For much of modern American history, the support enjoyed by the two main political parties has hewed to a particular ethnic pattern. Republicans, notes political historian Michael Barone, have largely been the party of “white Protestants,” while the Democrats have been largely “a coalition” of disparate groups: Catholic ethnics, Latinos, blacks, Jews, and working people of all races. Read more
Calm down, Democrats, Donald Trump will not, as some zealous Maga types fantasise, take New York this election. Nor will he win over New Jersey, although the race may be closer there. California, as we New York natives would say: fuggedaboutit. Read more
Americans are familiar with steep political divisions on issues like race, class, and gender. Perhaps less understood, but arguably more definitive, is the widening gap between the cognitive elites concentrated in big cities and the rest of the country. In our current “war against the masses,” to quote the late Fred Siegel, geography plays an increasingly dominant role.
U.S. President Joe Biden, in one of his regularly inept utterances, recently castigated Japan and other East Asian countries for being “xenophobic,” compared to the relatively immigrant-friendly United States. The president surely made no friends, but actually spoke something of the truth, or perhaps more of a half-truth. Read more
Few states are more ostentatious in their concern for racial equality and minority uplift than California. The Golden State leads the nation in promoting racial reparations, doggedly supports affirmative-action quotas, and pays students to teach educators about implicit bias. From his first day in office, Governor Gavin Newsom has deemed addressing inequality a “moral imperative” in his fight for “a California for all.” Read more
The key voting bloc in American politics is not the black or Evangelical vote – it’s the Latinos. Now by far the largest racial minority in the nation, Latinos are also the great contested electoral territory. Read more
North America may suffer from some of the world’s poorest political leadership. Yet it seems destined to remain the wealthiest, most dominant place on Earth.
This may come as a surprise to many. After all, generations of pundits have insisted that the future will be forged elsewhere – Europe for some, Japan for others and, more recently, China. But none have the resources, the dynamic population and innovative acumen of North Americans. Read more
“The empires of the future are the empires of the mind,” said Winston Churchill. And judging by the state of education in America, it seems both of those empires could soon crumble. The dysfunction is evident from top to bottom: from Ivy League outposts down to the secondary schools. Both are producing a generation that is ill-informed, illiterate and innumerate. In other words, a generation increasingly ill-suited to function as productive citizens in a democracy.
Most political coverage in America revolves around personalities, stratagems, and the cultural issues that appeal to the activist class in both parties. Yet the real determinant in 2024 will not be abortion, “systemic racism,” gender fluidity, or climate change, but deepening class divides. Read more
The recent announcement that Ian Jacobs, a scion of the famous Toronto-based Reichmann real estate clan, was coming to buy upwards of $900 million of San Francisco real estate, has offered the beleaguered California city a rare moment of hope. Some suggest that we could see a repeat of New York’s recovery from its nadir in the 1970s, during which the Reichmanns made a fortune gobbling up depressed buildings shortly before the city’s resurgence. Read more
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