Julia Ioffe’s “Motherland,” a much-anticipated memoir and history of Russia, offers an original take on America’s long-time adversary.
Politico
Posted inPolitics
Three Disturbing Signs of Fourth Estate Failure
In our most venerable media institutions, oligarchy is being praised, and history is being rewritten. And it’s only Trump’s first week back in office.
Posted inFeatured, Political Animal
Why So Many Republicans Cling to Trump
Ben Shapiro got part of it right. A toxic mix of status anxiety, persecution fears, and echoes of the Civil War helps explain why they follow Trump into the abyss.
Posted inPolitical Animal
Only the Best People
Maybe he’s going to say he got railroaded: A top official charged with overseeing the safety of U.S. railroads has resigned “effective immediately,” the Department of Transportation said Saturday after POLITICO raised questions about whether he had been simultaneously working as a public relations consultant for a sheriff’s department in Mississippi. Heath Hall became the […]
Posted inPolitical Animal
An American Tragedy
Who could have imagined it? Well, we all should have. During the first weekend of November 2006–ten years before it happened—a right-wing Boston talk radio host named John DePetro was fired by WRKO-AM, then the city’s Rush Limbaugh affiliate, for referring to Grace Ross, a third-party progressive contender in the race to replace disgraced Massachusetts […]
Posted inPolitical Animal
Americans Should Have Given Up on Pro Football Long Before Colin Kaepernick Saga
“It’s about time.” That was my reaction to the great Boston Globe columnist Renee Graham’s recent declaration that she would no longer watch the National Football League in the aftermath of the screwjob the league has apparently pulled on Colin Kaepernick, the former San Francisco 49ers star who’s being treated like a 1950s Hollywood screenwriter […]
Posted inPolitical Animal
Will Democrats Simply Ignore an Ossoff Loss?
Two years ago, after the unusual outcome of the Kentucky gubernatorial election (where Democratic candidate Jack Conway, who had been leading in the polls against Republican contender Matt Bevin, lost to Bevin by nine points), I observed that the Kentucky Democratic Party should at least try to verify the outcome of the election via a […]
Posted inPolitical Animal
The Gray Zone: A Florida Fiasco, or a Progressive Possibility?
Something about it just rubbed me the wrong way. Back in May, when Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) appeared on MSNBC’s AM Joy, I was disturbed to see the US Senate candidate lambaste and hector host Joy Reid for asking questions about his alleged financial improprieties. It was a sour segment: the image of a powerful […]
Posted inPolitical Animal
The Fox News Channel’s Culture of Chauvinism
Two weeks ago, I noted the 25th anniversary of President George H. W. Bush’s notorious nomination of Clarence Thomas to replace Justice Thurgood Marshall on the United States Supreme Court. You may recall this anecdote from Jeffrey Toobin’s 1993 New Yorker profile of Thomas: Thomas can no longer take runs along the [National] Mall, as […]
