Republicans have soured on higher education. Sixty-seven percent of Republicans in the U.S. have “some” to “very little confidence” in colleges and universities, according to a recent Gallup survey. And a 2017 Pew Research Center survey shows that 58% of Republicans say colleges and universities have a negative effect on […] Read more »
The populist challenge to liberal democracy
On November 29, William A. Galston delivered the fourteenth annual Seymour Martin Lipset Lecture on Democracy in the World. … In his remarks titled “The populist challenge to liberal democracy,” Galston examines sobering events of the past quarter century and the emergence of an internal threat—driven by populists—facing liberal democracy today. […] Read more »
How Roy Moore Survives
In a curious way, the sex-abuse allegations against Roy Moore, the Alabama Republican Senate candidate, may actually be helping his campaign. The continuing conundrum for his Democratic opponent, Doug Jones, is that nowhere near enough Alabamians believe the allegations. Indeed, a noticeable backlash has hyper-energized Mr. Moore’s volunteers and a […] Read more »
How a Democracy Dies
We tend to think of democracies dying at the hands of men with guns. During the Cold War, coups d’etat accounted for nearly three out of every four democratic breakdowns. … By and large, however, overt dictatorships have disappeared across much of the world. Violent seizures of power are rare. […] Read more »
The GOP is trying to pass a super-unpopular agenda — and that’s a bad sign for democracy
Tax experts are in widespread agreement that the GOP tax cuts are bad policy — a giveaway to the rich paid for by the middle class and poor, with little upside for the economy. But Congress writes legislation that experts hate all the time. What’s really striking is that the […] Read more »
The Closing of the Republican Mind
When Ronald Reagan passed his historic tax cut in 1981, he won support from 25 Democrats in the Senate and 113 in the House. When George W. Bush passed his sweeping tax cut in 2001, he won support from 12 Democrats in the Senate and 28 in the House. But […] Read more »