Politics
Campaigns
An organizer asks: What if Democrats tried real outreach? See also, A Master Class in Organizing on the Ezra Klein Podcast with Jane McAlelevey.
This author suggests some lessons that the Democratic Party should take from unions as they adjust to an environment in which the opposition has been successful in convincing voters that politics is futile and that they should not even bother to participate.
After fifteen years of organizing in working-class communities in "Working America," the community affiliate of the AFL-CIO, this organizer has advice for the Democratic Party. "As any couples counselor will tell you, it doesn’t work to go up to a stranger and pick a fight with them about what they 'know' and believe. You can, however, provide new information and pivot to common ground. A big part of Trump’s base is not going to change. But about half of the swing voters we spoke to were willing to support politicians who took their economic problems seriously."
Conservatism
Political scientist Jacob Hacker explains how the Republican Party and Donald Trump manage to cobble together a coalition of plutocrat and populist voters. You can listen to the segment or read key excerpts here: https://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2020/07/24/gop-party-of-the-rich
A leading contemporary conservative thinker expounds on the concepts of liberty and progress and how both conservatives and liberals have become confused about what these things really mean. https://www.firstthings.com/article/2014/10/taking-the-long-way
How did the religious right get politicized? Abortion wasn't the key issue--school integration was according to this Dartmouth professor. https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/05/religious-right-real-origins-107133
Democracy
The Light that Failed: How the West is Losing the Fight for Democracy, is a book about the fate of democracy in the world. At the end of the Cold War it seemed that democracy was unstoppable and on the rise throughout the world. Now it is under threat everywhere. What happened. NYT book review here. New Amazon page here.
Elections
Go HERE for readings on the election of 2016 and the Trump presidency.
The most consequential outcome of the 2020 election will be which party gets control of the state legislatures, because those legislators will draw a legislative district maps for the next 10 years.https://nyti.ms/33SeMBm
The Supreme Court declined to rule the gerrymander unconstitutional. Is there another way to make legislative districting fair? https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/13/opinion/sunday/partisan-gerrymandering.html
This former HIS550 student, the illustrious Emmett Shell, writes a compelling defense of ranked choice voting. https://www.sunjournal.com/2018/12/16/first-time-voters-deserved-better-than-poliquins-lawsuit/?fbclid=IwAR3k5mLSRnPJgvLeU4e0r1hPZZYrBU4zOykDFDjVVINhxIDq8AtiCDQzRuE
Carol Anderson on how voter ID laws are purposefully aimed at disenfranchising black voters. Her new book is provocatively titled "One Person, No Vote." https://www.dissentmagazine.org/blog/booked-how-to-pick-an-electorate-with-carol-anderson?utm_source=Dissent+Newsletter&utm_campaign=9cd9068a88-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_12_04_COPY_02&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_a1e9be80de-9cd9068a88-83204801
Author predicts that the results of the 2018 election will lead to a day of reckoning for either the Democratic or the Republican Party. http://thefederalist.com/2018/08/21/years-midterms-key-trump-republicans-future/
Op ed author accuses Georgia Republican candidate for governor of being a master of suppressing Democratic votes. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/11/opinion/sunday/brian-kemp-enemy-of-democracy.html
The Supreme Court has upheld an Ohio voter registration policy that Democrats say is aimed at purging Decmocratic voters from the rolls. Will Republicans in other states enact similar laws?https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/11/us/politics/supreme-court-upholds-ohios-purge-of-voting-rolls.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news
New York Times editorial on a Supreme Court case involving Gerrymandering in Wisconsin. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/29/opinion/gerrymandering-supreme-court.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-left-region®ion=opinion-c-col-left-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-left-region
Was the 2016 election hacked? https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/01/us/politics/russia-election-hacking.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news
An election in Kenya was nullified after evidence of hacking. What happens to democracy when the people can't trust the integrity of elections? https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/01/world/africa/kenya-election-kenyatta-odinga.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fworld&action=click&contentCollection=world®ion=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=sectionfront
National Review debunks Clinton's claim that voter suppression cost her the election. https://www.nationalreview.com/2017/05/virginia-voter-fraud-report-noncitizens-voted-illegally/
On the impact of geographical sorting on election results. Did you know that Trump won 2,626 counties to Clinton's 487? https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/23/opinion/campaign-stops/go-midwest-young-hipster.html
Elections--2018 Midterms
"How voter suppression could swing the midterms." See the graphic comparisons between margin of victories and number of voters barred from voting. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/27/opinion/sunday/voter-suppression-georgia-2018.html
Surprisingly, this liberal Democrat has a chance of defeating Ted Cruz for US Senate from Texas. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/31/us/politics/beto-orourke-dreams-of-one-texas-ted-cruz-sees-another-clearly.html?fallback=0&recId=1A6Zl0cKuMaFgJAiFU2ZLLesr2A&geoContinent=NA&geoRegion=VA&recAlloc=als1&geoCountry=US&blockId=signature-journalism-vi&imp_id=667813848&action=click&module=editorContent&pgtype=Article®ion=CompanionColumn&contentCollection=Trending
