My grandfather was born in 1936. When he was 16, Puerto Rico ceased being a mere territory of the United States and adopted “Commonwealth” status. His mother had helped found the Puerto Rican Independence Party (PIP), and his father was a pro-statehood Republican and local Supreme Court justice. He would become the pro-Commonwealth party’s leader … Read more
Many Virginian voters still remember the ‘macaca moment’ from the 2006 Virginia Senate race. The Republican candidate, then-Senator George Allen, uttered a racial slur at a campaign tracker for his opponent, Democrat Jim Webb, propelling Webb to an incredible upset victory. Allen is attempting to re-enter the Senate with Webb’s impending retirement, and is currently … Read more
The sky over Cambridge is grayer these past few months. It has been a difficult semester for Harvard. We lost two students—one to an accident and the other to suicide. The former was a prodigious and ambitious young scientist set on shaking up the world for the better, the latter a kind and poetic soul … Read more
Next week, Americans will choose their President. Yet, when voters most need the truth, and facts are available instantaneously from many sources, a recent Gallup poll shows that Americans’ confidence in media has reached new lows. This distrust largely stems from perceptions of bias. However, the pursuit of balance should be an equal cause for … Read more
A casual observer of the Syrian uprising could be excused for viewing the conflict as a battle between good and evil. The narrative that dominates Western media coverage certainly paints the struggle as a black and white contest between freedom-lovers and bloodthirsty authoritarians. But in reality, this ethnic quarrel should be described only in a smear … Read more
Dear Readers, More than any other university, Harvard lies at the nexus of American public policy, politics, and academia. Eight presidents have graduated from Harvard, and on Nov. 6, the nation will choose yet another alumnus to be commander-in-chief. Similar statistics hold for Supreme Court justices, senators, and members of Congress. For these astonishing numbers, … Read more
Today, there an estimated 80 million American “Millennials,” the generational cohort comprised of those born between the early 1980s and early 2000s. But, given the current policy debates, you might not even know they exist. Matthew Warshauer, student director of Harvard’s Public Opinion Project, tells the HPR that, “If [Millennials] were more organized, they would … Read more