The governance, or lack thereof, of the great republic.
Imagine yourself far away, in a landlocked country in the southeastern part of Asia. You are a farmer’s wife. You have never had anything to do with politics; though you are aware that the Pathet Lao, the nation’s communist guerrillas, are plotting against the monarchy and are working with military …
Socialism has, to put it mildly, a bit of a bad reputation. This may sound like an absurd statement in this year of 2016, especially if you live your life on the internet. It has only been a few years since socialist candidate Kshama Sawant won a spot on the …
One of my historical obsessions is the Second World War and its immediate aftermath — a period which directly shaped our current political climate, but which far too many people know very little about. Almost everything we can learn about the current state of world affairs can be traced back …
I won’t be watching the Democratic National Convention this week. I don’t care for pomp in a time of hardship; I’m not interested in seeing elites congratulate themselves on their moral rectitude; and most of all, I watched enough of the dismal Republican get-together and there’s only so much shit …
It is not often that the events of a single day so crashingly drives home the lessons of a social moment. America had barely raised its head from the pillow after learning of the death in Louisiana of Alton Sterling, a black man hustling bootlegs outside of a convenience store, …
Today is the Fourth of July, America’s national holiday. Longtime readers of this site will know that every day on this year, I post a little sermon about the state of the country, always trying to follow the advice of the late, great Paul Fussell, who wrote, in BAD, or, the …
Paul Krugman, who is wrong about things slightly less often than he is right about things, was very wrong about something today. “Unless you were a victim or were close to a victim,” he tweeted, “IT’S NOT ABOUT YOU.” With all due respect to the victims of the horrendous mass …
As I have discussed elsewhere on this site, I do not actually believe that Donald Trump, the scrapings from the bottom of a dumpster behind an overpriced steakhouse, actually represents some dire worst-case scenario for America. I don’t even think he varies much from the average Republican, and the party’s …
With Hillary Clinton’s victory in California, and her definitive if a tad presumptive anointment by the press as the Official Democratic Candidate for the 2016 elections, we can move from Stupid Season into Silly Season, and from there to Oh God Why Can’t This Just Be Over season. Few people …
Barring some unforeseen development — a deeply justifiable act of propaganda by the deed, for example, or the revelation that he thinks Marine Todd is a big sissy Mary — Donald Trump will be the Republican nominee. Less than a week after dragging Carly Fiorina back out for another round …
The question has haunted some of the more politically and socially aware sections of the Internet in recent months: are police unions unions? That is, are they mechanisms for the solidarity and protection of the worker, just like any other, or are they a thing unique unto themselves, and should …
There is likely no one more qualified to have written China’s Second Continent than Howard W. French. A veteran foreign affairs correspondent for the New York Times, French is well-versed in Chinese politics and was raised in Africa by American parents. Almost a decade ago, he left the paper to pursue one …
I am an old man and I still get a lot of my news via the hand delivery of paper products, so it is no surprise that I have a hard time understanding much that is happening in the world today. I still think that art should be judged on …
I like continuity. No, scratch that: I love continuity. I realize that’s unfashionable to say these days, when the artist is king (unless it means giving them control of their own work) and there’s a reboot of the entire Marvel or DC meta-history every other month; but continuity is what keeps …
There are lots of things to regret about the surging campaign of Republican front-runner/leaking colostomy bag Donald Trump: the way the American electoral process has become the sport of clowns; the fact that he’s so badly shaken the G.O.P. that people like John Podhoretz are starting to sound sensible by …
