United States Archives - Page 19 of 73

Blue Monday

Further Thoughts on Why I Hope Biden Goes Away

He offers too little, beyond nostalgia, at a time when much is called for.

April 15, 2019 • by Jeffrey C. Isaac

Last week I offered a critique of a Joe Biden candidacy that centered on the idea that “he is looking backward at a time when we need to move forward, and he is inviting the Democratic Party, and the American public, to move backward with him.” I stand by this argument; ...

Further Thoughts on Why I Hope Biden Goes Away

Blue Monday

Bye Bye Biden

The weakness of his entire candidacy is that he is looking backward at a time when we need to move forward

April 8, 2019 • by Jeffrey C. Isaac

“The more one suffers, the more, I believe, has one a sense for the comic.” – Søren Kierkegaard There is much suffering in the Age of Trump. The principal source of grief is Trump himself: what he does and doesn’t do, what he says and doesn’t say, and what and who is ...

Feature

Reforming Congress is an Achievable Goal

John Lawrence’s Testimony before the House Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress

April 6, 2019 • by John Lawrence

Thank you for your invitation to appear today at this hearing, my first from this side of the dais. I want to offer four observations that, along with the advice from these distinguished congressional scholars, may help guide the work of this Select Committee. Despite the cynicism of many critics inside ...

Feature

Stolen Land, Standing Ground, and the Viral Spectacle of White Entitlement

“Land gets stolen, that’s how it works”

April 4, 2019 • by Alyosha Goldstein

This article is part of a series of texts published on Public Seminar in the lead-up to the Digital/Debt/Empire symposium in Vancouver in late April 2019, convened by Benjamin Anderson, Enda Brophy and Max Haiven. The graphic convergence of anti-Black and anti-Indigenous violence in the name of self-defense emerges with unmistakable clarity in the recent ...

Stolen Land, Standing Ground, and the Viral Spectacle of White Entitlement

Feature

American Russophobia in the Age of Liberal Decline

Under President Donald Trump, US–Russian relations have entered a new phase

March 28, 2019 • by Andrei P Tsygankov

Accusations of Russian interference have become the primary route through which to undermine Donald Trump. In order to sustain public outrage, media and political elites provide a constant flow of leaks, rumors and conspiracy theories. Failing liberal self-confidence is to blame for the return of Cold War rhetoric, argues Andrei ...

American Russophobia in the Age of Liberal Decline

Migration

Border Crisis?

How American Policies Have Produced a Generation of Refugees

March 26, 2019 • by Michelle Mayhew-Shears and Heather M. Salazar

On October 18, 2018 President Donald J. Trump continued his detrimental practice of using Twitter to fuel the already hot immigration debate. He said, in part, “I am watching the Democrat Party led (because they want Open Borders and existing weak laws) assault on our country by Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, ...

Blue Monday

Trump, The Mueller Report, and Democracy

Very Preliminary Thoughts on an Unfolding Story

March 24, 2019 • by Jeffrey C. Isaac

[Note: this piece was filed on Sunday at 2 pm, revised after the release of Attorney General Barr’s letter at 4 pm, and refiled for publication at 6 pm. God only knows what will transpire in the interim.] The issue has always been the need to defend democracy by addressing its ...

Trump, The Mueller Report, and Democracy

Feature

It’s The Real Economy, Stupid

Wealthy political pundits are living in an alternate reality

March 21, 2019 • by Neil Kraus

Bill Gates caused quite a stir when he recently tweeted a graphic produced by Our World in Data (a Gates Foundation-funded organization) indicating how much progress the world has made in combating poverty over the last two centuries. Critics rightly seized on Gates’s observation as well as the data and analysis, quickly dismantling the ...

Democracy

Neither Debs Nor Brandeis, Or Why it is a Mistake Now to Exaggerate Differences on the Left

Defeating Trump Politically Part 8

March 18, 2019 • by Jeffrey C. Isaac

In his recent Jacobin piece, “You Can Have Brandeis or You Can Have Debs,” Shawn Gude insists that it is important to be clear about who is a socialist and who is not. He maintains that Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders “draw their lineage from distinct political traditions,” and that “Warren’s ...

Neither Debs Nor Brandeis, Or Why it is a Mistake Now to Exaggerate Differences on the Left

Feature

The East in You Never Leaves

We self-censored. We followed the rules. We complied.

March 16, 2019 • by Julia Sonnevend

There is a certain type of post-Soviet anxiety that manifests itself in fear of state authorities, border controls or even doormen. The memory of 1989 may have largely faded, but the feeling of being ‘eastern’ has stayed with many – not least those who have built up lives and careers ...

Democracy

On Socialism / Against Ideology

Goodbye Gray Friday, joining Democracy Seminar 2.0

March 15, 2019 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

It’s frustrating. I see this clearly. I want you to see it. But you just can’t, or is it you won’t? I know my judgment goes against the grain of the prevailing social science and popular opinion. It requires a specific understanding of ideology that comes out of bitter experience, ...

Blue Monday

We Must Stop Using Hyperbole that Foments Needless Anger and Division Among Progressives

Defeating Trump Politically Part 7

March 11, 2019 • by Jeffrey C. Isaac

The tag line on Facebook poses the question: “Is Diane Feinstein a Bigger Climate Threat Than Trump?” The headline of the actual article in The New Republic is less curious: “Diane Feinstein is a Bigger Climate Threat Than Trump.” The actual article, and the author who wrote it, is done a great injustice ...