Politics Archives - Page 60 of 112

Past Present

The Proud Boys

Past Present Podcast, Episode 249

October 6, 2020 • by Nicole Hemmer, Natalia Mehlman Petrzela and Neil J. Young

Here are some links and references mentioned during this week’s show: At last week’s presidential debate, President Trump drew attention to the all-male street gang, the Proud Boys, when he told them to “stand back and stand by.” Niki commented on the group’s founder, Gavin McInnes. Natalia discussed how the example ...

Politics

COVID-19 Snaps Donald Trump’s Spell

There’s no going back now

October 5, 2020 • by John Stoehr

But a presumption lurked behind the question: that Donald Trump would be shooting live ammunition. What if he was shooting harmless blanks, though? What if his victims were paid to pretend to be dead? What if the whole thing was staged so a “billionaire outsider” only looked like he could break the rules, deny consequences and get ...

North America

Malarkey!

As Donald Trump spins increasingly wild fantasies, the campaign tries to contain him and the Proud Boys stand by

October 1, 2020 • by Heather Cox Richardson

----- So, what was happening while we were distracted by Donald Trump’s shocking performance in the first presidential debate this week? First, the President's tax returns, publicized daily by the New York Times since last Sunday, have taken a back seat to his support for the white supremacist gang the Proud Boys and his ...

Democracy

Detroit’s Project Green Light and the “New Jim Code”

Why video surveillance and digital technology intensify racism

October 1, 2020 • by Vince Carducci

————— Over the last three and a half years, the City of Detroit has greatly expanded Project Green Light, an initiative of the Detroit Police Department (DPD), along with local businesses and other organizations, to use video surveillance and digital technology to fight crime. Since the first cameras went live in ...

Detroit’s Project Green Light and the “New Jim Code”

North America

Joe Biden Faces Down the Fascist Donald Trump

Biden’s “Will you shut up, man” is the signature takeaway line from the debate

September 30, 2020 • by John Stoehr

CNN’s Jake Tapper is a highly conventional and thus highly respected news anchor. The Daily Wire’s Ben Shapiro is a venomous toad beneath contempt and unworthy of recognition. In setting them side-by-side I risk tarnishing Tapper’s good name, but it’s worth it to make a point about the press corps’ ...

Joe Biden Faces Down the Fascist Donald Trump

Democracy

Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Past Present Podcast, Episode 248

September 30, 2020 • by Nicole Hemmer, Natalia Mehlman Petrzela and Neil J. Young

Here are some links and references mentioned during this week’s show: At age 87, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died earlier this month. Natalia referred to historian Jeffrey Melnick’s Twitter thread on the appropriative nature of the term “Notorious RBG” and to the book by the same title. Niki recommended ...

History

Oh Say Can You Sing?

Why America has the national anthem it deserves

September 29, 2020 • by Ginger Dellenbaugh

For years there have been calls to replace the national anthem with something more appropriate, more modern, more singable. Suggestions have ranged from the stalwart "America the Beautiful" to, most recently, Bill Wither’s "Lean on Me." As physical monuments around the country are being dismantled or questioned for their relevance, shouldn’t ...

Politics

I Am Ignoring Amy Coney Barrett

And you should too — because she will be confirmed, Trump is trolling us with this nomination, and we have an election to win

September 28, 2020 • by Claire Potter

I doubt that Barrett drinks a lot of beer or is prone to nasty sexual behaviors. The only thing that could stop her confirmation is a new and damaging revelation about the charismatic, evangelical Catholic group, People of Praise, to which she and her family belong. This is unlikely, and ...

Capitalism

QAnon as a Byproduct of a Broken America

Alienation, anxiety, and religion

September 28, 2020 • by Martin Shuster

QAnon is a conspiracy theory alleging that the current president of the United States, Donald Trump, is battling an organized and criminal deep state—which also happens to be a Satan-worshipping cabal of pedophiles engaged in sex-trafficking—and that this battle is moving towards an apocalyptic showdown in which our president will ...

QAnon as a Byproduct of a Broken America

Democracy

Restoring vs. Packing the Court

Metaphors Matter

September 25, 2020 • by Robert Ivie

With the death of Ruth Bader Ginsberg and the likelihood of her quick replacement by yet another Trump nominee, talk of packing the Supreme Court has intensified. Of course, all such talk is rendered politically impracticable if Democrats fail to sweep the 2020 election. Even if Democrats should win control of ...

Activism

Remembering and Resisting the Age of Reagan

An activist historian advises his students that the choices they make now will shape their future

September 24, 2020 • by James Goodman

______ It was November 1980, two months after my girlfriend and I moved to New York City from Boston, where we had met a year before. I had just started in the M.F.A. program at Columbia and she had just started a job at a small press, managing the production of ...

Remembering and Resisting the Age of Reagan

Democracy

The GOP Reshaped America to Hold Onto Power—Can the Dems Do the Same Thing to Save It?

Mitch McConnell understands holding minority power requires ruthless brutality

September 24, 2020 • by Thom Hartmann

In the power grab to fill the Supreme Court seat announced the same evening as the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Mitch McConnell didn’t do anything new. The GOP has a long history of playing hardball power politics. In the late nineteenth century, Republicans added four states (Nevada, Colorado, North ...