Democracy Archives - Public Seminar

Democracy

Antifa Is Not a Terrorist Organization

But That Doesn’t Make It Good

August 20, 2019 • by Jeffrey C. Isaac

Simultaneously, racism and white supremacism have assumed a new importance. President Donald Trump is a virulent racist and demagogue who consorts with white supremacists, praises them, gives them aid and comfort, and even includes them as high-ranking members of his campaign (Steve Bannon) and administration (Stephen Miller). The mass murder ...

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 ...

Democracy

Could Populism Actually Be Good for Democracy?

A wave of populist revolts has led many to lose faith in the wisdom of people power. But such eruptions are essential to the vitality of modern politics.

February 25, 2019 • by James Miller

This article was originally published in The Guardian on October 11 2018. Observers have understandable qualms about political programs that are alarmingly illiberal, yet obviously democratic, in that most citizens support them. In Poland and Hungary, democratically elected ruling parties attack Muslim migrants for undermining Christian identity. In the Philippines, President Rodrigo Duterte ...

Democracy

Towards a World Wide Committee of Democratic Correspondence

Democracy Seminar 2.0

February 15, 2019 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

Such a grand imagination informs the making of Democracy Seminar 2.0, the revival of an initially clandestine New School seminar of the 1980s and early 1990s that provided a place for Eastern European dissidents to reimagine their world. As was the case in the earlier seminar, we are now following ...

Democracy

From “Islands of Democracy” to “Islands of Totalitarianism”

Notes on my conversation with Daniel Dayan about the disturbing events in France and the United States, and beyond

January 18, 2019 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

We met in our favorite Parisian workplace, La Caféothèque, and then caught up with each other elsewhere over a lunch and a dinner. We’re working on our ongoing collaborative writing project, now influenced by recent events in France and the United States. We disussed papers he is developing on a theory ...