Democracy
Sen. Collins Lies About Accepting Opioid Money
In a conversation with a constituent last week, U.S. Senator Susan Collins at first flatly denied she had accepted money from both the Sackler family, owners of Purdue Pharmaceuticals, and drug company giant Eli Lilly. The Sacklers have admitted to misleadingly...
To Win On Immigration, We Have To Lead With Love
Members of the People's Action Deep Canvass team in rural Michigan The fear of change is a wedge being used to divide Americans, and weaken our pluralistic democracy. That’s the key conclusion Suzette Brooks Masters, a longtime advocate for immigrant justice, reaches...
How America Broke Up With The Democratic Party
FDR signs the Banking Act of 1935. Photo: Wikimedia Commons Many grassroots Democrats separated from their party in the 1990s, and the 2020 election may be the last chance to save the marriage. While the GOP has been trying to establish a semi-permanent ruling...
The New Know-Nothings And Why We Must Impeach
Trump’s America feels more and more like the 1850s, when our country’s violent anti-immigrant movement was born. Anti-Catholic mobs, alarmed by a rapid influx of poor immigrants from Germany, Ireland and Italy, burned churches and killed Catholics in Philadelphia and...
What Trump And The GOP Learned From Obama
As President Trump’s impeachment unspools, news coverage is buzzing about conspiracy theories and geopolitical rivalries. But at the root of Trump’s effort to extort Ukraine was a simple motive: Trump hoped to influence our elections to preserve his power and that of...
Will The 2020 Contenders Take On Inequality?
Is America’s political discourse on inequality finally getting real? In the early going of the 2020 presidential campaign, this has become a question worth asking. White House hopefuls have been condemning the maldistribution of America’s income and wealth with an...
Why Have No Republicans Turned On Trump?
Photo credit: Gage Skidmore / flickr / cc There is a very simple reason why some Republicans voted for the impeachment proceedings against Richard Nixon, but none have so far broken ranks against Trump. That reason is a corrupted U.S. Supreme Court. In 1976 (Buckley...
Progressive Ideas Are Popular, They Win - Here’s How
How do we build a bigger “we”? Anat Shenker-Osorio says we do this when we talk about race and class in a way that welcomes everybody in, and leaves nobody out. This “Race-Class Narrative Strategy,” which she and UC Berkeley law professor Ian Haney López developed in...
Is Pete Buttigieg A Shill For The Donor Class?
Photo credit: Gage Skidmore / flickr / cc Pete Buttigieg, the 37-year-old Maltese-American mayor of South Bend, the fourth-largest town in Indiana, is the shiny new object in the race to become the Democrats' candidate for president in 2020. Coming from almost...
How Social Media Amplifies Trump's Rants And Disinformation
Photo credit: White House official photo / cc As 2020 nears, disinformation—intentionally false political propaganda—is increasing and getting nastier. Central to this disturbing trend is President Trump, whose re-election campaign and allies revel in mixing selected...
