United States Archives - Page 48 of 73

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Is There Illiberal Democracy?

A Problem with no Semantic Solution

July 12, 2017 • by Jeffrey C. Isaac

Editor's note: This is the introduction to an in depth essay on a major problem of our times, the international development of a form of authoritarianism that uses the rhetoric of democracy. The full essay can be found here. This then will be followed with a series of commentaries, opening a new ...

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Protesting Shakespeare in Central Park

Reflections on the Meaning of Anti-theatrical Controversy

July 10, 2017 • by Lisa A. Freeman

Over the last few weeks, I've been thinking about the Public Theater's Shakespeare in the Park production of Julius Caesar, one that featured a Donald Trump lookalike. The assassination of Caesar, a key moral turning point in the play, prompted repeated right-wing protests until the production closed on June 19. ...

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Who’s Afraid of the Post-factual?

From Alternative Truth to True Alternatives

July 9, 2017 • by Emmanuel Alloa

Kellyanne Conway, the advisor to President Donald Trump, must be credited for having coined a new philosophical concept: alternative facts. When confronted with the episode in which White House press Secretary Sean Spicer had grossly misstated the figures concerning the people present at the presidential inauguration, Conway disputed that Spicer ...

Power and Crisis

Jerusalem on the Fourth of July

Reflections a bold and immoral message to Americans

July 5, 2017 • by Michael Weinman

A leftover from President Trump’s visit here in late May, the banner’s message is unambiguous. What makes it somewhat interesting is that immediately to its left we saw another banner that depicts (in a clownish and offensive way reminiscent of the Cleveland MLB team’s infamous logo) an American Indian who ...

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The Meaning of July 4th for the Negro

A speech given at Rochester, New York, July 5, 1852

July 4, 2017 • by Frederick Douglass

On July 5, 1852, abolitionist and self-emancipated slave Frederick Douglass delivered a critique of the Constitution of the United States to the nineteen members of Ladies Anti-Slavery Society of Rochester, New York and their guests. In this address, Douglass argued that the values of the Constitution existed in contradiction to the condition ...

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Jared Kushner, Quiet American

On Politics and Optics

June 30, 2017 • by James Daniel

On June 19th, Jared Kushner made his first public statement since taking the position of Donald Trump’s senior advisor. The remarks themselves, while strangely ignorant, were unexceptional. Rather, it was the revelation of Kushner’s voice, adenoidal, unexpectedly puerile, that gave rise to such media headlines as Jezebel’s “BREAKING: This Is ...

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What Does the Supreme Court’s Decision on the Trump Executive Order Mean for Refugees?

A Hopeful View

June 27, 2017 • by T. Alexander Aleinikoff

The commentary on the Supreme Court’s decision on the Trump Executive Orders has largely focused on the part of the Orders that imposed the travel ban on six predominantly Muslim countries. Less noticed have been the paragraphs at the end of the decision that discuss the Orders’ suspension of the ...

What Does the Supreme Court’s Decision on the Trump Executive Order Mean for Refugees?

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The Captivity of Otto Warmbier

Outsiders, Insiders, and Mad Kings

June 15, 2017 • by Ann M. Little

I’ve followed Warmbier’s story as closely as I can -- as closely as any of us can at this remove from the DPRK’s closed society, one dominated by an autocratic regime that is itself ruled by the whims of a mad king. At the same time, I have thought about ...

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Happy Birthday, Mr. President!

How I Can’t Stop Worrying About the Bomb and the Threat to Democracy in America

June 14, 2017 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

So it’s Donald Trump’s birthday today. Too bad Marilyn Monroe isn’t around. Nothing less than her famous greeting to John F. Kennedy would satisfy his outsized ego. His needs are profoundly disturbing, as indicated by the spectacle of the first meeting of his full cabinet. I strongly recommend that you view this ...

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Mayoral Statements on Confederate Memorials

Misrepresentation and Misrecognition, yet again (Part Two)

June 12, 2017 • by Michael Weinman

In this second part of further reflections on misrepresentation and misrecognition building on posts from earlier this year, I explore this rhetorical practice with reference to the current debate concerning the removal of statues of and to “Confederate heroes.” These debates have centered on the removal of four statues in ...

Mayoral Statements on Confederate Memorials

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Trump as Ubu Roi

On the charismatic appeal of vulgarity

June 6, 2017 • by Isaac Ariail Reed

Many are the analogies for the current President of the United States. Such analogies always contain within them theoretical debates about the nature of Trump’s appeal, the prospects for his rule, and how the coterie around him will conduct themselves in relation to Trump, in relation to each other, and ...

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The Psychopathology of the US Elections

Why Elias Canetti’s Crowds and Power is Relevant Today

June 5, 2017 • by Leonard Mazzone

When it was published in 1960, Elias Canetti’s Crowds and Power did not achieve the acclaim enjoyed by his novel Die Blendung (1935), his dramas Die Hochzeit (1932), Die Komödie der Eitelkeit (1950) and Die Befriesteten (1964) and, later, the many volumes of aphorisms and the three volumes of his ...