Democracy Archives - Page 45 of 97

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Austrian Politics

Black and Blue

May 24, 2018 • by David Kretz

In December 2017, Austria got its new government, a coalition between the centre-right Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP), headed by the charismatic 31-year-old college dropout Sebastian Kurz, the world’s youngest head of state, and the far-right Freedom Party (FPÖ) — European ally to France’s Front national and official partner of Putin’s party United ...

Blue Monday

Why There Can Be No Democratic Left Without an Energetic Left

Some thoughts on disagreement

May 21, 2018 • by Jeffrey C. Isaac

"I merely took the energy it takes to pout, and I wrote some blues." -Duke Ellington A number of pieces have come across my screen in the past week commenting, critically, on the way "the radical left" has responded to Trump. One, published in the Washington Post, announced boldly that "The Far Left ...

Why There Can Be No Democratic Left Without an Energetic Left

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“Bloody Gina,” the CIA, and the Senate

Why Gina Haspel’s confirmation hearing was a democratic farce

May 15, 2018 • by Jeremy Varon

Growing up near Washington, D.C., I developed a child’s awe at the city’s great temples of democracy: its monuments to Lincoln and Jefferson; the National Archives, where the Declaration of Independence is housed; the Capitol Rotunda; and even the modern, workaday offices of Congress where the people’s business is done. ...

Blue Monday

Democracy Now

Thoughts on losing, winning, and politics

May 14, 2018 • by Jeffrey C. Isaac

"I merely took the energy it takes to pout, and I wrote some blues." -Duke Ellington In my last two “Blue Monday” columns I reflected on the theme of “consonance and dissonance” and politics. More concretely, I suggested that it is very important, especially on the broad democratic left, to promote ...

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Thinking and Acting in Grief

Dark thoughts on a bright Friday morning

May 11, 2018 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

It has been a week of trying experiences and dark thoughts at Public Seminar and The New School. Jeremy Safran, a deeply respected colleague and wonderful person, was senselessly murdered. To make matters worse, the executive leadership of our beloved institution is fighting too vigorously in a labor dispute with our beloved students, ...

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Understanding Conservative Political Incorrectness

A brief, and incomplete, intellectual history of identity politics on the right

May 9, 2018 • by Claire Potter

How do we understand the contemporary conservative pride in political incorrectness? One of the core principles of contemporary conservatism today is that identity -- race, gender, sexuality -- should neither entitle anyone to rights, nor imprison them in an ideology. Identity, conservatives argue, is something that liberals use to create constituencies ...

Understanding Conservative Political Incorrectness

Blue Monday

Primary Contests

Further thoughts on consonance and dissonance

May 7, 2018 • by Jeffrey C. Isaac

"I merely took the energy it takes to pout, and I wrote some blues." -Duke Ellington In the coming week, millions of Americans will go to the polls on May 8 to determine which candidates will run in the upcoming November general election. The November election is particularly important given the ...

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Unstable or Low-Wage Jobs Make Up More than Half of Older Workers’ Job Growth

April 2018 Unemployment Report for Workers Over 55

May 6, 2018 • by Teresa Ghilarducci

The Bureau of Labor Statistics today reported a 3.0% unemployment rate for workers age 55 and older in April, a decrease of 0.2 percentage points since March. While this number is low, we continue to hear stories of older workers struggling in the modern economy, such as Doug Schifter, a livery cab driver in ...

Unstable or Low-Wage Jobs Make Up More than Half of Older Workers’ Job Growth

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“Weaponized Babies”

Or, Damn, Why Didn’t I Think of Using That Term?

May 5, 2018 • by Janet Golden

News that Senator Tammy Duckworth brought her baby to the Senate floor for a vote thrilled some and infuriated others. Prior debate over whether babies belonged in the Senate sparked some great pro- and anti-baby remarks that pundits and scholars will enjoy parsing and quoting in coming days, weeks, months… or until ...

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The Democracy Seminar, Then and Now

An Invitation

May 4, 2018 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

We are imagining a forum for activists and thinkers who support democracy against the looming global threats of authoritarianism. The definitive feature would be openness. It would be a direct outgrowth of a small, international, at first clandestine, informal and improvised New School project, “The Democracy Seminar,” first proposed by ...

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From Velvet Revolution to Velvet Dictatorship

Reflections on Democratic Regression

May 3, 2018 • by Adam Michnik

Let me start by describing how communism died. The first thing to perish was the communist faith. And this faith had two dimensions. It was a faith in the project of a just world, a world of solidarity and freedom. And it was a conviction that people had finally deciphered ...

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A Historian Obsessed With the Present

Political memoir changes the questions I ask of the past

May 2, 2018 • by Claire Potter

If, at some point, a new diagnosis is announced that describes people who can't stop purchasing and reading books about the 2016 presidential campaign, I could be one of the first to sign up for treatment. I imagine that while wellness professionals will recommend some combination of meditation and exercise, ...