Franklin D. Roosevelt Archives

How to Cure America’s Constitution Worship

Many American states have not only frequently amended their constitutions, but, at least as importantly, have replaced existing constitutions with presumably better, updated, ones

October 12, 2021 • by Sanford Levinson

“Veneration” is a term that James Madison used in Federalist 49, to express the kind of great respect he hoped the new Constitution he had helped write would command in the debate over ratification then raging in America. Yet as Aziz Rana reminds us, many of America’s most notable political ...

How to Cure America’s Constitution Worship

Feminism

Handing Power Back to the Vigilantes

Texas’s new abortion ban erodes the power of the federal government to protect civil rights, and there is no reason that this mechanism couldn’t be used to undermine much more.

September 7, 2021 • by Heather Cox Richardson

_____ The new anti-abortion law in Texas is not just about abortion; it is about undermining civil rights decisions made by the Supreme Court during the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. The Supreme Court declined to stop a state law that violates a constitutional right. Since World War II, the Supreme Court has ...

Democracy

Court Packing

Past Present Podcast, Episode 251

October 20, 2020 • by Nicole Hemmer, Natalia Mehlman Petrzela and Neil J. Young

Here are some links and references mentioned during this week’s show: The Senate confirmation hearings for Amy Coney Barrett have raised questions about the ethics of “court packing.” Neil recommended this Politico piece about the historical significance of FDR’s court packing. Natalia referenced Jamelle Bouie’s column defending the act, and Niki ...

Race

Asian Americans Suffer From Trump’s Racist Attacks Too

The long history of America’s hostility toward immigrants from China, Japan, and Korea

July 23, 2020 • by Nadia Y. Kim

We are all familiar with the racist tactics that vaulted Donald Trump into the Oval Office. He demonized Mexicans, he denounced Muslims, and he cozied up on Twitter to ardent White supremacists. In recent weeks, he’s relentlessly attacked the Black Lives Matter protests. Amid all the vitriol, it’s easy to overlook ...

Asian Americans Suffer From Trump’s Racist Attacks Too

Climate & Ecology

Let’s Make Sure We Get the Green New Deal Right

Covid-19 will force us to rethink many of the assumptions underlying existing GND proposals

July 2, 2020 • by Marshall Auerback

Advocates of the Green New Deal (GND) are looking to change the way we handle a range of problems facing society, especially in the wake of environmental challenges occasioned by climate change. In response, policymakers have suggested a variety of programs designed to deal with these challenges. Should any of ...

Let’s Make Sure We Get the Green New Deal Right

North America

What Would Good National Leadership Look Like Now?

How best to address America’s current crises

June 11, 2020 • by Desmond King and Rogers M. Smith

The United States is in the midst of three national crises: a public health crisis, an economic crisis, and a civil rights crisis provoked by racist police brutality and structural racism. Each demands national responses and leadership. Designed to prevent centralized tyranny, the American federal system has always had trouble marshaling a ...

What Would Good National Leadership Look Like Now?

COVID-19

Be Strong

An Open Letter to My Students, Children, and Grandchildren

May 14, 2020 • by Eli Zaretsky

Be strong: The virus has laid bare the complete lack of leadership in both political parties and to a great extent in the media as well. Bernie Sanders is the only figure in recent times that one can call a visionary leader, proposing a future that you all will need ...

Politics

Social Programs Are Not Socialism

Conservatives have been gunning for New Deal programs for decades

February 9, 2020 • by Heather Cox Richardson

One of the reasons the nation’s deficit and debt is soaring is that Trump’s 2017 tax cut slashed tax revenues. And rather than helping regular Americans, “the plumbers, the carpenters, the cops, the teachers, the truck drivers, the pipe-fitters, the people that like me best,” as Trump put it, 60% ...

Democracy

Politics, Pessimism, and Populism

We have lost the sense of the possible that social democracy injected into postwar liberal democracy

November 15, 2018 • by Sheri Berman

The rise of right-wing populism is probably the most pressing problem facing Europe today. Many analysts, including myself, have linked the rise of populism to the decline of the social democratic or center-left. Many traditional social democratic voters now vote populist; social democracy’s embrace of a “kinder, gentler” neoliberalism opened a policy “space” ...

Uncategorized

Karski’s Tragedy

Introduction of Nicholas Kristof at the Spirit of Jan Karski Award Ceremony

November 6, 2016 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

On November 1, 2016, in Tishman Auditorium of the New School, I had the honor to introduce Nicholas Kristof, this year's honoree at the Spirit of Jan Karski Award Ceremony. My introduction was informed by the works of Hannah Arendt and Erving Goffman, as they speak to each other and ...