Every year, I take a moment at Thanksgiving time to express my gratitude and list some of the good things that I have in my life. Today, I find myself spoiled for choice. The past year has been one of profound professional success and personal satisfaction for me. I completed my PhD this past May. […]
Continue reading →I continue to be in this position that people seem to find untenable: I think some parts of the ongoing student protests are good, and some are bad, and I praise the good parts, and criticize the bad parts. I also make an effort to separate the goals of these protests from the likelihood that […]
Continue reading →“I had a kind of epiphany moment when, a year or so ago, when they organized grassroots Republicans, the first wave of the Tea Party… I was sitting in a hotel room, jumping between two channels on TV: one was Fox News. The other one was PBS. On Fox News, it was a live transmission […]
Continue reading →Yascha Mounk: It is no doubt true that America’s mistakes in the Middle East, from the Iraq war to the recent bombing of a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Afghanistan, have helped to fan the flames. Fanning the flames. Two recent events in a century-long history of bad behavior. Maybe we could look back a […]
Continue reading →An emailer to the Atlantic‘s notes section, self-described as “a graduate student in the humanities at a major Midwestern research university,” writes: The idea, to put it simply, is that the way we represent people, places, and things is as important—if not more important—than reality itself. In fact, reality is actually itself shaped by the way it […]
Continue reading →And we better get ready for it. It’s looking more and more like these recent campus protests are going to bloom into a real, widespread movement. That’s a wonderful development. We need to be proactive in defending this nascent movement, and we need to be completely honest with ourselves about the inevitable backlash and retrenchment. […]
Continue reading →The recent student protests at Yale University and the University of Missouri have provoked many fundamental questions about our universities and our political values, and rightly so. Students have demanded formal recognition and reform from university administrators, arguing that our campuses are still filled with racial inequality and discrimination. A powerful backlash has brewed, with […]
Continue reading →Right now I just think there’s this fundamental problem where so many people who identify themselves as being part of the broad left define their coalition based on linguistic cues, cultural overlap, and social circles. The job of politics, at its most basic, is finding common cause with people who aren’t like you. But current […]
Continue reading →So here’s a thing that’s happening at Yale. I stress: it’s really happening. It’s not a conservative media invention. It’s verified. Yale students are calling for the resignation or firing of Erika Christakis, Associate Master of Silliman College, and her husband, Master of Silliman College Nicholas Christakis, over an email about potentially offensive Halloween costumes. Here is […]
Continue reading →To begin with, I have repeatedly and publicly said that I won’t vote for Bernie Sanders due to his stances on Israel, immigration, and guns. Despite this, I am daily asked to answer for the conduct of Bernie Sanders supporters. It’s pretty strange. It’s also strange that our political class continues to think that the way […]
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