Author predicts that the results of the 2018 election will lead to a day of reckoning for either the Democratic or the Republican Party. http://thefederalist.com/2018/08/21/years-midterms-key-trump-republicans-future/
Federal Government/Constitution
The U.S. Senate, according to political scientists Frances E. Lee of Case Western Reserve University and Bruce I. Oppenheimer of Vanderbilt, is "the most malapportioned legislature in the world." http://prospect.org/article/senatorial-privilege
A summary of Eric Nelson's analysis of the American Revolution and Constitution, The Royalist Revolution, which argues that the Constitution represented a triumph of monarchists over democrats, and that the American system of government is uniquely fragile and unstable. "This is a system that requires a particular set of political norms, " Nelson said, "and it can be very dangerous and dysfunctional where those norms are not present." An ominous statement in the age of Donald Trump. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/10/our-fragile-constitution/403237/
Liberalism
The term "liberal" is complicated, confusing, has evolved over time, and is often misunderstood. Article also includes links to other articles on Liberalism. http://bostonreview.net/politics/helena-rosenblatt-what-we-talk-about-when-we-talk-about-liberalism
Isaiah Berlin, "Two Concepts of Liberty" (1969). Some argue for a definition of liberty as "freedom from" interference or coercion by other people--negative liberty; others insist that humans are only truly free when under conditions that allow them to realize their truest selves, their full human potential. Both views have merit and we get into trouble when we seek a "final solution" to the problem of defining liberty and finding the one true line between freedom and restraint. http://faculty.www.umb.edu/steven.levine/courses/Fall%202015/What%20is%20Freedom%20Writings/Berlin.pdf
Local/state politics and government
Boston City Counselor talks about how holding a block party in your neighborhood can improve civic culture and save democracy. http://edition.pagesuite.com/popovers/dynamic_article_popover.aspx?artguid=65cd10aa-237a-4f2b-a200-eaf4b595e1d5&appid=1165
The polarization and contentiousness of national politics seems to be trickling down to the local level. http://www.seacoastonline.com/news/20180912/all-three-kensington-selectmen-resign?rssfeed=true
New Hampshire's system of government is quite unique. This article explains how it works. http://www.governing.com/topics/politics/gov-what-we-can-learn-new-hampshire-politics.html
States have been called "laboratories of democracy." A new study shows how prolific various states have been in developing policies that have caught on in other states. Massachusetts' leadership position has slipped of late, and California is the current leader in pioneering legislation. http://edition.pagesuite.com/popovers/article_popover.aspx?guid=7a610dee-8a09-4783-85fe-9a39b56e97ce
James Fallows and his wife Deborah traveled around the country and ended up with a very optimistic take on the state of the nation. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/05/reinventing-america/556856/ And here’s a link to their continuing coverage, a series of articles on specific locales. https://www.theatlantic.com/our-towns/?dclid=CP-JwO-d5uICFVZGNwodoc4Ezw
Media and Journalism
What's going on at the New York Times? Lots. This summer, a generational conflict that seems to presage the end of the notion of objective journalism and the "view from nowhere." Times reporter Wesley Lowery calls for a new approach to objectivity that rejects false equivalency and embraces "moral clarity." Lowery links to three articles critical of the new approach to objectivity and moral clarity, by three journalists--Paul Starobin, Andrew Sullivan, and Matt Taibbi--that Lowery categorizes as "hysterical." A writer for New York Magazine recounts what went on behind the scenes at the Times. Connected to the controversy between "institutionalists" and "insurrectionists" was a tweet storm by Bari Weiss, who left the paper and published this resignation letter in July.
Read about "Resistance Journalism" in Mother Jones, November 2019; and in the Times; The Wall Street Journal; The Intercept; Fox News; The New Republic; the Columbia Journalism Review in May 2020. Ronan Farrow's response tweet. Related: https://taibbi.substack.com/p/the-news-media-is-destroying-itself
Bernie Sanders Has a Plan to Save Journalism. https://newrepublic.com/article/154872/bernie-sanders-plan-save-journalism
President Trump and Fox News at odds, summer of 2019. A lover's spat, or a permanent rupture? https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/08/30/fox-newss-commendable-necessary-rebuke-trump-demand-sycophancy/?wpisrc=nl_most&wpmm=1
Thomas Frank argues that there the media bias is opposed to leftists like Bernie Sanders as well as conservatives. He bases this conclusion on an analysis of opinion pieces on Bernie Sanders during the 2016 Democratic primaries. https://harpers.org/archive/2016/11/swat-team-2/
THis article aos points According to this fact checking article, President Obama treated Fox News a bit like Trump treats the rest of the press. https://www.factcheck.org/2018/09/obama-fox-news-and-the-free-press/
According to one New York Times writer, "coverage of Mr. Trump may eclipse that of any single human being ever." And it's not just in the news media, but also in entertainment. Some of this can be attributed to the impact of social media on what is emphasized in the news. A number of commentators (including Bernie Sanders) have noted how the obsession with Trump is preventing us from focusing on other important issues. As the NYT author put it, 90 percent of the news now focuses on Trump, but Trump is not 90 percent of what's important. Fox notes that liberals and conservatives lament the obsession with "Trump porn" for different reasons. Trump's former campaign manager says that all the focus on controversies surrounding the president have obscured his many successes. This piece cites statistics on how much time has been spent on Trump controversies vs. important issues. A question raised in all of this commentary: who is to blame--the media or its consumers?
