J. Matthew Gallman is Professor of History at the University of Florida. This interview is based on his new book, The Cacophony of Politics: Northern Democrats and the American Civil War (University of Virginia Press, 2021). JF: What led you...
politics
“Democrats are misreading the room to an astonishing degree”
Here is a New York Times reader from Georgia responding to this New York Times op-ed: Democrats are misreading the room to an astonishing degree. Let this sink in: my Mexican yard man likes Trump. Although immigration laws should be...
The Author’s Corner with Eric Smith
Eric Smith is Senior Pastor of Sharon Baptist Church and Adjunct Professor of Historical Theology at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. This interview is based on his new book, John Leland: A Jeffersonian Baptist in Early America (Oxford University Press,...
“The median voter is a 50-something white person who didn’t go to college and lives in an unfashionable suburb”
Matthew Yglesias offers some advice to the Democrats: Back in 1992, James Carville supposedly hung a sign in Clinton campaign headquarters that said, “it’s the economy, stupid.” By the same token, Democrats today could improve their performance enormously if every staffer’s computer...
Andrew Yang is starting a third political party
After losing his bid for the 2020 Democratic nominee for president and dropping out of the New York City Democratic mayoral primary, businessman Andrew Yang is starting a new political party. Here is Alex Thompson at Politico: Yang is expected...
Biden botches the withdrawal from Afghanistan. The Christian Right pounces.
The Christian Right response to the Afghanistan situation should remind us that it is primarily a political movement. Charlie Kirk, the founder of Liberty University’s Standing for Freedom Center, knows what is really going on here. It’s all about Biden...
Andrew Cuomo vs. the Albany Times Union
As a journalism buff (I had a subscription to the Columbia Journalism Review in high school), I really enjoyed Azi Paybarah’s piece at The New York Times. Here is a taste of “‘Ugh’: Life at Andrew Cuomo’s Hometown Newspaper”: Casey...
Who is Michael Lind?
Over at New York Magazine, Eric Levitz reviews the work of public intellectual Michael Lind. The piece is much more nuanced than its title. Here is a taste of “The Delusions of the Radical Centrist”: …Michael Lind, has long been...
Words with no meaning
“Cancel culture.” “Wokness.” “Critical Race Theory.” “Socialism.” We are debating these issues and we have no idea what they mean. Here is a taste of Hamilton Nolan at In These Times: To attempt to have any kind of good faith...
The GOP’s “lost generation”
Rational Republicans are leaving politics in droves. Here is Politico: As Donald Trump ponders another presidential bid, top Republicans have grown fearful about what they’re calling the party’s “lost generation.” In conversations with more than 20 lawmakers, ex-lawmakers, top advisers...
100 prominent political scientists: American democracy is in danger
New America, a Washington D.C. think tank, gathered 100 political scientists to sign this statement of concern: June 1, 2021 We, the undersigned, are scholars of democracy who have watched the recent deterioration of U.S. elections and liberal democracy with...
Biden approval rating at 59%
According to Pew Research. 93% of Democrats approve of the way Biden is handling his job as president. 18% of Republicans approve. Biden’s approval rate is soaring among African Americans, Hispanics, Asian-Americans, educated people. 72% of Americans, including a majority...
Ted Cruz’s war chest and the idolatry of evangelical GOP politics
Ted Cruz tried to overturn the 2020 Electoral Votes. He took a trip to Cancun while his constituents suffered through an ice storm. He told a conservative audience that he would shoot any rioters who came to his Houston neighborhood....
Biden Republicans
Are they similar to Reagan Democrats? Here is Will Weissert at the Associated Press: RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Jay Copan doesn’t hide his disregard for the modern Republican Party. A solid Republican voter for the past four decades, the 69-year-old...
Why is “President Biden making such a sharp break with Joe Biden?”
Here is Ezra Klein at The New York Times: Joe Biden didn’t wake up one day and realize he’d been wrong for 30 years. I covered him in the Senate, in the Obama White House, in the Democratic Party’s post-Trump...
Former House speaker blames the January 6 insurrection on Trump
In his forthcoming memoir, former Speaker of the House John Boehner has some choice words for Donald Trump. Maggie Haberman reports at The New York Times: John Boehner, the Republican former House speaker, issues a stinging denunciation in his new...
Bruce Springsteen’s embrace of liberalism
Yesterday we published Tony Norman’s piece on Renegades: Born in the U.S.A., the much acclaimed Obama-Springsteen podcast. Check it out here. Read Norman’s piece alongside Dennis M. Hogan’s essay at The Baffler. In “Runaway American Dreams,” Hogan traces Springsteen’s move...
It is time for prominent evangelicals to get their acts together or stop speaking on behalf of Christianity
Mike Huckabee is a Baptist pastor, Trump court evangelical, Christian television celebrity, and former presidential candidate (he won the Iowa caucuses in 2008) and governor of Arkansas. He also appears to be a racist. Here is Matthew Brown at USA...
Michael Tomasky takes the reins at *The New Republic*. Chris Lehmann becomes Editor at Large
The New Republic is moving back to Washington D.C. with Tomasky as its new editor. Here is Katie Robertson at The New York Times: The New Republic named a new editor on Thursday and announced that it was moving back...
Trump will meet with authors
A lot of folks are writing books about Donald Trump and the former president is more than willing to sit down with them for interviews. Over the next week or two, Trump will meet with Maggie Haberman of The New...