James H. Rudy Professor of Political Science at Indiana University, Bloomington

North America

With Impeachment, Messaging is Everything.

And the Democrats seem behind the curve.

December 9, 2019 • by Jeffrey C. Isaac

Strategic communication. Trump’s White House has eliminated press briefings, viciously attacked the press and indeed all independent media sources, and organized a cynical and relentless campaign of disinformation via Twitter, Facebook, Fox News, Breitbart, YouTube, the One America News Network, and a range of other media. Trump in office -- with the ...

With Impeachment, Messaging is Everything.

North America

Who is the Audience for the Judiciary Committee Hearing?

An Evaluation of the House Democratic Leadership’s Performance

December 5, 2019 • by Jeffrey C. Isaac

I have long expressed my exasperation with the timid way in which the House Democratic leadership has only reluctantly moved toward impeachment, even in the face of the damning Mueller Report, and then has proceeded in the most narrow and legalistic way imaginable. Trump is a very dangerous President, and it ...

Who is the Audience for the Judiciary Committee Hearing?

North America

A Lesson from Watergate

How Democrats Should Broaden the Impeachment Charges

December 4, 2019 • by Jeffrey C. Isaac

That is a very welcome development for two reasons: because Trump’s record of malfeasance extends far beyond “Ukraine,” and because, as I have been arguing for months, impeachment necessarily points beyond impeachment, to November 2020. Democrats thus need to present as strong an overarching narrative of Trump’s malfeasance as possible. ...

Democracy

Does academic freedom matter to conservative intellectuals?

Budapest Blues

November 21, 2019 • by Jeffrey C. Isaac

It’s a dark time for liberals. The leaders of the world’s three most powerful countries—China’s Xi Jinping, Russia’s Vladimir Putin, and the U.S.’s own Donald J. Trump—are all authoritarians of one kind or another. Each, in his own way, wraps himself in the mantle of “the people,” and targets independent ...

Does academic freedom matter to conservative intellectuals?

North America

Brief Midday Thoughts about Sondland and the Impeachment

Only politics can save us!

November 20, 2019 • by Jeffrey C. Isaac

Only this can save us, if we can yet be saved. I have long argued that impeachment proceedings are one necessary form of resistance to the Trumpist assault on liberal democracy and that such proceedings ought to be understood primarily as political rather than narrowly legal processes. Everything that is now ...

North America

A Great Opportunity Missed

The Democrats should’ve exposed Republican Hypocrisy and Cynicism about Corruption

November 14, 2019 • by Jeffrey C. Isaac

The lowest point of the Republican questioning came when efforts were made, by Jordan and others, to suggest that Trump’s insistence on Ukrainian investigations into Biden, Bursima, and Crowd Strike was based on his deep and sincere commitment to fighting corruption in a corrupt country. This suggestion is risible. And yet ...

Latin America & Caribbean

Legitimacy and Democracy in Bolivia

Rejecting Simplistic Readings of the Morales Ouster

November 12, 2019 • by Jeffrey C. Isaac

It is clear that one important dimension of this polarization was the defection of important elements of the police and the armed forces. The New York Times reported that “Bolivian Military Asks Morales to Resign to Ensure Stability,” quoting General Williams Kaliman, the chief military commander: “"After analyzing the internal conflict situation, ...

North America

Impeachment Must Be More Than Impeachment

Politics as Performance and Spectacle to Defeat Trumpism

November 8, 2019 • by Jeffrey C. Isaac

If an avalanche felled the tree, does it make sense to focus only on the fallen tree and to ignore the broader and more terrifying cataclysm that caused it? House Democrats, apparently buoyed by last Tuesday’s election results, are prepared to begin the public hearing phase of their Trump impeachment inquiry. ...

North America

Wall Street Critiques of Progressive Democrats Ring Hollow

November 6, 2019 • by Jeffrey C. Isaac

I’ll save you some time: it’s a nasty, polemical hit job on Elizabeth Warren. Its core claim is neatly summed up in its subtitle: Warren’s “big government plans would damage rather than improve our economy.” Rattner rehearses the conventional criticisms of Warren’s ambitious agenda, with special attention, of course, to ...

North America

Simple Is Sometimes Simplistic, and Stupid

Is it Really Smart to Narrow the Impeachment?

October 22, 2019 • by Jeffrey C. Isaac

A focused impeachment that builds public support is surely a good thing; I’ve been arguing this for the past six months. But it seems extremely foolish to believe that focus can only be achieved through a narrowing of vision, and it seems worse than foolish to believe that Trump’s other abuses of power ...

North America

Democrats Need to Treat Impeachment More Politically

Holding hearings in public now would be a start

October 19, 2019 • by Jeffrey C. Isaac

The story reports on the information shared with the House Intelligence Committee by Fiona Hill. But why did the New York Times not question the fact that Hill was testifying in private? Hill is only the most recent current or former national security official to be deposed by the House Intelligence Committee about this latest, and ...

Blue Monday

Anti-Semitism at the Bard Conference?

When early reports don’t tell the whole story about a protest

October 14, 2019 • by Jeffrey C. Isaac

This is why I re-posted a powerful piece by Batya Ungar-Sargon entitled “I Was Protested at Bard College for Being a Jew” (Forward, October 12 2019) on Facebook. In the piece Ungar-Sargon reported that she was protested “for being a Jew” because a panel discussion on anti-Semitism featuring her and ...