Trump's attacks on the media are inaccurate and damaging to democracy. But the media isn't perfect either. This year's White House correspondent's dinner seemed to confirm a lot of the right's negative views of the mainstream Washington Press corp. By NYT columnist Frank Bruni. https://nyti.ms/2GwIk8B
Trump's assault on the media is only the latest chapter in Conservatives' 50-year campaign against the "liberal mainstream media." http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2018/04/25/why-trump-is-winning-and-the-press-is-losing/
The fate of journalism hinges on how the press is funded now and in the future. This article looks at what's wrong with the current model of funding and what might work better. https://www.currentaffairs.org/2017/12/building-media-institutions-that-arent-controlled-by-billionaires
Media: Local
WAPOST public editor Margaret Sullivan laments the decline of local journalism, while recalling her career at the Buffulo News.
Profile of a Hedge Fund billionaire who is buying up and cutting the staff of local newspapers all over the country. Claims to be saving local journalism as he destroys it. https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/media/heath-freeman-is-the-hedge-fund-guy-who-says-he-wants-to-save-local-news-somehow-no-ones-buying-it/2020/06/11/9850a15c-884a-11ea-8ac1-bfb250876b7a_story.html?utm_campaign
Yet another local newspaper goes out of business, this time after 121 years of serving the local community in a small Minnesota town. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/01/us/warroad-pioneer-news-desert.html
The last family owned newspaper in Mississippi, by James Fallows. Explores the crisis in local journalism with links to other resources on the topic. https://www.theatlantic.com/notes/2019/05/future-local-journalism-case-study-mississippi/588865/
Report for America program recruits young people to work in areas under served by local media. http://edition.pagesuite.com/popovers/dynamic_article_popover.aspx?artguid=a15f1612-b845-4132-a8d5-b7653cd1d21f&appid=1165
UNC study examines expanding news deserts in US. http://jomc.unc.edu/news/new-report-website-examine-expansion-news-deserts-us-communities
Amidst the gloomy picture of declining local media, a story about a revived small city newspaper, in Western Massachusetts, the Berkshire Eagle. http://edition.pagesuite.com/popovers/dynamic_article_popover.aspx?artguid=572858b0-f61b-4b2d-abf8-82856bf1788d&appid=1165
Media--Online
Podcasters like Ben Shapiro, Sam Harris, and Jordan Peterson are attracting a lot of listeners these days. Some are calling these and other podcasts and online sites that flaunt rules of political correctness the "intellectual dark web." https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/08/opinion/intellectual-dark-web.html
Fake news on Facebook caused riots in Sri Lanka. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/21/world/asia/facebook-sri-lanka-riots.html?action=click&contentCollection=Media&module=Trending&version=Full®ion=Marginalia&pgtype=article
A conservative critique of social media censorship. https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/06/facebook-twitter-censorship-unfair-and-unequal/
UNC professor Zeynep Tufekci writes about how Facebook undermines democracy. Her columns on technology, politics and society are excellent. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/29/opinion/mark-zuckerberg-facebook.html?rref=collection%2Fcolumn%2Fzeynep-tufekci&action=click&contentCollection=opinion®ion=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=collection
Parties
Research by a team of international scholars shows the Republican Party’s shift away from democratic norms predates Donald Trump but has accelerated precipitously since. See Washington Post 2020/11/12
As the Mueller investigation zeros in on Trump, his support doesn't seem to wane, and his defeat in 2020 is anything but assured because of the strength of the economy and the failure of the Democratic Party to offer a compelling alternative. As one voter said: “The Democratic Party has lost the ability to communicate with people who live in small towns. It seems to have no way of understanding their issues: how to pay bills, how to have a retirement, how to feed their families, what to do about bad schools, how to get health care, how to do better at creating new jobs when environmental concerns take them away.” https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/14/opinion/trump-2020-reelection-presidency.html
In the ongoing battle within the Democratic Party between the Bernie Sanders progressives and the Clinton "new Democrats," why does the black leadership class side with the latter? https://blackagendareport.com/black-misleaders-re-elect-rahm
Article documents the ways that Americans mis-perceive the two major political parties. A scholarly article based on surveys by political scientists. https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/697253
Polarization
Does identity politics, aka "identitarianism," inspire white people to affirm oppressed identities? Elizabeth Warren got into trouble when it came out she had claimed Cherokee ancestry in the 80s. Rachel Dolezal, the white head of the Spokane NAACP who claimed to be Black, is the subject of a Netflix documentary. Is this sort of thing becoming common? This author thinks so. He says it happens because of the phenomenon of identity deference.
What is moral grandstanding, how is it different than virtue signaling, and how does it hinter political progress? In Aeon; Vox; Heterodox Academy podcast.
How to depolarize America: Articles from the December 2019 Atlantic: Caitlin Flanagan looks at both sides of the Abortion debate; The Right and the Left need marriage counseling; Danielle Allen on citizenship; end meritocratic parenting--try kindness parenting instead.
