Politics Archives - Page 60 of 109

Democracy

Why Trump Could Win Again

Democrats must respond to rising inequality and the working class

September 17, 2020 • by Timothy Kuhner and Benjamin Page

A mere six weeks away from the 2020 election, the polls remain in flux. Some suggest that Biden is performing better than Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John Kerry did, while other polls place Biden behind Clinton. Evidence of the race tightening with Hispanic and white working-class voters suggests an ...

Democracy

The United States Post Office is in Trouble

The strange fate of the United States Postal Service

September 16, 2020 • by Ryan Yursha

As I turn onto the northbound entrance for the New Jersey Parkway and speed through the EZ-Pass lane, I take a look at my clock--I have less than two hours to make the 60-mile journey from Brick, New Jersey to Newark Penn Station, find parking, hop on the train, and ...

The United States Post Office is in Trouble

Politics

Is the TikTok Deal Another Level of Trumpian Corruption?

Threatening China’s ByteDance may have forced a deal that benefits a campaign donor

September 15, 2020 • by David Lieberman

----- Here’s one more chore that Joe Biden should add to his Day One presidential to-do list: launch an investigation into whether the Trump administration improperly steered the U.S. operations of the world’s hottest new social media platform, TikTok, into the hands of one of his most important supporters, Oracle co-founder ...

Is the TikTok Deal Another Level of Trumpian Corruption?

The Media

Jessica Krug and Racial Identity Theft

Past Present Podcast, Episode 246

September 15, 2020 • by Nicole Hemmer, Natalia Mehlman Petrzela and Neil J. Young

Here are some links and references mentioned during this week’s show: George Washington University historian Jessica Krug has been posing as a Black woman for years, and recently outed herself online. Neil referred to Martha Sandweiss’ book, Passing Strange: A Gilded Tale of Love and Deception Across the Color Line. Natalia ...

Democracy

Donald Trump: Democracy’s Mirror image?

Modern liberal democracies can always cancel themselves

September 15, 2020 • by Philip Manow

______ In a modern representative democracy, power alternates via elections. Or, as one minimalist definition puts it: ‘democracy is simply a system in which incumbents lose elections and leave when they lose’.[1] But since they only leave after the event, democracy on this account of it can only ever prove itself ex-post. ...

Democracy

What Americans Can Learn from the Lebanese

Inspiration amid the ruins of Beirut

September 14, 2020 • by Roxana Toma

______ On August 4, 2020, 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate stored at Beirut’s port blew up, destroying the city’s main commercial hub and damaging large areas of the Lebanese capital. The blast killed more than 170 people, wounded more than 6,000, left nearly 300,000 homeless, and caused damage worth $10-15 billion. Lebanon ...

What Americans Can Learn from the Lebanese

North America

“Alternative Facts” Produce Real Disasters

As Trump officials hide the truth to support the boss’s re-election campaign, Americans become more ill-informed — and vulnerable — than ever

September 13, 2020 • by Heather Cox Richardson

----- Saturday night, at about 10:30, reporter Dan Diamond posted another blockbuster story in Politico. Political appointees at the Department of Health and Human Services have been altering the weekly scientific reports issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), reports that track the course of the coronavirus pandemic. These ...

“Alternative Facts” Produce Real Disasters

Democracy

White Liberals Must Face the Truth: Donald Trump Represents all Republicans

The GOP isn’t a deranged cult. It’s a party of dangerous politics

September 10, 2020 • by John Stoehr

----------------- Ezra Klein, a prominent white liberal, is the top editor at Vox. During August’s Republican National Convention, he tweeted something I think we should address head-on. “This isn’t a political party,” Klein said. “It’s a personality cult.” There are good reasons for making such a claim. The president’s most ardent supporters exhibit traits ...

White Liberals Must Face the Truth: Donald Trump Represents all Republicans

Race

The Danger of Race Reductionism

Two prominent Black leftists warn that simplistic views about “white supremacy” will undermine the fight for social justice

September 10, 2020 • by Rogers Brubaker

At the end of May, prominent leftist political scientist Adolph Reed Jr. was slated to give an online talk cosponsored by the Philadelphia and New York City chapters of the Democratic Socialists of America. But even though Reed was a strong Bernie Sanders supporter, and happens to be Black, some ...

History

When Empires Implode

Does the collapse of the Inca empire teach a lesson about the contemporary United States?

September 10, 2020 • by Stefania de Kenessey

The Inca empire has long fascinated me: young, brash and stunningly successful, this mighty South American kingdom vanished virtually overnight. Recent developments make me wonder whether the United States empire faces a similar implosion. Some of the parallels — admittedly far from perfect — are nonetheless remarkable. The Inca empire rose up ...

Democracy

Scotland Is Stuck

The Scottish National Party is more popular and powerful than ever – but also boxed in to a constitutional stalemate with the UK

September 3, 2020 • by Simon Jones

------------- “Stick with it Scotland,” say the billboards in Glasgow. It’s a slogan applying both to the continued need to keep wearing masks and to practice social distancing, as the country enters a phase of localised measures to restrict movement in the ongoing Covid-19 crisis after a comprehensive lockdown in spring and ...

Democracy

Do They Deliver for You?

Postage stamps and the paradox of democracy

September 3, 2020 • by Laura Goldblatt and Richard Handler

Those were the good old days, right? Looking at those stamps from the perspective of our present public health crisis—when Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, a Trump crony who appears to be hamstringing the United States Postal Service (USPS) so that people will not be able to use the mail to ...