Uncategorized
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Justice, Yes; Racism-Shaming, No
Yet when activists try to combat racism by calling it out, they often struggle to accomplish their goals. Focusing on Trump’s racist behavior did not keep him from winning the presidency. The Black Lives Matter movement has mostly failed to implement its Race-based strategies are especially challenging in a country where living standards have stagnated…
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Trump the Coward
If I knew anybody who was part of the riot yesterday, the first thing I'd ask him is why wasn't Trump with you when you made your assault? He said that he would parade with you the capitol, but instead he went back to the safety of the White House to watch the event on…
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Dueling Commonplaces
Eight million more people voted for Trump this year than in '16. He increased his support in exurban and and rural areas, with Latino voters, and slightly with black voters compared to '16. The only area it would appear that he lost support was in heretofore Republican leaning suburbs. That is really, really disturbing. It's…
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Quote of the Day: George Packer
Tens of millions of Americans love MAGA more than they love democracy. After four years of lawbreaking and norm-busting, there can be no illusions about President Donald Trump. His first term culminated in an open effort to sabotage the legitimacy of the election and prevent Americans from voting. His rallies in the final week of…
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De Moderatione
You might have thought that the Democratic and Republican Parties are different versions of the same thing, but that’s no longer true. As Jonathan Rauch of the Brookings Institution has noted, the G.O.P. is no longer a standard coalition party. It’s an anti-political insurgency that, even before Trump, has been elevating candidates with no political…
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Coffee Shop Chatter
Most people don't really care about politics, and they don't pay attention, so they just go with the flow. And yet the future of the country lies in their hands. It's the people in the mushy middle who cast the deciding vote. You can usually tell what the political strength of a particular political candidate…
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Quote of the Day: Ross Douthat
The destiny of liberalism, for some time now, has looked like handshake agreements among corporate, academic and media power centers, with progressive rhetoric deployed either reassuringly or threateningly, depending on what’s required to keep discontented factions within the elite in line. The promise of the Sanders campaign was that the insights of the older left,…
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Quote of the Day: Fintan O’Toole
All of these historical surpluses—the afterlives of slavery, of the deranged presidency, and of the threat of terrorism as permission to set aside legal and democratic rights—have raised the stakes in the present struggle. This mass of unresolved stuff is being forced toward some kind of resolution. That resolution can come in only one of…
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A Decency Backlash?
People my age who know a little bit about history were worried that the anger in the streets would lead to white backlash from the suburban types who think everything is fine until the dispossessed act up. The only thing that matters then is to protect themselves and theirs. Reagan is widely embraced as a…
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Anger in the Streets
A basic principle of politics: extremists suck up all the air and crowd out legitimate voices and real solutions. The political challenge of the broader society is to prevent extremism from becoming the last resort. The broader American society has failed to prevent that, and in this establishment Democrats are as culpable as the Republicans.…