NYT columnist Thomas Edsall considers: what if the political divide is about nothing other than our human tendency to form tribes?
The Myth of the Bernie Bro and how identity became a weapon against the left." https://www.currentaffairs.org/2017/09/how-identity-became-a-weapon-against-the-left
Which counties are filled with people who are more or less intolerant of views the disagree with. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/03/us-counties-vary-their-degree-partisan-prejudice/583072/
Polarization on campus and beyond. Even the left is polarized against itself. http://time.com/5395131/college-bias-kavanaugh-diversity/
Author of a new book explains how identity politics has divided the left. https://theintercept.com/2018/05/27/identity-politics-book-asad-haider/
Here is an example of how interviewers increase polarization by exaggerating the extremism of the views of someone they disagree with. This is common on both the right and the left. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/01/putting-monsterpaint-onjordan-peterson/550859/
Can Trump supporters and opponents have a civil conversation? Van Jones tries here: http://www.vanjones.net/the_messy_truth_episode
Oprah Winfrey and Frank Luntz got some Trump and Clinton supporters together in Michigan eight months into the Trump administration around what looks like a Harkness table. https://www.cbsnews.com/videos/divided/
Sarah Silverman visits a family of Christian gun-owning Trump voters in Louisiana https://www.facebook.com/ILYAmerica/videos/1873090259686921/
John Boehner blames the media for polarization. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/10/30/john-boehner-says-he-told-sean-hannity-youre-nuts/?undefined=&utm_term=.8398f4093cce&wpisrc=nl_most&wpmm=1
A Ted Talk on how to have better political conversations. https://www.ted.com/talks/robb_willer_how_to_have_better_political_conversations#t-100166
Political Psychology
A good piece on the way that cognitive biases affect politics. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/05/inside-the-political-brain/256483/
A survey of scientific literature on motivated reasoning and other cognitive biases from Yale Law School. http://www.culturalcognition.net/blog/2013/5/15/motivated-reasoning-its-cognates.html
Research by Brendan Nyhan examines how our sense of who we are affects our ability to distinguish between facts and falsehoods. https://www.newyorker.com/science/maria-konnikova/i-dont-want-to-be-right
Eric Levitz argues that America is not a center-right nation as conservatives and moderate Democrats claim. Mostly, Americans are non-ideological. They vote on the basis of identity not ideology. The Democrats should not move to the center but should embrace progressive policies that a majority of voters support while attracting voters on the basis of identity. The article has links to important studies about the nature of political ideologies. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/01/opinion/democrats-economic-policy.html
Populism, Socialism, Democracy
An excerpt in the Guardian from Thomas Frank's new book on the history of populism and how a good thing got a bad rap.
The New Republic considers the rising popularity of Socialism. "Reclaiming the Future: On the growing appeal of socialism in an age of inequality."
The Republican Party disregards the popular will and yet still manages to win elections, according to Nicole Hemmer, author of “Messengers of the Right: Conservative Media and the Transformation of American Politics.” https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/10/opinion/impeachment-polls-republicans.html
Philosopher’s reflection on the viability of fragile democracy. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/05/opinion/why-democracies-fail.html
Could populism actually be good for Democracy? This author bucks the anti-populist consensus. https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/oct/11/could-populism-actually-be-good-for-democracy
Spady argues that Economics has become an ideology and that is a problem. “Economics as ideology eliminates competitors by undermining the legitimacy of other conceptions. As ideology, it constructs its measurements and subject matter to conceal material facts. It does not apply its scheme of understanding to itself, because doing so would undermine its ideological legitimacy. The contemporary tendency of economics to become an ideology poses serious problems. So we need to unpack what it means to say that economics can become an ideology." https://www.firstthings.com/article/2018/04/economics-as-ideology
As membership in organizations like the Democratic Socialists of America grows, and some self-proclaimed socialists like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez winning elections, Exeter Alumnus and Williams College Prof. of Political Science at Williams College Mason Williams identifies a historical precedent for liberalism morphing into social democracy. https://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/new-deal-socialism-liberalism-progressive-reform?utm_source=Dissent+Newsletter&utm_campaign=08609956e6-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_12_04_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_a1e9be80de-08609956e6-83204801
Populism is a global phenomenon being driven by population decline and rising immigration. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/22/opinion/populist-populism-fertility-rates.html?hpw&rref=opinion&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region®ion=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well
Democracy give equal votes to the wise and the ignorant. Is this a good idea? This author argues that the alternative, epistocracy--rule by the "knowers"--would be worse.
