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Progressives Have Let Inner Cities Fail for Decades. President Trump Could Change That.

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Appearing in:

The Daily Beast

When Donald Trump described the “devastating” conditions in America’s inner cities, emphasizing poor schools and lack of jobs, he was widely denounced for portraying our urban centers in a demeaning and inaccurate way, much as he had been denounced previously for his supposed appeal to “racial exclusion” when he asked black voters “what the hell do you have to lose” by backing him. Read more

How Silicon Valley’s Oligarchs Are Learning to Stop Worrying and Love Trump

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Appearing in:

The Daily Beast

The oligarchs’ ball at Trump Tower revealed one not-so-well-kept secret about the tech moguls: They are more like the new president than they are like you or me.

In what devolved into something of a love fest, Trump embraced the tech elite for their “incredible innovation” and pledged to help them achieve their goals—one of which, of course, is to become even richer. And for all their proud talk about “disruption,” they also know that they will have to accommodate, to some extent, our newly elected disrupter in chief for at least the next four years. Read more

Are We Going Fascist?

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Appearing in:

Orange County Register

The rise, and then the improbable election, of Donald Trump have reawakened progressive fears of a mounting authoritarian tide. With his hyperbole and jutting chin, he strikes some progressives as a new Benito Mussolini who will threaten free speech and other basic human rights.

Some aspects of Trumpism do exhibit some classic fascist modalities — emphasis on personal charisma, attacks on vulnerable minorities, rage against comfortable and self-satisfied elites. Read more

The Future of Racial Politics

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Appearing in:

Real Clear Politics

From its inception, the American experiment has been dogged by racial issues. Sadly, this was even truer this year. Eight years after electing the first African-American president, not only are race relations getting worse, according to surveys, but the electorate remains as ethnically divided as in any time of recent history. Read more

How the Left and Right Can Learn to Love Localism: The Constitutional Cure for Polarization

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Appearing in:

The Daily Beast

The ever worsening polarization of American politics—demonstrated and accentuated by the Trump victory—is now an undeniable fact of our daily life. Yet rather than allowing the guilty national parties to continue indulging political brinkmanship, we should embrace a  strong, constitutional solution to accommodating our growing divide: a return to local control. Read more

The Corbynization of the Democratic Party

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Appearing in:

The Orange County Register

The Democratic Party’s current festival of re-examination is both necessary and justified. They have just lost to the most unpopular presidential candidate in recent memory. Lockstep media support and a much larger war chest were not enough to save them from losing not only the presidency, but also in state races across the country. Read more

It Wasn’t Rural ‘Hicks’ Who Elected Trump: The Suburbs Were — And Will Remai …

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Appearing in:

Forbes

Much of the New York and Washington press corps has concluded that Donald Trump’s surprising journey to the Oval Office was powered by country bumpkins expressing their inner racist misogyny. However, the real foundations for his victory Read more

Can Working Class, Elite Form Alliance?

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Appearing in:

Orange County Register

Can the party of oligarchy also be the party of the people? Besides fending off the never-ending taint of corruption, which could weaken the extent of her “mandate,” this may prove the central challenge of a Hillary Clinton regime.

No candidate in recent memory — at least, not since Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964 — has enjoyed more universal support from the rich, powerful and well-connected. They have provided her with “a towering cash advantage,” as a recent Bloomberg column described it, over her opponent. By one estimate, she is getting funds from 20 times as many billionaires as Trump. Read more

Trump Will Go Away, but the Anger He’s Stirred Up Is Just Getting Started

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Appearing in:

The Daily Beast

For progressives, the gloating is about to begin. The Washington Monthly proclaims that we are on the cusp of a “second progressive era,” where the technocratic “new class” overcomes a Republican Party reduced to “know-nothing madness.” Read more

Today’s Orange County: Not Right Wing—and Kinda Hip

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Appearing in:

The Daily Beast

What comes to mind when you think about Orange County? Probably, images of lascivious housewives and blonde surfers. And certainly, at least if you know your political history, crazed right-wing activists, riding around with anti-UN slogans on their bumpers in this county that served as a crucial birthplace of modern movement conservatism in the 1950s. Read more