On the Chelsea Bombing
Trying to Think about Terrorism and Everyday Life
How to Effectively Ban Abortion
On the Polish Black Monday Strike and its Consequences
Football and Protesting: America’s Pastimes
Rap’s Civility Game
The 1950s, American Greatness, And Trump’s Brand Of Nostalgia
If you’re unfamiliar with the advertising firm of Ogilvy & Mather, consider this: What James Madison did for the US Constitution, Ogilvy did for advertising. Ogilvy was a champion of pragmatism and a fierce romantic, a combination that made for advertising that reflected the cultural fantasies of the ...
Will We See Justice for Alton Sterling or Philando Castile?
Less than two years ago, a Ferguson grand jury decided not to return an indictment in the shooting death of Michael Brown. The grand jury announced their decision on the evening of November 24, 2014. There had been about 70 hours of testimony and over 60 witnesses. (NPR ...
Hannah Arendt on American “Social Slavery”
A few years after fleeing the fascist tidal wave in Europe and finding refuge in New York City, Hannah Arendt penned a letter to her mentor and confidant Karl Jaspers, commenting briefly on the peculiarities of American politics and society. She remarked, “The fundamental contradiction of the country is political ...
Voting Dangerously: Britain, Europe, and the United States
Back in 2015, the French woke up having to mobilize against the threat of Marine Le Pen’s National Front party, infamously nationalist and anti-immigrant, after its overwhelming victory in the first round of regional elections in 2015. Earlier that year, Poles elected a president endorsed by the Law and Justice ...
Eleven Theses on American Democracy
‘We, The People’ In Polish
One country’s response to a right-wing takeover
The Committee in Defense of Democracy (Komitet Obrony Demokracji, or KOD) appeared to start suddenly out of thin air. It is now the biggest mass mobilization of Polish citizens since the days of Solidarity 25 years ago. On the one hand, this is clearly a response to the electoral victory ...
Populism, Representation, and Sanders
A Reply to Mueller
In a recent article published on Public Seminar, Jan-Werner Mueller affirmed that populism is by its very nature not only anti-elitist, but also anti-pluralist: “Populists claim that they, and only they, represent the people.” He then attacked the undemocratic tendency populist politicians show when they lose the elections: they “begin to ...