William Hogeland reviews the history of populism. He says that liberal "claims to a monopoly on knowledge may be even more undemocratic than conservatives' policies for distributing wealth upward. http://bostonreview.net/archives/BR35.5/hogeland.php
The Constitution was not designed to work in a society with extreme inequality. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/16/opinion/sunday/constitution-economy.html
Liberals are turning toward more radical approaches, like Social Democracy. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/20/opinion/sunday/trump-resistance-radicals.html?emc=eta1
Karl Polanyi. This essay nicely summarizes his ideas and how they speak to the contemporary world politics. "When people are told for a generation that government must make no decisions that interfere with the autonomous logic of the market, and when international bond markets can dictate national policies, it is inevitable that people will start to lose faith in democratic governance and its capacity to help them solve their problems." https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/the-return-of-karl-polanyi?utm_source=Dissent+Newsletter&utm_campaign=69c6ff6055-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_05_25&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_a1e9be80de-69c6ff6055-83204801
Public Policy
Abortion
Since Roe v. Wade was decided a lot of new science about birth has emerged. It hasn't really changed the terms of debate, but maybe it should.
Climate Change
Predictions of how Biden might address climate change. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/13/opinion/sunday/joe-biden-climate-change.html
This documentary film (on Netflix) finds reason to hope--in the dirt. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/22/movies/kiss-the-ground-review.html
Climate scientists are meeting in Korea (October, 2018) to develop consensus on how the prospects for limiting global warming. https://www.washingtonpost.com/energy-environment/2018/10/03/climate-scientists-are-struggling-find-right-words-very-bad-news/?utm_term=.fc617928eae3
A history of efforts to address the problem of climate change in the 1980s. We almost did it! https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/08/01/magazine/climate-change-losing-earth.html
An architectural critic looks at the impact of hurricane Harvey on Houston and sees a case study in American political dysfunction. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/11/11/climate/houston-flooding-climate.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=photo-spot-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news
Criminal Justice
"This ACLU report presents the results of a yearlong investigation into modern-day 'debtors' prisons' and shows that poor defendants are being jailed at increasingly alarming rates for failing to pay legal debts they can never hope to afford." https://www.aclu.org/report/penny-rise-americas-new-debtors-prisons
Manafort and Cohen thought they could get away with their crimes because the government almost never goes after white collar criminals.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/24/sunday-review/manafort-cohen-mueller-white-collar-crime.html
Drugs
The Washington Post and 60 minutes teamed up on this expose showing that drug industry lobbyists got Congress to pass a law in 2016 that prevented the federal Drug Enforcement Agency from stopping the flow of opioids that had already claimed 200,000 lives. https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/investigations/dea-drug-industry-congress/?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-low_deanarrative-hed%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.1036c47b64af
Economic Growth
GDP and unemployment statistics do not give an accurate measure of the health of the economy. They only reflect the well being of the affluent. The author suggests using other metrics. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/14/opinion/columnists/great-recession-economy-gdp.html. The article also includes a link to this 1968 speech by Robert F. Kennedy on the inadequacy of GDP as a measure of national well-being.
Education
This article reviews four educational theories and concludes: "What’s right for one school community may not be right for all. A diverse landscape of schools embodying different educational philosophies could be a good thing. In any event, schools need not be railroaded by purveyors of any single philosophical orientation. I hope this primer provides a useful starting point for a fuller exploration of what it means to pursue educational excellence justly and inclusively."
The "poorly educated" are excluded from representation in government, and bigotry against them is worse than any other group in American or European societies according to this renowned Harvard ethicist. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/02/opinion/education-prejudice.html?referringSource=articleShare
The secret to survive in the AI future is not STEM but American style education, especially Harkness-style classrooms. https://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2019/06/13/how-survive-world/opPx02WGaf0Vt4CtFQyYHN/story.html
Are teachers' unions good or bad for the students? Labor Journalist Sarah Jaffe writes about recent union activity among the nation's public school teachers. The unions are fighting for better working conditions and also for their students, she argues. https://newrepublic.com/article/148034/teachers-adopting-militant-politics
Profile of Eva Moskowitz, CEO of Harlem Success Academy, one of the better-performing charter school networks. The author thinks such networks are "creating the closest thing our country has ever seen to a rational, high-functioning school system." The essay looks at how democratic governance is the cause of much that is wrong with public schools and non-profit net work charters succeed because they remove education from "democracy as we know it." On the other hand, these networks tend to be run by ultra-wealthy donors, and the author expresses reservations about turning the nation's schools over to "a tiny group of ever more influential plutocrats." https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/01/success-academy-charter-schools-eva-moskowitz/546554/
Foreign Policy
Andrew Sullivan explains why Trump is cozying up to Putin and how this explains the world view behind the American president’s foreign policy. http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/07/andrew-sullivan-why-trump-has-such-a-soft-spot-for-russia.html
Free Speech, First Amendment
Exeter alumna writes about a free speech controversy at Yale. https://yaledailynews.com/blog/2019/11/15/159102/
When more speech isn’t better. We need to rethink how to protect speech in the age of social media, tweet storms and online death threats. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/27/opinion/twitter-first-amendment.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-right-region®ion=opinion-c-col-right-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-right-region
A university president comes out against trigger warnings and safe spaces and says that universities are places that should make you feel uncomfortable. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/20/opinion/robert-zimmer-chicago-speech.html
Conservatives are suppressing free speech too. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-right-shuts-down-free-speech-too/2016/12/15/745fa352-c30d-11e6-9578-0054287507db_story.html?tid=a_inl&utm_term=.ebebd0250665
Gun control
Lois Beckett, Exeter alum and a former editor and chief of the Exonian suggests five measures to reduce gun deaths without federal legislation. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/oct/04/five-things-you-could-do-right-now-to-reduce-gun-violence-in-america
Though she supports gun-control, this statistician and former FiveThirtyEight writer concludes that none of the well-known proposed measures would do much to reduce gun violence. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/i-used-to-think-gun-control-was-the-answer-my-research-told-me-otherwise/2017/10/03/d33edca6-a851-11e7-92d1-58c702d2d975_story.html?undefined=&utm_term=.47639c35821a&wpisrc=nl_most&wpmm=1
Health Care
Insurance companies' profits soared during the pandemic. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/05/health/covid-insurance-profits.html
This study suggests that universal medical insurance coverage will not lead to a significant increase in use of medical facilities. https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2019/07/22/can-afford-medicare-for-all/QeLvk2h1McZQGBbqw6pQZI/story.html?event=event12
Proposals for a single payer or Medicare for all plan are making their way through Congress. This progressive argues that even though polls show support for such policies the transition from the current plan will be difficult and will lead to strong opposition. Interesting case study in the impact of "loss aversion." https://www.thenation.com/article/medicare-for-all-isnt-the-solution-for-universal-health-care/
Housing
Here's a surprising policy change that might increase the stock of housing and thus put downward pressure on costs: reduced parking requirements in new develoments. Read Matt Yglesias's blog post here.
