Political Legitimacy in the Time of Trump
“Not my President!” is what at least one sign read during a recent anti-Trump demonstration. A perfectly understandable sentiment, but problematic. The plain, ugly fact is that Trump will actually be our president. I think it’s wrong, both in principle ...
Read MoreYes, It’s that bad.
It’s been over five weeks since the unthinkable happened, and sadly, there is no reason at this point to think that our worst fears were less than justified. In my first post-election post, I predicted that Trump’s victory would embolden ...
Read MoreInevitable Inequality?
Two good articles in today’s NY Times focus on the increasingly timely topic of economic inequality. One article covers the findings of a team of economists that economic inequality in the United States has burgeoned over the course of the ...
Read MoreQuery to Readers
Google Analytics supplies me with statistics on the readership of this website—total readers, location by country and city, time spent on the site, etc. I’ve been happy to note a very substantial increase in readership this past month, which I ...
Read MoreThe Latest from our Sociopath in Chief
If you have any doubt that the President-Elect of the United States is a genuine sociopath, you should check out Kevin Drum’s fine exposition and dissection of Donald Trump’s latest Twitter frenzy. After showing how Trump had evidently spent his ...
Read MoreSo, How did this happen? (II)
It is widely agreed that Trump’s electoral college victory drew critically on a revolt of the white working class (generally defined as whites lacking a college education), especially in rural America. Working class whites evidently have come to the conclusion ...
Read MoreGlitch Fixed
Thanks to the readers who alerted me to the glitch in the link in my last post. It’s fixed.
Read MoreA Nightmare Scenario
Just a quick post today, to pass on an important reading recommendation. Vox’s Matt Yglesias has sketched out a grim view of the prospects for Trump‘s America, focusing not so much on policy as on the threats that a Trump ...
Read MoreSo, how did this happen?
How did Donald Trump get elected president of the United States? The simplest obvious answer to that question is: the electoral college. It needs to be emphasized over and over again that Trump didn’t win even a plurality of the ...
Read MoreCan anything good come of this?
In my last post I promised to look for silver linings in this catastrophic election. I’ll try to make good on that promise, but I do want to emphasize that I am grasping at straws (and, I guess, mixing metaphors). ...
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