Essays Archive - Page 63 of 131

Could a Form of “Liberal Fascism” Help Solve the World’s Problems?

Rediscovering H. G. Wells

December 14, 2020 • by Emma Planinc

In September 2020, in conjunction with the annual meeting of the United Nations, the World Economic Forum organized a summit meeting on what its leader, Klaus Schwab, was calling “The Great Reset.” The Forum convened leaders “from government, business, international organizations and civil society along with a diverse group of ...

Could a Form of “Liberal Fascism” Help Solve the World’s Problems?

Democracy

Stoking the Flames

The Trump wing of the Republican Party continues its attacks on American democracy as the COVID-19 death toll continues to rise

December 10, 2020 • by Heather Cox Richardson

Today’s big story remains the loss of our neighbors to COVID-19. On Wednesday, the official United States death count for 24 hours passed the number of those killed in the 9/11 attacks. On that horrific day in 2001, we lost 2,977 people to four terrorist attacks. On Wednesday, December 9, ...

Politics

Trump Lied His Way In and Is Lying His Way Out

What 20th-century fascists can teach us about the need for truth in the 21st-century

December 10, 2020 • by Ryan Skinnell

In a bizarre 46-minute address, given from the White House and posted to social media on December 2, Donald Trump gave (in his words) “the most important speech I’ve ever made.” Intended to describe the means by which the 2020 election was “stolen” from him, and supplemented with graphs that ...

Trump Lied His Way In and Is Lying His Way Out

Capitalism

How Do We Process the Loss of Our Homes?

A talk with filmmaker Swetha Regunathan

December 10, 2020 • by Jeannette Estruth

By all measures we are living in an era defined by housing crises, a flood of human habitat destruction. The losses are both economic and environmental. Over 17 million people in 2018 alone were displaced from their homes because of climate change–associated disasters, according to the United Nations. Here in ...

How Do We Process the Loss of Our Homes?

Columnists

The Rev. Raphael Warnock Speaks With Righteous Religious Authority—and I Would Know

Yes, Christians can be pro-choice

December 9, 2020 • by John Stoehr

As you know, the Rev. Raphael Warnock is running to represent the state of Georgia in the US Senate against incumbent Republican Kelly Leoffler. Their runoff next month, as well as the one between Democrat Jon Ossoff and Republican David Perdue, is the site of intense national focus. If the Democrats ...

The Rev. Raphael Warnock Speaks With Righteous Religious Authority—and I Would Know

History

Why Race Still Matters

We don’t need to know what race is — we need to know what it does

December 9, 2020 • by Alana Lentin

————— The work, most prominently, of anthropologist Franz Boas and sociologist W. E. B. Du Bois in the early twentieth century went a long way to establishing the predominantly correct view that race has no basis in actual physical differences between groups of human beings. The anthropologist of race Ashley Montagu, ...

Politics

How Should We Acknowledge the Sovereignty of Indigenous Peoples?

An ethical and aesthetic defense of Indigenous sovereignty

December 9, 2020 • by Benjamin P. Davis

It has become fashionable for some academics at some universities in North America to place at the end of their email signatures a nod to the Indigenous land that their institutions now occupy. Some concerned faculty write a statement of their own. Others—I think this is a better option—compose their statements ...

How Should We Acknowledge the Sovereignty of Indigenous Peoples?

Democracy

On Repression and Resistance

December 8, 2020 • by Aysen Candas

I would like to start by thanking the New University in Exile Consortium, particularly the Consortium's marvelous director, Prof. Arien Mack. Thanks to Arien's persistent efforts, uprooted academics from all over the world find their voice in a new community of like-minded scholars. I would also like to thank Prof. ...

Democracy

Donald Trump’s Lies

Why presidential falsehoods are part of United States political history

December 8, 2020 • by Eric Alterman and Claire Potter

Do Americans think presidential lying no longer matters? Perhaps a better question, journalist and historian Eric Alterman asks in his new book, Lying in State: Why Presidents Lie—and Why Trump is Worse (Basic Books, 2020), is whether it ever mattered to voters. Following in the tradition of Isadore F. “Izzy” ...

History

QAnon Will Outlast Trumpism

How a conspiracy theory was born in the Great War and made its way into the 21st century

December 7, 2020 • by Emily Sandercock

For the past three years, someone using the alias “Q” has been posting updates to internet forums, supposedly from within the so-called “deep state.” The posts allege a conspiracy: Donald Trump, they say, is fighting a secret war against a cabal of pedophiles and Satanists entrenched in the government. Soon, ...

Migration

Migration as a Claim for Reparations

The connections between political agency and migration

December 7, 2020 • by Lea Coffineau

In October 2016, Hussein and I met over coffee at a Tunisian pastry shop in the north of Paris to follow up on his administrative battle with the French government. We had spent months filing paperwork together, building the strongest possible case for his asylum application. Hussein had fled Sudan ...

Migration

Trumpism and the Banality of Evil

More reflections on challenges of historical comparisons

December 4, 2020 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

I am astonished that it has come to this. I have long understood that the American political system is flawed. White supremacy is knitted into its fabric. The electoral college is a monster that has undermined majority rule and is now being used by Trump and his supporters in their quest ...

Essays

Could a Form of “Liberal Fascism” Help Solve the World’s Problems?

Rediscovering H. G. Wells

Stoking the Flames

The Trump wing of the Republican Party continues its attacks on American democracy as the COVID-19 death toll continues to rise

Trump Lied His Way In and Is Lying His Way Out

What 20th-century fascists can teach us about the need for truth in the 21st-century

How Do We Process the Loss of Our Homes?

A talk with filmmaker Swetha Regunathan

The Rev. Raphael Warnock Speaks With Righteous Religious Authority—and I Would Know

Yes, Christians can be pro-choice

Why Race Still Matters

We don’t need to know what race is — we need to know what it does

How Should We Acknowledge the Sovereignty of Indigenous Peoples?

An ethical and aesthetic defense of Indigenous sovereignty

On Repression and Resistance

Donald Trump’s Lies

Why presidential falsehoods are part of United States political history

QAnon Will Outlast Trumpism

How a conspiracy theory was born in the Great War and made its way into the 21st century

Migration as a Claim for Reparations

The connections between political agency and migration

Trumpism and the Banality of Evil

More reflections on challenges of historical comparisons

Newsletter

Connect With Us