Essays Archive - Page 43 of 131

A Tale of Two Democracies

How a movement that claimed to be democratic undermined the rule of law

June 28, 2021 • by Sidney Tarrow

_____ “Democracy,” wrote Charles Tilly, “does not resemble an oilfield or a garden, but a lake. A lake,” he continues, can come into being because a mountain stream feeds into a naturally-existing basin, because someone or something dams up the outlet of a large river, because a glacier melts, because an earthquake ...

Columnists

‘There Was Nothing There’

Barr calls BS as the ground gives way under the Big Lie

June 28, 2021 • by Heather Cox Richardson

_____ The big news this week was a series of interviews that former attorney general William Barr did with Jonathan D. Karl of The Atlantic: Barr emphasized that former president Donald Trump’s claims that he had won the 2020 election were “bullshit.” What is interesting about this is not the idea that ...

The New School

A Sanctuary from Double Betrayal

What The New School could do for its students from China

June 28, 2021 • by Mark Larrimore and Lei Ping

_____ The New School has one of the most international student bodies of American universities, including students from many Asian countries. Asian international students are celebrated among the graduates and alumnae/i, especially of Parsons School of Design, but while studying here they often find curricula that marginalize their traditions and ignore ...

Columnists

Ethel Rosenberg’s Story

Anne Sebba’s new biography liberates this radical woman from a concocted Cold War narrative that concealed her courage

June 23, 2021 • by Claire Potter

_____ Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, the young married couple executed for treason as Soviet atom spies 68 years ago this week, are seldom discussed as separate people. I had never noticed this before reading Anne Sebba’s new biography, Ethel Rosenberg: An American Tragedy (St. Martin’s Press, 2021), but it isn’t an ...

Columnists

Not One Senate Republican Is For the People

The right to vote is under assault as the GOP defends a government by white men, for white men

June 23, 2021 • by Heather Cox Richardson

_____ There were three important takeaways from this week’s Senate vote on whether to begin debate on S1, the For the People Act, the bill that would protect voting rights, end partisan gerrymandering, establish new ethics rules for federal officials, and curb big money in politics. The first is that Senator Joe ...

Not One Senate Republican Is For the People

Columnists

Michigan’s Midwestern Pact

A bipartisan compact bill with lots of sponsors!

June 23, 2021 • by Pat Garofalo

_____ A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about how a bipartisan coalition helped sink Texas’ Chapter 313 program, once of the worst corporate subsidy programs in the nation. At the opposite end of the country, more evidence that strange political marriages can result in positive change was provided last week ...

Politics

How the Left Took Power in Peru

Castillo imagines a new politics

June 23, 2021 • by César J. Castillo García

_____ In his closing statement as a leading candidate in Peru’s last presidential debate on May 30th in Arequipa, Pedro Castillo, the favorite of the left-wing Perú Libre (PL) party, promised that if he became President, there would be “no more poor people in a rich country.” The second-biggest producer of copper ...

Columnists

Big Tech’s Affordable Housing Hustle

Take what you can, give a little bit back

June 23, 2021 • by Pat Garofalo

_____ Amazon announced last week that it’s going to spend $125 million on loans and grants to developers to build affordable housing near mass transit stations around its “HQ2” in Northern Virginia. It also announced similar programs in Nashville, Tennessee and its original home of Washington State. These payouts are part ...

Columnists

Conservative Democrats are Telling Stories About Republicans that Republicans Keep Blowing Up

Will being made a fool change Joe Manchin’s mind? Probably

June 22, 2021 • by John Stoehr

_____ The Democrats in the United States Senate will take up a procedural vote later today to debate of a handful of measures to overhaul the country’s voting laws. All eyes are on Joe Manchin, the conservative Democrat from West Virginia, who has offered his own voting proposal in addition to ...

Conservative Democrats are Telling Stories About Republicans that Republicans Keep Blowing Up

History

I Read Mein Kampf So That You Don’t Have To

Four aspects of Hitler’s manifesto that matter for us today

June 22, 2021 • by Erich Christiansen

_____ During Donald Trump’s racially charged 2016 presidential campaign, many people started wondering to what extent Trump and his followers could be compared with Hitler and the ideology of the National Socialist movement that he led. One place to start to answer that question would be by reading Mein Kampf, (“My ...

I Read <em>Mein Kampf</em> So That You Don’t Have To

Columnists

Amazon’s Top to Bottom Subsidy Scam

Amazon doesn’t need your money. The company’s executives just want it, ask for it, and too often get it

June 21, 2021 • by Pat Garofalo

_____ In 2017, Amazon launched a much-hyped search for a new office, which it dubbed “HQ2,” setting off an unprecedented wave of city and state officials crafting incentive packages to win the corporation’s favor. More than 200 cities ultimately submitted bids, promising Amazon hundreds of millions, and in some cases billions, ...

Migration

Can Refugee Scholars Hold the Line?

Why the theoretical line that separates forced migrants from other persons on the move may not be sustainable

June 21, 2021 • by T. Alexander Aleinikoff

_____ My title doesn’t refer to whether refugee scholars should help others fend off attacks from governments and populist parties that are intent on destroying the international protection regimes we study. Most of us are already so engaged. Rather, I am asking a conceptual question about the nature of refugee scholarship: does ...

Essays

A Tale of Two Democracies

How a movement that claimed to be democratic undermined the rule of law

‘There Was Nothing There’

Barr calls BS as the ground gives way under the Big Lie

A Sanctuary from Double Betrayal

What The New School could do for its students from China

Ethel Rosenberg’s Story

Anne Sebba’s new biography liberates this radical woman from a concocted Cold War narrative that concealed her courage

Not One Senate Republican Is For the People

The right to vote is under assault as the GOP defends a government by white men, for white men

Michigan’s Midwestern Pact

A bipartisan compact bill with lots of sponsors!

How the Left Took Power in Peru

Castillo imagines a new politics

Big Tech’s Affordable Housing Hustle

Take what you can, give a little bit back

Conservative Democrats are Telling Stories About Republicans that Republicans Keep Blowing Up

Will being made a fool change Joe Manchin’s mind? Probably

I Read Mein Kampf So That You Don’t Have To

Four aspects of Hitler’s manifesto that matter for us today

Amazon’s Top to Bottom Subsidy Scam

Amazon doesn’t need your money. The company’s executives just want it, ask for it, and too often get it

Can Refugee Scholars Hold the Line?

Why the theoretical line that separates forced migrants from other persons on the move may not be sustainable

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