Rights and Democracy
The Final Round
Fighting Racism Where White Workers Are Hurting, Too
Since 2011, Maine’s bombastic Republican governor Paul LePage has given America a taste of what it might be like to live under a Donald Trump presidency. Like Trump, LePage has made outrageous comments against immigrants and communities of color. They include telling...
An Appetite for Action on Tax Reform
In a few short weeks, this election will be over, and the task of governing will fall on the winning candidate and the reshuffled Congress. At the top of the list of issues to address in the early months of 2017 should be reforming our broken tax code. Why should tax...
Trump is the Nation’s Abuser-in-Chief
As an emotional abuse survivor, I get an eerie feeling watching Donald Trump. In fact, a checklist of 30 tactics used by an emotionally abusive partner, published by the blog Live Bold and Bloom, reads like Donald Trump's debate prep to-do list. One of the telltale...
Prison Labor is Slavery by Another Name
Right now there’s a national movement mobilizing to raise the federal minimum wage to a living wage of $15 an hour. But imagine if instead of earning even that much, you could only earn a few cents an hour. If that sounds like something from the developing world,...
Campaigns End On Election Day — Revolutions Don’t
Bernie Sanders' truly revolutionary campaign for president ended in August after the last Democratic primary election. Corporatists, cynics, and most of the media assumed that the grassroots populist revolution he inspired was over as well. They couldn't imagine that...
Tilting at Women
Is Trump Committed to Democratic Rule of Law?
Donald Trump’s rhetoric has been so dangerously outside the bounds of normal American political discourse — which, at least, pays lip service to constitutional governance and democratic rule — that legitimate questions about whether he could be relied on to fully and...
His Bigoted Majesty
A University of Michigan student has officially changed his personal pronoun to "His Majesty." The student, who is politically conservative, did so to call attention to and ridicule the university policy which allows students to select their own designated personal...
Black Youth and Elusive Freedom
This summer brought too many new videos of black men — Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, Phillando Castile in a St. Paul suburb, Terrence Crutcher in Tulsa, Oklahoma — losing their lives at the hands of police officers. As these videos circulated, I found myself crying...
