forthcoming book, Rise of the Constitution, is politically explosive: for it ...

Imagining a Post-Constitutional Political Culture

Constitutional Politics

How to Cure America’s Constitution Worship

Many American states have not only frequently amended their constitutions, but, at least as importantly, have replaced existing constitutions with presumably better, updated, ones

October 12, 2021 • by Sanford Levinson

“Veneration” is a term that James Madison used in Federalist 49, to express the kind of great respect he hoped the new Constitution he had helped write would command in the debate over ratification then raging in America. Yet as Aziz Rana reminds us, many of America’s most notable political ...

How to Cure America’s Constitution Worship

Constitutional Politics

Why Americans Worship the Constitution

October 11, 2021 • by Aziz Rana

In the last two centuries, 220 countries have appeared on the global stage and, between them, they have produced a remarkable 900 written constitutions. The sheer numbers are telling: For the most part, societies treat their constitutions instrumentally. When these legal-political orders break down or social upheaval brings new elites and alliances ...

Activism

New Yorkers March for Abortion Justice

A photo essay

October 6, 2021 • by Jo Freeman

Women’s Marches are becoming an annual event. The first one in 2017 was to express outrage at pussy grabber Trump’s election. Subsequent ones have varied in substance and style. They have shifted from January to October – which is is a better month for outdoor protest. This year, several hundred ...

Politics

Why Hollywood Still Can’t Change a Diaper

Passing the American Families Plan may bring us better films about dads and babies

October 6, 2021 • by Janet Golden

During a year spent at home, one new father reported that he had finally learned “how to properly wash my hands—and a baby’s hands.” A parenting resource, meanwhile, let dad know he could get down on the floor and engage his baby in age-appropriate play. In the midst of the ...

Why Hollywood Still Can’t Change a Diaper

Politics

The Moderates Have to Catch Up

In the fight over his agenda, Biden is making liberals the center

October 6, 2021 • by John Stoehr

I continue to think regime change is a useful way of understanding politics. That’s the idea that American political history turns in cycles. For 40 or 50 years, one party and its ideas prevails over the other with a majority of voters. From the 1930s to the 1970s, it was ...

Politics

Texas’s Fetal Heartbeat Law Isn’t Just a War on Women

When the pro-choice argument includes trans folx, the principles of bodily autonomy and universal healthcare grow stronger

October 1, 2021 • by Kathryn Gruszecki

When the Supreme Court refused to block the Texas Fetal Heartbeat Act in late August, the court signed off on the strictest limitations on abortion since Roe v. Wade (1973). Banning the procedure after six weeks, the Texas law’s most insidious provision permitted the court to undermine the rights conveyed ...

Texas’s Fetal Heartbeat Law Isn’t Just a War on Women

Politics

Never-Trumpers Keep Insisting that Reaganism Was Not Demagoguery—It Was

The “normal” GOP set the stage for the MAGA movement, and neoconservatives could help restore our democracy by telling the truth about what they did

September 29, 2021 • by Claire Potter

The conservative flavor of the week for liberals is Robert Kagan’s Washington Post opinion piece from September 21, 2021. It recounts, in apocalyptic terms, what everyone who cares about democracy in both parties worries about: that J6 was just the beginning; that the continuing lies and chaos that Trump and ...

Never-Trumpers Keep Insisting that Reaganism Was Not Demagoguery—It Was

Politics

Battle of the Budget

What happens when the Republicans filibuster a necessary measure to keep the government operating?

September 29, 2021 • by Heather Cox Richardson

On September 27, the Senate considered a bill to fund the government until December and to raise the debt ceiling. The Republicans joined together to filibuster it. Such a move is extraordinary. Not only did the Republicans vote against a measure that would keep the government operating and keep it from ...

Europe & Central Asia

Goodbye Merkel, Hello … Who?

The German election and what’s to come

September 29, 2021 • by Nicolas Allié

One thing is clear about the 2021 German election: it is going to be consequential. Long-time chancellor and ostensible champion of democratic values, Angela Merkel, is leaving after 16 years in office. The consequences of this action are still uncertain. Germany’s electoral system is unique. Voters elect representatives to the German parliament, or Bundestag, and they cast two votes. The first is for who will represent ...

Politics

The Decline and Fall of American Exceptionalism

Why the perception of the Constitution will inevitably be a central part of an extended process of political self-reckoning

Chile Tries to Write a New Constitution

Progressives in the nation’s Constitutional Convention see an opportunity for creating a more just society

Imagining a Post-Constitutional Political Culture

Amid a racial uprising and calls for “political revolution,” why pretend that our political disputes turn on the “best” reading of an eighteenth-century text, the Constitution?

How to Cure America’s Constitution Worship

Many American states have not only frequently amended their constitutions, but, at least as importantly, have replaced existing constitutions with presumably better, updated, ones

Why Americans Worship the Constitution

New Yorkers March for Abortion Justice

A photo essay

Why Hollywood Still Can’t Change a Diaper

Passing the American Families Plan may bring us better films about dads and babies

The Moderates Have to Catch Up

In the fight over his agenda, Biden is making liberals the center

Texas’s Fetal Heartbeat Law Isn’t Just a War on Women

When the pro-choice argument includes trans folx, the principles of bodily autonomy and universal healthcare grow stronger

Never-Trumpers Keep Insisting that Reaganism Was Not Demagoguery—It Was

The “normal” GOP set the stage for the MAGA movement, and neoconservatives could help restore our democracy by telling the truth about what they did

Battle of the Budget

What happens when the Republicans filibuster a necessary measure to keep the government operating?

Goodbye Merkel, Hello … Who?

The German election and what’s to come

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