Politics Archives - Page 85 of 105

Blue Monday

The Perils of Pelosi

I wish Pelosi would open up to her left colleagues, but it’s not likely to happen anytime soon

July 10, 2019 • by Jeffrey C. Isaac

Pelosi’s majority depends more on what happens in the presidential race than anything else. In 2016, the correlation between presidential votes and House votes was a near-perfect .97, higher than it had ever been before. That’s the reality of our polarized electorate, where every race is nationalized.To put it simply, if the ...

Blue Monday

The Perils of Pelosi

I wish Pelosi would open up to her left colleagues, but it’s not likely to happen anytime soon

July 10, 2019 • by Jeffrey C. Isaac

Pelosi’s majority depends more on what happens in the presidential race than anything else. In 2016, the correlation between presidential votes and House votes was a near-perfect .97, higher than it had ever been before. That’s the reality of our polarized electorate, where every race is nationalized.To put it simply, if the ...

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 ...

Blue Monday

How Much Longer Can Pelosi Keep Fiddling While Constitutional Democracy Burns?

What we need now is a Democratic leadership that believes in democracy.

June 17, 2019 • by Jeffrey C. Isaac

It has been two and a half years since Donald Trump first took his presidential wrecking ball to America’s very flawed system of constitutional democracy. It has been more than two and a half years since the Justice Department -- the FBI, the Special Counsel, lesser federal prosecutors -- first began ...

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 ...

Blue Monday

Trump, Impeachment, and the Question of Democratic Legitimacy

To allow Trump to continue to act as if he has legitimacy is simply to continue to legitimate him and his party

June 3, 2019 • by Jeffrey C. Isaac

Trump declares boldly and angrily that he is President because he won the election; that as President he is entitled to disparage long-standing governmental norms, break the law, declare national emergencies on a whim, assault the civil rights and liberties of immigrants, minorities, and women, and treat his critics, in ...

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 ...