This NYT article by Richard D. Kahlenberg notes that America's housing shortage harms people of color disproportionately, so addressing the problem is essential for a social justice agenda. It reviews Biden's housing policies and focuses on zoning and the NIMBY problem. Here, Matt Yglesias suggests that Kahlenburg's framing is wrong, that the zoning/NIMBY policy is not a racial problem, that fixing it benefit everyone, and that plenty of people of color are NIMBY-ites. Kahlenberg is aiming his article at the affluent progressives who support BLM and racial justice religiously, but are also committed to keeping apartment buildings out of their towns.
An anthropologist spent five years living with folks in low income neighborhoods, one white, one black, in the Milwaukee area, and then wrote a book. This is the book's website: http://www.evictedbook.com/
One possible answer to the affordable housing shortage: manufactured (aka mobile) homes. http://realestate.boston.com/buying/2018/10/03/are-mobile-homes-answer-to-affordable-housing/
Housing construction is down and that's making housing less affordable for families all across America. https://www.npr.org/2018/08/06/629410064/the-new-housing-crisis-shut-out-of-the-market
As the affordable housing crisis grows, Trump's HUD agency seeks to reduce benefits. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/27/us/politics/hud-affordable-housing-crisis.html
The affordable housing crisis in New Hampshire. http://www.nhpr.org/post/what-kind-housing-does-nh-need-and-why-dont-we-have-enough-it
Investors are driving up the cost of housing, which is becoming increasingly unaffordable for middle class families in cities all over the world. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/21/upshot/when-the-empty-apartment-next-door-is-owned-by-an-oligarch.html
Immigration
NYT reports on new data on immigration. Today's population has a higher percentage of foreign born than any time since 1910 and most come from Asia, not Latin American. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/13/us/census-foreign-population.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage
Immigration drives down wages but increases the national GDP according to George Borjas, an economist and professor of public policy at Harvard. https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/09/trump-clinton-immigration-economy-unemployment-jobs-214216
Conflict within the Democratic Party over whether to compromise with Republicans on border security in order to get a bill on the dreamers.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/01/us/politics/democrats-pelosi-schumer-trump-immigration-daca-dreamers.html?action=click&contentCollection=us&module=NextInCollection®ion=Footer&pgtype=article&version=newsevent&rref=collection%2Fnews-event%2Fdonald-trump-white-house
Inequality
Daniel Markovits argues that belief in Meritocracy is causing misery all over the world. The man who coined the term in the 1950s conceptualized it as a bad thing, leading to dystopian world.
The case against equality of opportunity: Vox
Is philanthropy enough? No, many commentators say. Read this interview with Anand Giridharadas, on his book Winners Take All. See also: "France’s Wealthy Are Throwing Cash at Notre-Dame Amid a Fight Over Inequality." https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/17/world/europe/yellow-vest-notre-dame-fire-donations.html
What is the composition of the low wage work force? https://www.brookings.edu/research/meet-the-low-wage-workforce/
New studies show that top corporate executives make up the largest share by far of the wealthiest .01 percent of income earners in the US and that improved corporate performance does not account for the sharp increase in earnings among that group over the past forty years. Rather, beginning in the 1970s there was a cultural shift toward greater acceptance of stratespheric pay.
