The Models We Need

Forty years ago this week, four U.S. women were killed in El Salvador. It’s taken this long to understand the meaning of their deaths — and their lives

This week in the mountains of El Salvador people who survived that nation's civil war and its violent aftermath walked solemnly into the plaza of the town of San Antonio Los Ranchos, carrying aloft portraits of four Catholic missionaries who were killed 40 years ago. The women are remembered in ...
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The Models We Need

Yes, Democracy Can Survive Trump

When conservative officeholders and judges had to choose between party and country, some chose our country

The day after Thanksgiving, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals pulled yet another rug out from under Donald Trump’s serial attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results. Judge Stephanos Bibas rejected the claims made in the campaign’s brief as specious and excoriated ongoing attempts to exclude legitimate votes from ...
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Yes, Democracy Can Survive Trump

How to Head Off the Coming Neo-Trumpian Movement

Focus on defending democracy, not trying to appeal to racist and sexist Republican voters

“As the count currently stands, nearly 80 million Americans voted for Joe Biden,” Senator Bernie Sanders recently remarked: “With this vote against the authoritarian bigotry of Donald Trump, the world can breathe a collective sigh of relief.”  But how did Trump’s bigotry triumph in the first place?  Sanders has an answer similar ...
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How to Head Off the Coming Neo-Trumpian Movement

Joe Biden’s Masculinity Is Anything But Toxic

How republican virtue is part of manliness

“Virtue-signaling” is the idea that people say they believe something but don’t really believe it. They’re saying it to seem impressive to people they desire to impress. Everyone does this to some degree, and everyone deserves some degree of takedown. But if anyone has a corner on the market of ...
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Joe Biden’s Masculinity Is Anything But Toxic

None Dare Call It Treason

Is calling for a military coup Michael Flynn’s payback for his pardon?

On the evening of December 2, Trump’s disgraced former National Security Advisor, retired Lieutenant General Michael Flynn-- whom Trump recently pardoned after he pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his contacts with then-Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak before Trump took office-- retweeted a news release from ...
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None Dare Call It Treason

Democrats Have a Religion Problem

2020 confirms a trend of religious voters moving away from the Democrats, with a few notable exceptions

_____ In a previous essay I demonstrated that Democrats have been consistently losing ground with both people of color and people of faith in virtually every midterm and general election cycle after 2008. Republicans, meanwhile, have seen consistent gains with many constituencies. What occurred in 2016, therefore, was not an aberration – but the culmination ...
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Democrats Have a Religion Problem

What Hobbes Can Teach Us About Trump’s Lawless Reign

Or, how the rich are really different from the rest of us

As the losing Trump campaign team extends this election season beyond its typical limits, by continuing to claim that the president has, in fact, won the 2020 election, one cannot help but notice how his conduct in office has threatened long-established and respected democratic norms.  Perhaps the most prominent recent account ...
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What Hobbes Can Teach Us About Trump’s Lawless Reign

Can the Republican Party Move Forward After the Inauguration?

As Biden creates a cabinet that looks like America, Trump is determined to keep hold of a party that has courted White Supremacists for decades

At about 6:00 on Monday, Emily Murphy, the Trump appointee at the head of General Services Administration who has been holding up the transition to a Biden administration, notified President-Elect Joe Biden that she recognizes his status and will release the money set aside for the transition. This should launch ...
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Can the Republican Party Move Forward After the Inauguration?

New Voters and Bells: What Toppled Trump

In one of the most pivotal elections in our history, first-time and young voters found their voices

Joe Biden is the President Elect. As we wait for the Trump administration to finish its thrashing death throes in court, it’s important to remember in a time of vastly unequal wealth distribution (thank you Mr. Bezos!), in spite of overt attempts from Republicans to suppress voters in the 2020 ...
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New Voters and Bells: What Toppled Trump

A Chinese Student’s Perspective on America’s Presidential Election

Young Americans and Chinese have more in common than meets the eye

On the night of November 3rd, I, like many of the 360,000 Chinese students in the U.S., was compulsively refreshing the electoral map and rooting for the Democrats to win by a landslide.  In the previous four years, Chinese students had watched in shock and horror as the Trump administration relentlessly ...
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A Chinese Student’s Perspective on America’s Presidential Election

Political Tensions Rise as COVID-19 Deaths Surpass a Quarter-Million

As support for Trump begins to crumble among Republicans, the White House doubles down on efforts to cripple the incoming Biden administration

Yesterday marked a grim milestone. The official count of Americans dead of coronavirus has topped 250,000. A quarter of a million Americans, lost. Governors, including some Republicans previously opposed to ordering measures to stop the spread of the virus, are now issuing mandatory mask requirements. New York City has reached ...
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Political Tensions Rise as COVID-19 Deaths Surpass a Quarter-Million