The Supreme Court confirmation battle that President Donald Trump triggered with his nomination of Brett Kavanaugh on Monday night may shine a harsh spotlight on the Senate’s historic bias in favor of small states. Kavanaugh could be confirmed by a narrow Senate Republican majority rooted in the nation’s smaller states […] Read more »
President Trump’s racially charged words dovetail with harsh policies
It started during the campaign. Donald Trump said “Islam hates us,” he called Mexicans “rapists,” and he tweeted a photo of a taco bowl to demonstrate his appreciation for Hispanic culture. As president, he said the crowd at the white nationalist rally in Charlottesville included “some very fine people.” He […] Read more »
Where Did the Radical Right Come From?
BRING THE WAR HOME The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America By Kathleen Belew … Kathleen Belew’s gripping study of white power, “Bring the War Home,” was written before the city of Charlottesville became a hashtag, and is largely concerned with activities from the 1970s and ’80s. But it is […] Read more »
How Americans see their country and their democracy
On the Fourth of July, Americans celebrate the birth of the nation and the values that have sustained the country and its democracy in the nearly 250 years since the adoption of the Declaration of Independence. Americans’ views vary when it comes to how they see the United States’ standing […] Read more »
Racism and authoritarianism go hand in hand
Two features of American politics are omnipresent in the current media landscape. First, Donald Trump’s rhetoric regarding nonwhites routinely betrays a dehumanizing prejudice. Second, there has been a proliferation of what Duke University law professor Jedediah Purdy sardonically labels “crisis-of-democracy literature,” involving Americans’ apparent rebuke of democratic norms. Neither social […] Read more »
What if Trump’s Nativism Actually Hurts Him?
President Trump’s short-lived family separation policy extended the hard line on immigration he promoted during his presidential campaign. Many analysts believe that this strategy helped him win the election by politicizing latent nativist sentiment among white Americans. … Contrary to received wisdom, however, the immigration issue did not play to […] Read more »