Occupy Wall Street’s great achievement was to briefly create a community that prefigured a robust democratic culture.
Tag: Democracy
“We Don’t Want the Program”: Jill Lepore on How Tech Can’t Fix Democracy
“Start-ups: they need philosophers, political theorists, historians, poets. Critics.”
Let’s Polarize Together
Humans can adapt to almost anything. So if social media forces us into permanently hostile camps, we will learn to stop seeing any other way.
Public Thinker: Thomas Frank on How Populism Can Save America
“A relentless assault on received orthodoxies has the effect of making you unpopular with the people for whom those received orthodoxies are orthodox.”
The Oligarchs’ Charter
Today we know that, just as Adam Smith and Thomas Jefferson predicted, economic elites will never relinquish supreme power easily.
Was Impeachment Designed to Fail?
Six months ago, the impeachment of President Trump failed. The fault doesn’t lie with Congress, but, instead, with the Constitution.
Tele-visionary Blackness
Black folks can call into being an alternative relationship to TV, one that prompts a shift in consciousness and just possibly alters the future.
Democracy, More or Less
What future does democracy have? What future should it have? And, moreover, can the problems of democracy be solved within the framework of democratic politics?
Public Thinker: Astra Taylor on Democracy’s Long Crisis
“If we want democratic scrutiny, the demos must first have power.”
Democracy’s Long Game: An Interview with Paul Starr
“You have to think … about how you’re going to make the changes stick.”
Silicon Valley Is Not a Place
Silicon Valley has no mystical powers. It gets away with being thought of as apolitical simply because few have called its bluff.
Hong Kong: “When We Burn You Will Burn With Us”
The most telling chant of the 2019 Hong Kong protests is “Liberate Hong Kong, the revolution of our times” (光復香港 時代革命), not because it offers a vision ...
Oedipus at the Border
The US has never been a democracy. Perhaps, for some, the most recent indefinite imprisonment of undocumented immigrants in concentration camps finally shattered confidence in this US fantasy. And yet, for others, no amount of ...
Trump Is a Liar. Tell Children the Truth.
Rich Rump is an ill-tempered “rich man” who accidentally receives Santa Claus’s pants from the dry cleaners and then refuses to return them. Featured in ...
Membership, Citizenship, and Democracy
President Trump’s pernicious attacks on nonwhite immigrants have thrust a particular theory of political membership—white nationalism—to the forefront ...
How Can Democracy and Criminal Justice Reform Coexist?
Ending mass incarceration in America isn’t just a matter of reforming a few aspects ...
B-Sides: Kazuo Ishiguro’s “The Unconsoled”
Ryder, the world-renowned pianist whose brief visit to an unnamed foreign city occupies the full 512 pages of Kazuo Ishiguro’s 1995 The Unconsoled, finds ...
The Big Picture: Trump’s Attack on Knowledge
On any particular policy, we can always hope President Trump will flip-flop. Expel the Dreamers; save the Dreamers. Maybe he’ll keep the US in the Paris climate ...
What the Constitution Means to Us
On June 22, 1999, Jessica Lenahan’s estranged husband, Simon Gonzales, abducted their three daughters from outside Jessica’s house, in Castle Rock ...
America Learns What Russia Knew
How to tell a story always matters enormously. This already urgent task takes on added dimensions and gravity when the story itself is about information ...
