On one remarkable night in December, red, white, and blue confetti rained down on supporters of Senator-elect Doug Jones. The Birmingham Sheraton Hotel was filled with Democratic exuberance long absent from Alabama. Jones’ breathless victory couldn’t help but stand in stark contrast to the sobering images of unused “glass-ceiling” confetti from Hillary Clinton’s election night … Read more
In state politics, the most enviable marker of power is the so-called “triplex.” To achieve a triplex, a political party must sweep the state’s three most influential offices. The first two are the governor and attorney general positions, the former due to extensive executive powers and the latter due to their power to sue the … Read more
The debate over school choice and charter schools has grown ever more contentious since Betsy DeVos assumed office last year. Many of the charter schools in DeVos’s home state of Michigan are alleged to be plagued by corruption, and her proposals surrounding school vouchers and school choice have provoked outrage among American voters. Despite the … Read more
The 2016 election has been described as showing signs of a political realignment: many white, working class Democrats, particularly in the Midwest and Northeast, crossed over and voted for Trump, while more educated, affluent white Republicans in major cities and suburbs defected and voted for Clinton. For years, both parties had championed the idea of … Read more
On August 12, 2017, James Alex Fields Jr. drove his Dodge Charger into a crowd of peaceful counter-protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia. One woman was killed and 19 others were injured. Despite President Trump’s lukewarm rebuttal of the violence, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, along with nearly every major politician, recognized the tragedy as an act of … Read more
Reporters describe babies being ripped out of mothers’ arms and burned alive, men and young boys being executed in front of their families, and women being raped and left to die in the ashes of their villages by Myanmar’s military forces. Six hundred twenty thousand people have been displaced, and two hundred eighty-eight villages have … Read more
American politics has been full of rhetoric and debates about the power of the federal government vis-à-vis state governments in recent years. In 2012, for example, then-Texas Governor Rick Perry claimed that South Carolina was “at war” with the federal government over its voter I.D. laws. In 2014, Representative Paul Ryan described Barack Obama’s administration … Read more
In 2010, low voter turnout among young people, minorities, Democrats, and independents led to massive Republican victories. The GOP gained six Senate seats, took control of the House, and won 20 state legislative chambers formerly held by Democrats.. Because it was a census year, Republican State Houses then designed new Congressional districts. In the 2012 … Read more
Just before Alec Raeshawn Smith turned 24, he thought he had come down with the flu. When he went to the doctor a few days later, staff immediately tested his blood sugar levels. They were dangerously high—Smith’s body had stopped producing insulin, a vital hormone that allows the body to turn the glucose in food … Read more
On June 5, 2013, the National Security Agency, an agency that had operated in near-secrecy for 60 years, was dragged into the light by the release of many of its covert surveillance operations. Edward Snowden, then a 29-year-old analyst for the NSA, stole an estimated 1.7 million documents, including communications records of American citizens, intelligence … Read more