The Political Psychology of the President

Freud Not Orwell on Trump and his Lying

Throughout it all, Trump has acted in his grand style as the head of his yet-to-be-relinquished business where he did not report to any board of directors. Alternatively, he followed suit as that celebrity television personality who played himself as that sole decision-maker of his private business. He has been ...
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Size Matters

The Political Implications of Crowding Out the Facts with Trump’s Alternative Universe

At the end of his first full day as President, Trump dispatched his press secretary Sean Spicer to make a statement in the White House press room claiming that the press was being dishonest, even manipulating photos, in order to deny Trump’s claims that the day before on the Washington ...
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Today There Was Joy

Marching in Center City, Philadelphia

What a contrast today’s mood was to yesterday’s. Yesterday, I dusted off my “I am With Her” button and wore it proudly, but the atmosphere was one of mourning. Today there was joy: women and men, young and old, white and black and brown and all of the above, queer ...
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Rise Up

Chicago Says No to Trump

By 11am, organizers announced what was already clear: the protestors were “flooding” the route, paralyzing the march itself. They cancelled the formal march, but the crowd in Grant Park slowly inched back to Michigan Avenue, now emptied of cars and filled with celebrants. We lined the massive boulevard and stood ...
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The Day Mexico Denied Trumpism

The March on Mexico City

The gap between these two positions, one that may have closed in the last 24 hours, was apparent last weekend. On Friday, as in many other places around the world, there was a counter inaugural march in Mexico City, followed by a ‘Woman’s March’ on Saturday, and yet another on ...
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You Are More Like Us Now

Marching on Oklahoma

Oklahoma progressives are a tough lot. We're used to losing. Still we keep up the fight. When we gather for rallies or marches we see a lot of familiar faces in the small crowds that assemble. When, last week, I said my farewells to a colleague who would also be ...
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You Know It’s Serious When Nebraskans are Marching

The Women’s March on Omaha

Many march participants were clearly newcomers to the politics of protest. Even the march’s designated marshals seemed embarrassed as they implored the crowd to join them in platitudinous chants like “No hate, no fear/everyone is welcome here.” At a few points throughout the march, a group of presumably more seasoned ...
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The Day After Armageddon

Thoughts on marching in D.C.

Sure the march was more white and middle class than I would have wished. Marches on Washington usually are. Because it takes money and time to get there and back and most people don’t have enough of either one. One thing that felt different this time was that there were ...
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This is Very Bad

The London Women’s March

I sat down with the others and batted around ideas for what to write on my sign. They were already hard at work, one drawing an enormous cat, another penciling out “Black Women Deserve a Seat at the Table” in fancy cursive. I was so torn that I ended up ...
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Democrats Abroad

The Women’s March, Toronto

We looked over a mosaic of heads, 60,000 of them, on the wide lawn facing the provincial parliament, Queen’s Park. What a difference compared to yesterday’s inaugural tristesse (“inauguration,” from “augur,” v.: to portend a good or bad outcome). The women, men, children, and dogs (many dogs, ours included) behaved ...
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Her Body, Her Choice

Marching in Pittsburgh

Yet it was not only pussy hats and signs declaring that “Girls Just Want to Have Fun(Damental Human Rights).” Unlike the smaller sister march in the East Liberty neighborhood, organizers did not bill this march as explicitly committed to intersectionality -- the notion that the fight against gender and sexual ...
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From Protest to Politics

The Seattle Womxn’s March

My little group of marchers, five women and one pink-hatted man, represented modern America’s geographic and political re-sorting in microcosm. We all hailed from the red-state heartland --Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, Idaho -- and had migrated to the coasts for college and graduate school, then to the evergreen blue bubble of ...
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