Although developments on the political front were certainly dispiriting, for the first time in years, the economic news was not all gloomy. But with the economy improving, there was less focus on the continuing need to address flagging incomes, rising inequality and unbalanced government spending. Below are 10 charts to […] Read more »
What does it take to win the Democratic nomination in 2016?
Get out your pitchforks, Democrats! A showdown over populism is coming. The core of the problem is the decline of Democratic support among white working-class voters. White voters without a college degree made up 36 percent of the midterm electorate this year. They voted nearly 2-to-1 Republican. … Now an […] Read more »
Learning from 2014 and Turning to 2016
Now that we are getting the second and third level dissections of Campaign 2014 from thoughtful Democratic analysts, we thought it would be a good time for a review. The starting point for the post-election discussion amounted to efforts to reassure dispirited Democrats that the 2014 election was typically unique […] Read more »
The Rise of ‘Welfare Chauvinism’
… In the United States, the besieged two-party system has remained intact, protected by a 200-year-old tradition and an electoral system that cuts short any bid to create a viable third party. There are two major costs to this stability: recurrent gridlock, which constricts legislative action, and a failure to […] Read more »
Taking account of 2014
People should be accountable for what they write. As a graduate student, I spent far too many hours in a dank and darkened room with a TV set and a VCR recording evening news broadcasts. It struck me that much of what was “predicted” in those broadcasts — a military […] Read more »
Many Feel the American Dream Is Out of Reach
Despite an improving economy and jobs picture, the public is more pessimistic than it was after the 2008 financial crisis that it is possible to work hard and become rich, according to a New York Times poll. … Notwithstanding the bleaker view of upward mobility, a majority of those polled […] Read more »