Internet, Cyber Security, Data Collecting
How Facebook is damaging democracy. My old student's company sold "dark ads" to the Trump campaign. They may have been aimed at depressing voter turnout among Democratic voters. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/29/opinion/facebook-privacy-zuckerberg-society.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-right-region®ion=opinion-c-col-right-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-right-region
Did you order something from Canon online? If so, did you read the 10-page privacy statement you agreed to? Do you know what they are going to do with the information that you had to give them when you bought that camera? Like every other online retailer and service provider, Canon is collecting data on us. Do you trust them? https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2017/09/17/should-you-have-give-your-privacy-recycle-cartridge/ic5e7uJXr88ByMVKyFxcqI/story.html
What the government wants from tech companies in the fight against terrorism. http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-41338197
Trump's FCC chair proposes to abandon Obama's internet neutrality rules. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2017/11/21/the-fcc-has-unveiled-its-plan-to-rollback-its-net-neutrality-rules/?utm_term=.a0871708fb4d
Labor
Labor historians are saying these comments by President Biden amount to the most pro-labor comments by any American president in US history.
See also this WAPOST essay on the statement. Biden has also thrown his support behind the labor legislation would "strengthen collective bargaining rights, override so-called right-to-work laws, establish new penalties for corporations that violate workers’ rights, and prohibit employers from taking action against unions striking in solidarity with workers at other companies." Read about the PRO Act here.
The productivity-pay gap. For some time, now, wages have not been rising along with worker productivity.
Opinion piece on passage of California's Proposition 22 in the 2020 election. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/13/opinion/prop-22-california-gig-workers.html?auth=login-email&login=email&referringSource=articleShare
Now, workers for these gig companies in California will not have a right, as employees do under state law, to paid sick days, overtime pay, unemployment insurance or a workplace covered by occupational safety and health laws.
A Yale political theorist organizes a movement to democratize the workplace.
The Democratic Party should prioritize the interests of organized labor, a big source of the party’s strength. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/04/opinion/pelosi-northam-unions-democrats.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share
The solution to the troubles of labor is repeal of the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947. https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2019-10-29/repeal-the-taft-hartley-act
Elizabeth Anderson has written about the remarkable lack of freedom workers have in the work place. Here is a review of her book, Private Government: How Employers Rule Our Lives. https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/are-bosses-dictators
Conservatives have a greater appreciation for the importance of labor unions than liberal Democrats do. That's why Republicans have been relentless in their attacks on it while Democrats have done little to defend it. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/01/opinion/democratic-primary-labor.html
Maybe even tech workers need unions. On the Google walkout of November, 2018, and the history of affluent workers who decide they need unions. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/06/business/google-employee-walkout-labor.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage%C2%A7ion=Business%20Day
This article asks: 40% of Union Members Vote Republican. So Why Does 99% of Union Advocacy Money Go to Liberal Groups?
The Market Basket Strike was the most successful strike of the century and a model for future labor actions in the absence of organized unions. http://www.wbur.org/cognoscenti/2014/09/03/market-basket-collective-bargaining-thomas-kochan
\"Eight hours for work, Eight hours for rest, Eight hours for what we will" was the 19th century slogan of the American labor movement. "Do what you love and the money will follow" is the slogan of workers in the knowledge economy. How is that going? Sarah Jaffe's is a journalists who writes about labor issues. She reviews Do What You Love: And Other Myths about Success and Happiness for Dissent. https://www.dissentmagazine.org/blog/the-myth-of-do-what-you-love
Amazon gives in to Bernie Sanders' shaming campaign. You might say they felt the Bern. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/02/business/amazon-minimum-wage.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fbusiness&action=click&contentCollection=business®ion=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=sectionfront
Bernie Sanders is on a crusade to expose what he says are brutal working conditions and low pay at Amazon. Amazon fires back. https://www.vox.com/2018/8/30/17797786/amazon-warehouse-conditions-bernie-sanders
Supporters of the Janus decision say it protects the free speech rights of workers. http://www.scotusblog.com/2018/06/symposium-the-supreme-court-protects-workers-free-speech-rights/. Critics of the decision point out that the Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled against workers claiming first amendment rights on the job. https://www.thenation.com/article/how-employers-already-compel-speech-from-workers/
The June 2018 Janus decision of the Supreme Court was the latest in a long line of setbacks for unions. The court ruled that it's a violation of First Amendment rights to require public employees to pay fees to unions that represent them. The conservative pro-business forces who brought the case forward plan to follow up with a door-to-door campaign to persuade public employees to withhold these "agency fees." http://inthesetimes.com/features/janus_opt-out_campaign_state_policy_network_union_busting.html
The authors summarize the results of their study showing the damaging impact of right to work laws on the Democratic Party and working class involvement in politics. See also, the book, What Unions No Longer Do. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/08/opinion/conor-lamb-unions-pennsylvania.html?&moduleDetail=section-news-0&action=click&contentCollection=Opinion®ion=Footer&module=MoreInSection&version=WhatsNext&contentID=WhatsNext&pgtype=article
