I made the mistake of spending time last night reviewing the reactions to Joe Biden’s nomination acceptance speech on Twitter. Full disclosure– I think this was one of the best speeches of his nearly 50-year career. Biden effectively hammered home his narrative of the election: that this is light against dark; government for everyone, not […]
Read more "Litmus Tests and the Future of the Democratic Party"It has become very popular to take potshots at teachers over the last month. Even the Atlantic got into it: “So I can understand that teachers are nervous about returning to school. But they should take a cue from their fellow essential workers and do their job. Even people who think there’s a fundamental difference […]
Read more "In Defense of Teachers"There is a lot of great dialog going on in America right now around race. Obviously, it is long overdue and it breaks my heart that it required something as monstrous as the death of George Floyd to provoke it, but sometimes we have to take silver linings where we can get them. While reforming […]
Read more "Anti-Racist Education"For the high that Trump supporters got from “all the winning” they imagined they were getting in 2016 — Tax cuts! Judges! Owning the Libs!– 2020 has been quite the hangover. Trump has been a constant embarrassment, never bothering to “rise to the occasion” or “act Presidential,” let alone bungling his response to the coronavirus, […]
Read more "Textualism Comes for the Textualists"2020 has been challenging. A global pandemic has killed over 100000 Americans and counting. The economy, already teetering on the edge from years of deregulation, mechanization, and tilted in favor of the 1%, is in shambles, with record levels of unemployment, the collapse of many small businesses and retail companies, and social distancing rules that […]
Read more "Profiles in Cowardice"In just over two weeks, former Vice President Joe Biden went from a washed-up old warhorse fading from the race to essentially having the nomination wrapped up while front-runner Bernie Sanders, ostensively the leader of the now ascendant progressive wing of the Democratic party, has been relegated to also-ran status. Most Sanders surrogates and the […]
Read more "Lessons From the 2020 Democratic Primary"I planned on taking a victory lap for calling Joe Biden’s “remarkable” comeback before his “stunning” victory on Super Tuesday last week (score one for team demographics are destiny), but the stock market tumble and the ongoing drama of whether or not COVID-19 is or is not a pandemic have overwhelmed all other stories for […]
Read more "COVID-19 and the Post-Facts Presidency"News sites are awash with “the momentum myth” and “demographics are destiny” this week in the wake of Joe Biden’s trouncing of the Democratic field in South Carolina over the weekend. Some of this is just reactionary news coverage explaining why the narrative they were so sure of for the last two months (Sanders has […]
Read more "Race and Progressive Politics"I have not published much lately. Work has been crazy. I finally took a vacation for the first time in years. But more than anything, every time I sit down to write I get about 1200 words in and start thinking about the conclusion I just feel completely depressed. Who wants to write endlessly sad […]
Read more "Purity Tests and Fractured Voting Blocs"After several exchanges with friends and family over the last two weeks, I finally forced myself to sit down and write this column. Truth be told, I am dreadfully tired of writing, talking, or thinking about President Trump. He is exactly the same as he was four years ago when he was running for office– […]
Read more "The President Must Be Impeached"