As I’ve mentioned, I volunteered on a Democratic congressional campaign in 2018 to help the Democratic Party win a majority in the House. This year I’ve struggled with what I could do to support Biden’s campaign. . . .
Category: Politics
The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It
I’ve felt for a long time that income inequality is one of the biggest problems in this country, but I’ve also had a sense that the problem isn’t just that a few people are making an obscene amount of money while many more struggle to get by, or even that the disparity between rich and poor is increasing. It also seemed to me that our country was drifting in the direction of becoming an oligarchy, in which a small number of people not only enjoy a disproportionate share of the country’s wealth but also an ever-increasing share of power over our politics and governance. . . .
What Happens If the Presidential Election Gets Thrown to the House?
Those who are concerned about the integrity of the upcoming election foresee the possibility that the Trump campaign will contest the vote count in multiple states. If those challenges can’t be resolved in time to ensure that one candidate or the other obtains the 270 Electoral College votes required to win, the election would be decided by the House of Representatives. . . .
A Survival Strategy for Black Men in the South
I haven’t spent a lot of time in the South, but a few years ago Jennifer and I spent a week visiting Charleston, SC, and Savannah, GA. While I was walking through downtown Charleston, I passed a black man coming the other way. He caught my eye, smiled, and said something like “Hello, there.” It was almost as if he thought we knew each other. It was nice to be greeted so warmly, but I didn’t think much of it until the next black man I passed did the same thing. And then another. . . .
The Two Kinds of Supporters of Donald Trump
I’ve come to think that there are, very broadly speaking, two categories of Americans who plan to vote for Donald Trump in November. One group consists of those who I think of as being in the thrall of the man. They like him — in fact, they’re devoted him. They see him as pushing back on those who look down on them. They recognize that he’s a bully, but he’s their bully, the one who comes to their defense when bullies on the other side of town — liberals, atheists, academics — try to put them down. . . .
President Trump’s Most Impressive Accomplishment
As I dipped in and out of the coverage of this week’s Democratic National Convention, I kept being struck by how Donald Trump has done more to unite the Democratic Party than any president since Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
The Future of the Republican Party
I had an interesting conversation with a friend of mine who closely follows the political scene and is an avid student of history. The topic was how much influence Donald Trump will have on the Republican Party after January, assuming he loses to Joe Biden in the November election. . . .
What If Trump Tries to Subvert the Election?
I never imagined it would come to this, but Jennifer and I have started talking about how we may need to be prepared to go to Washington, D.C., on short notice to join protests there if Donald Trump attempts to undermine the presidential election. That was even before we read this OpEd piece in today’s New York Times about the work being done by the Transition Integrity Project to prepare for such an eventuality…
How Biden Chose Harris
I was a little surprised that Joe Biden chose Kamala Harris as his running mate. Like many others, I thought that her takedown of Biden in one of last year’s debates would count against her, not to mention her apparent inability as a candidate to articulate a consistent and coherent platform…
Biden and FDR
David Brooks had a column in the New York Times last week called “The Future of American Liberalism: What Biden can learn from F.D.R.” I won’t try to summarize the column — you can read it for yourself if you’re interested — but I will say that I’ve long thought that the modern Democratic party should more emphatically reclaim FDR’s governing philosophy: a sweeping vision rooted in pragmatic, populist progressivism…