Like many “flyover” cities, St. Louis’s decline is not mainly a story of deindustrialization, but of decisions in Washington that opened the door to predatory monopoly.
March/April/May 2016
Message to Millennials: Bernie Sanders Is Intellectually Consistent, Not Intellectually Honest
Millennials, we get why you like Bernie, but…
Tilting at Windmills
Not a yooge difference As a Bronx native I’ve spent the campaign quietly weighing Donald Trump’s New York accent against that of Bernie Sanders. I can declare a split decision. Trump has the better vowels: His yooge obliterates Sanders’s yooge, the perfect measure of dismissiveness without dwelling on itself. But Sanders has the better consonants:… Read more »
God Save the Scene
D.C. punk has thrived for decades with the help of churches, activists, and even the library. Can it survive the city’s rapid redevelopment?
Why Is Marriage Thriving Among (and Only Among) the Affluent?
Experts struggle to explain one of the biggest drivers of inequality.
How Obama Got Schooled
Under pressure from right and left, the president signed away hard-won federal power over K-12 education and gutted his own reforms, even as they were working.
Talk of the Toons
A selection of political cartoons from the past few weeks.
The VA Isn’t Broken, Yet
Inside the Koch brothers’ campaign to invent a scandal and dismantle the country’s most successful health care system.
Mend, Don’t End, Fannie and Freddie
Conservatives blame the mortgage giants (wrongly) for the financial crisis, and both parties want them dead. But to finish the job of financial reform without destroying the housing market and costing taxpayers billions, we need to let them live.
Redlining from Afar: How Consolidation Killed Off St. Louis’s Exemplary Minority Lender
Just after Thanksgiving in 1996, a group of 146 St. Louisans, mainly from the black business community, boarded a chartered TWA jetliner and flew to New York City. Their goal? To block the takeover of their hometown Boatmen’s Bank by shutting down the New York Stock Exchange. Led by the St. Louis lawyer Eric Vickers,… Read more »
Communication Breakdown: How St. Louis’s Healthy Media Market Declined
In June 1934, Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Communications Act, a bill that prohibited radio, telephone, and other media companies from owning more than one broadcast license in a single community. A more diverse set of owners, stations, and channels, Roosevelt reasoned, would yield a wider set of program and service viewpoints, and would protect… Read more »
Next to a Miracle
The first session of the U.S. Congress was as bitter and riven by divisions—over ideology, taxes, federal versus state power, the role of “big money,” flexible versus strict interpretation of the Constitution—as the 114th Congress. The difference is, we can be proud of the first.
Yet Another Way to Steal a Presidential Election
A political thriller explores how our antiquated Electoral College system could be put to nefarious use.
Changing the Conversation About Regulation
Regulations aren’t threats to liberty and property, but vital weapons in defense of them.
Shoot the Hippies
Kent State’s lessons in the age of Donald Trump.
The “Con” in Political Consulting
Why candidates spend billions on ads and experts of marginal value.
Racial Diversity Without Racial Preferences
The growing case for class-based affirmative action in college admissions.
How Big a Success Is the Democratic Revolution in Burma?
And how much credit should the Obama administration and Hillary Clinton get for making it happen?
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