Trust in Political Leaders Plummets Worldwide

When it comes to political legitimacy, the more significant the expectations, the higher the disappointments

In early November 2024, PULSAR, the academic observatory of the University of Buenos Aires,  and the Konrad Adenauer Foundation (KAS), published a Spanish-language report that analyzed the social approval of national governments in 16 countries across Western Europe, North America, and Latin America. The document compiled approval ratings of presidents ...
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Trust in Political Leaders Plummets Worldwide

From Erdoğan’s Turkey to Trump’s America

What we can learn from a parallel history

In 2002, voters in Turkey—reeling from an economic crisis that halved the value of the Turkish lira and produced a 7.5 percent drop in GDP—elected a new party by a plurality: 34.3 percent of the vote.  Though hardly a resounding mandate, the margin enabled the party, an Islamist offshoot led by ...
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From Erdoğan’s Turkey to Trump’s America

The Dictatorship of the Tech Bros—or, What Is to Be Done?

A conversation about DOGE and Trump and Musk’s attempt to smash the state

Editor’s note: In December 2024, Forrest Deacon, a Humanities lecturer at Villanova University who is also completing a dissertation in politics at the New School for Social Research, approached Public Seminar, offering to write a piece about the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). At the time, this seemed like a ...
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The Dictatorship of the Tech Bros—or, What Is to Be Done?

Trump Returns

Anyone who knows what will happen in 2028 probably doesn’t know much

The following remarks were first presented on November 13, 2024, in a public lecture at the New School for Social Research. Donald Trump’s substantial victory was a big deal, but not yet a full-scale political shift. Trump made a successful move in the trench warfare that now defines American politics, ...
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Trump Returns

Curzio Malaparte’s War

The notorious war correspondent wanted to show us a civil war between different modes of industrialized modernity

Two of the most shocking books about World War II were written by the Italian fascist litterateur and dandy Curzio Malaparte. His “novels” Kaputt and The Skin have been canonized through incorporation into the wonderful series of New York Review Classics. They are hailed by luminaries like Milan Kundera, Gary ...
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Curzio Malaparte’s War

Israel’s American History

On Israel’s ambivalent relationship with the United States and OZ Frankel’s latest book, Coca-Cola, Black Panthers, and Phantom Jets: Israel in the American Orbit, 1967–1973

Historian Oz Frankel's new book, Coca-Cola, Black Panthers, and Phantom Jets: Israel in the American Orbit, 1967–1973 (Stanford University Press, 2024), examines the multifaceted and contradictory presence of the United States in Israel during a short but significant period of history. In a conversation with Claire Potter, Frankel shares the ...
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Israel’s American History

Family Values or Family Exclusion?

How right-wing policies fail working mothers

Parental entitlement policies represent a complex interplay of cultural, social, and economic priorities for far-right leaders in both Italy and the United States. On the one hand, many religiously minded conservatives uphold traditional family values, which would seem to support policies that promote marriage and the growth of families. At ...
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Family Values or Family Exclusion?

Misanthropy Is Having a Moment

A self-help guide for pessimists

If you or someone you know is experiencing symptoms of a negative outlook on humanity, then David E. Cooper’s Pessimism, Quietism, and Nature as Refuge (Agenda Publishing, 2024) might be just the book for you.  Cooper’s “negative judgement on the moral and spiritual failings of humankind” focuses readers’ attention on our ...
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Misanthropy Is Having a Moment

Schools Are for Children, Not Soldiers

Global scholasticide is getting worse

The fact that you can read this article makes it likely that you, like 7.2 billion people worldwide who completed primary education, remember spending much of your childhood at school.  Learning is, by definition, challenging, and those of us reminiscing about childhood may also remember the stresses of grappling with math ...
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Schools Are for Children, Not Soldiers

Building Black Political Power in Jackson, Mississippi

Cooperation Jackson is using the strategies of just transition to foster coalitions and shape local politics

Jackson is the capital city of the state of Mississippi and was named after the seventh president of the United States, Andrew Jackson (who was responsible for the Trail of Tears—one of many forced relocation marches for people who were Indigenous to the land—and a slave owner). Mississippi is also ...
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Building Black Political Power in Jackson, Mississippi

Mexico’s First Woman President Inherits a Crisis of Femicide

How do we reconcile these coexisting realities?

This July, two of the three party-backed candidates in the Mexican presidential elections were women. Claudia Sheinbaum, the candidate of the ruling left-wing party, MORENA (an acronym for “Movement for National Regeneration”) won with between 58.3 and 60.7 percent of the vote, the highest percentage in Mexico's democratic history. As ...
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Mexico’s First Woman President Inherits a Crisis of Femicide