Elizabeth Warren and Steven A. Tolman argue that union jobs are the most reliable path to the middle class for blacks and Latinos, so the Republican war on unions is a war on those racial minorities. "More than half of black workers and almost 60 percent of Latino workers make less than $15 per hour. ... Black union members today earn about 16 percent more — and Latino union workers about 25 percent more — than their nonunion counterparts." http://edition.pagesuite.com/popovers/article_popover.aspx?guid=eb1142dc-6a12-4cf2-92bb-f37406057e7b
In Janus v. AFSCME Council 31, the court will decide on whether to overturn a 1977 ruling that allows public employee unions to collect "agency fees" from employees who do not belong to unions but benefit from the collective bargaining agreements those unions negotiate. If the court rules in Janus's favor, the case will function as a national right-to-work law for public employees. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/09/judgment-day-for-public-unions/541449/
Steven Greenhouse, the NY Times' labor reporter, summarizes a paper by one of the nation's leading labor economists that explains why the Wagner Act is irrelevant and useless for most workers today and needs to be updated. https://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/28/labor-law-is-broken-economist-says/
Money in politics:
Former Congressman and current head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Office of Management and Budget Mick Mulvaney, said that when he was a congressman he would only talk to lobbyists who gave him money. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/daily-202/2018/04/25/daily-202-mick-mulvaney-s-confession-highlights-the-corrosive-influence-of-money-in-politics/5adfea2230fb043711926869/?utm_term=.40912a8efad6&wpisrc=nl_most&wpmm=1
Tax reform:
"We share the lawmakers’ enthusiasm for progressive taxation that ensures that the wealthiest pay their fair share. But we believe that base-broadening, efficiency enhancing reforms are the right way to start raising revenue from the ultrarich. As Part One of this series illustrates, closing tax shelters alone raises more revenue than Ocasio-Cortez’s proposal." https://edition.pagesuite.com/popovers/dynamic_article_popover.aspx?artguid=bc8c654b-9b58-41cf-a690-bcfcced90e2c&appid=1165
Elements of the Republican tax bill would impact institutions of higher learning, including, presumably, Phillips Exeter Academy. For example, the plan would impose a 1.4 percent tax on large private college endowments. It would also eliminate the deduction for interest on student loans. https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2017/11/03/higher-education-prepares-for-battle-tax-plan/yfwzwDmeQbOZ4IIMjzl8RI/story.html. Some argue that this is a good idea because well-endowed private institutions are essentially hoarding their funds instead of using them to make access to higher education more affordable and more available to middle and working class students. https://washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/septemberoctober-2017/ivy-league-endowments-under-fire/
I paid $500 for tax preparation services this year. Why is it so complicated to pay your taxes in America? It isn't complicated in other countries according to a study by T.R. Reid, interviewed here by Terry Gross on Fresh Air for tax day, 2016. http://www.npr.org/2017/04/03/522440141/author-looks-to-other-countries-to-rethink-americas-complicated-tax-code
An architect of President Reagan's tax cuts in the 1980s now says that its impact on the economy has been over-rated and here debunks what he calls the Republicans' "tax myth." https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2017/09/28/i-helped-create-the-gop-tax-myth-trump-is-wrong-tax-cuts-dont-equal-growth/?undefined=&utm_term=.f0888f2a252a&wpisrc=nl_most&wpmm=1
Race
Ezra Klein interviewed Ian Hanley Lopez, who has written about racial "dog whistles" in American politics, for an explanation of why so many Black and brown voters pulled the lever for Trump in this election.
A linguist explains why it's considered okay to say people of color but not colored people. http://www.slate.com/blogs/lexicon_valley/2016/08/24/colored_person_versus_person_of_color_how_does_society_decide_which_racial.html?wpsrc=sh_all_mob_em_ru
Who invented racism? Not the poor or uneducated. Former Exonian editor-in-chief Lois Beckett interviews Ibram Kendi. https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/racism-enduring-misconception
Since the Kerner Commission report in 1968, things have only gotten worse for African Americans, at least in terms of economics. http://edition.pagesuite.com/popovers/article_popover.aspx?guid=29f34b4f-a385-48e2-a0ce-abb320337836. An update on the Kerner report on it's 50th anniversary by one of the original authors, Fred Harris, can be found here: http://www.temple.edu/tempress/titles/2495_reg.html
Retirement
Social Security vs your retirement savings. Working a bit longer gets you a lot more retirement funding than scrimping and saving to build up your 401k for many years. https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2018/02/16/few-more-miles-your-career/kjz1TuspX1i02dLYS1NHjL/story.html. And this report from the Economic Policy Institute explains how 401k accounts have failed most working families and led to a retirement crisis. Complete with lots of statistics, charts and graphs. https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2018/02/16/few-more-miles-your-career/kjz1TuspX1i02dLYS1NHjL/story.html
Pensions v. 401k accounts. Is there a pension crisis? Author argues that conservatives are attacking pensions because 401k customers don't question how their fund managers handle their accounts or hold Wall Street accountable, but that pensions do. As pensions decline, so does oversight of the investor class. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/05/opinion/investor-class-pensions.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-right-region%C2%AEion=opinion-c-col-right-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-right-region
Welfare
Unemployment is low, but poverty persists. A new term has entered the vocabulary: the "working homeless." Creating jobs is not reducing poverty. Why not? https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/11/magazine/americans-jobs-poverty-homeless.html?action=click&module=Trending&pgtype=Article®ion=Footer&contentCollection=Trending
As Americans come increasingly to rely on handouts from the federal government for a part of their income, their feelings about "welfare" and government in general become increasingly negative. Article is based on an interview with the author of an new book on this phenomenon. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/06/upshot/welfare-and-the-public-imagination.html