What harm does Facebook do? In the last several months, it appears to have done plenty, opening its platform to operatives who were directly or indirectly employed by the Trump campaign. There is always someone new to blame for electing Donald Trump: depending on who you ask, it was Bernie Sanders, “the alt right,” Bernie … More The Facebook Follies
I had heard the rumors that Sex and the City star Cynthia Nixon planned to primary New York’s Democratic governor Andrew Cuomo, but I didn’t believe them. It made so little sense to me that I ignored it until yesterday, when Nixon actually declared her candidacy. According to the Siena College poll of registered Democratic Party voters and … More Is (Cynthia) Nixon the One?
I didn’t stay up to see Conor Lamb bring the eighteenth Pennsylvania congressional district back to the Democrats. I think this result will stand, although I think we have to presume that if the final margin is under 1,000 votes, the lawyers will go to work on it, creating a slim possibility that the seat will … More Pennsylvania Had a Little Lamb
The International Women’s Strike (IWS), which coincided with International Women’s Day, associates itself with every progressive cause there is, making Betty Friedan’s actual dream for feminism—not that it would be a radical movement for women, but that it would be a liberal equality movement for all people—a reality. But do we make a mistake when … More Is Women’s Solidarity Possible?
9:00 A.M. For those of you not familiar with it, “CPAC” stands for Conservative Political Action Conference, an event that was launched in 1973 by Young Americans for Freedom and the American Conservative Union, two organizations that were both founded by William F. Buckley. The original purpose was to bring the conservative movement together and set … More LIVE from #CPAC2018
This post was originally published at Public Seminar on January 3, 2018. What do we want from the news? This strikes me as an increasingly important question as the task of actually getting the news requires that we sift gigabytes of knowledge, errata, and trash all mixed up together on the Internet. Do we want … More What Do We Want from the News?
This post was originally published at Public Seminar on December 27, 2017 What happens in the aftermath of a crushing political defeat? In October, almost a year after the election that brought us Donald Trump, I was at the Library of Congress immersed in the archive of a man named Paul Weyrich, and thinking about … More Rebuilding Democracy in 2018
In the five minutes between coming to terms with the special election for Senate in Alabama being a long night and going upstairs to brush my teeth, Birmingham, Montgomery and Selma came in and shoved Doug Jones, the Democrat, over the top. Goddamn. I mean, goddamn! I just want to come on down and hug all of … More Alabama, Goddamn
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