San Francisco is quite familiar with earthquakes, and what happened Tuesday — the ouster of three extreme lefties from the Board of Education — was not one of those. Earthquakes are sudden and unexpected. The result of Tuesday’s recall was neither. The removal of board members Gabriela López, Faauuga Moliga […] Read more »
There’s a Reason Trump Loves the Truckers
The truckers’ protest in Ottawa is the latest barrage from the world’s disaffected in the revolt that found expression in the 2016 election of Donald Trump; the 2017 Unite the Right march on Charlottesville, Va.; the rise of QAnon; and the Jan. 6 insurrection in the halls of Congress. One […] Read more »
How restrictions on teaching about race and sexual orientation have ‘hijacked’ parents’ concerns about Covid
The pressures of the coronavirus pandemic are reconfiguring the politics of education, dividing Democrats and creating new openings for Republicans. Both sides of that equation will be on display Tuesday in a recall election for three school board members in San Francisco, one of the nation’s most liberal cities. The […] Read more »
The Supreme Court’s ‘Dead Hand’
The Supreme Court has set itself on a collision course with the forces of change in an inexorably diversifying America. The six Republican-appointed Supreme Court justices have been nominated and confirmed by GOP presidents and senators representing the voters least exposed, and often most hostile, to the demographic and cultural […] Read more »
The fight isn’t over whether America will be a democracy, but what kind of democracy
I and others often say that the partisan conflict in the United States puts our democracy at risk. And it’s true. But that framing implies that the core conflict is about democracy — as if we have one side that supports fair elections while the other prefers dictatorship. But the […] Read more »
Status Anxiety Is Blowing Wind Into Trump’s Sails
What is the role of status discontent in the emergence of right-wing populism? If it does play a key role, does it matter more where someone stands at any given moment or whether someone is moving up the ladder or down? … It is hardly a secret that the white […] Read more »