One of the more pernicious and insidious effects of the Donald Trump regime may well be the damage he does to language itself. Trumpian language is a thing unto itself: some manner of sophistry peppered with superlatives. It is a way of speech that defies the Reed-Kellogg sentence diagram. It is a jumble of incomplete […]
In the movie “Iron Man 2” (yes, superhero films are my guilty pleasure, so just bear with me) the villain, a rogue Russian scientist, informs the hero, Iron Man, of his theory on how easily he could be brought down: “If you could make God bleed, people will cease to believe in Him. There will […]
Another set of black men killed by the police—one in Tulsa, Oklahoma, another in Charlotte, North Carolina. Another television cycle in which the pornography of black death, pain and anguish are exploited for visual sensation and ratings gold. And yes, another moment of mistakenly focusing on individual cases and individual motives and individual protests instead […]
So now Donald Trump is campaigning for the black vote. (Long, awkward pause.) Like so much of what Trump has said and done, this new outreach forces writers like me to conduct scatological studies, framing Trump’s actions in their historical and intellectual absurdity. But, here we go. Trump, who got just 1 percent of support […]
We are now being forced to relive the decades-old sex scandals of Bill Clinton, as Donald Trump tries desperately to shield and inoculate himself from well-earned charges of misogyny. I say, if we must go there, let’s go all the way. Let’s do this dirty laundry, as Kelly Rowland, former Destiny’s Child member, once crooned. […]
There are two prominent features of the Democratic Party’s presidential selection process that are thoroughly undemocratic and undermine faith in the party: superdelegates (which favor Hillary Clinton) and caucuses (which favor Bernie Sanders). As The New York Times editorial board explained: “Superdelegates are party bigwigs—712 Democratic leaders, legislators, governors and the like. They can vote […]
There are a tremendous number of echoes starting to be heard between the way Clinton ran against President Obama, and the way she is running against Bernie Sanders. If Clinton can’t find a positive, energetic message to project, and soon, she is going to be swept away by Sanders.
Most gun enthusiasts are just seeking an extra layer of protection for themselves. Most gun control advocates are just seeking an extra layer of protection for innocent lives.
Police departments in a way are simple instruments that articulate and enforce our laws and mores, which are reflections of our values.
his month, four presidents journeyed to Austin, Texas, to address the Civil Rights Summit and remark on President Lyndon B. Johnson’s legacy on the 50th anniversary of the passage of the Civil Rights Act.
If one of the overt Democratic lines of attack against Republicans is that Republicans are conducting a war on women, one of the low-simmering, implicit lines of attack from Republicans is that Democrats are conducting a war on men, or at least traditional views of masculinity.
In an interview with the BBC last month, Oprah Winfrey said of President Obama: “There is a level of disrespect for the office that occurs. And that occurs, in some cases, and maybe even many cases, because he’s African-American.”
The stock market is hitting record highs. Bank profits are their highest in years. The market for luxury goods is rebounding.
When Occupy Wall Street sprang up in parks and under tents, one of the many issues the protesters pressed was economic inequality. Then, as winter began to set in, the police swept the protesters away, the movement all but dissipated.
Those boys are us, or at least too many of us: America at its ugliest.
In short, the system is completely backward.
The proposal was racially charged, and its authors knew it.
The idea that their father’s America might be lost to them is frightening.
The only thing keeping millions more out of poverty were the very safety net programs that many Republicans despise.
We have a growing crisis among the nation’s children, yet our policies ignore that reality at best and exacerbate it at worst.
