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Vol. 27 No. 3Summer 2016
Columns
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Donald Trump's Constitution
The multiple opportunities for the abuse of executive power
Notebook
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Meanwhile, Back on Most Campuses
The focus on extreme political correctness at Oberlin and other elite colleges risks obscuring what less privileged undergraduates are dealing with. -
Papa’s Not a Rolling Stone: Low-Income Men and Their Children
Kids benefit when their dads make more time for them. Try doing it while juggling two or three minimum-wage jobs. -
Solar Eclipse?
Can the U.S. have a coherent solar policy in the face of China’s strategic trade moves?
Culture
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When Liberalism Came Apart
Two new books about the late 1960s provide grist for thinking about political turbulence today. -
Swept Away in the Sixties
What did the era amount to? One thing is certain: It wasn’t a revolution. -
How America Grew -- and Grew Unequal
Today’s inequality has more to do with historical accident and political power than economic efficiency. -
Using American Power Prudently
Our core national-security interests and the limits of military force.
Features
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What Is Hillary Clinton’s Agenda?
She’s had so much to say on so many issues that voters may not know what she wants to accomplish. -
The First Post-Middle-Class Election
The politics of downward mobility and racial diversity have eroded the center, pushing Democrats to the left and Republicans toward an authoritarian right. -
Blue Cities Battle Red States
As cities have moved left and states have moved right, the conflicts between them have escalated. -
Special Report: The New Labor EconomySpecial Report: The New Labor Economy
Confronting the Parasite Economy
Why low-wage work is bad for business—and all of us. -
Special Report: The New Labor Economy
On Demand, and Demanding Their Rights
Gig workers in the Uber economy are organizing to win more say over their jobs—and writing a new chapter in American labor history. -
Special Report: The New Labor Economy
Reframing the Minimum-Wage Debate
Why “no job loss” is the wrong standard for setting the right wage floor. -
Special Report: The New Labor Economy
The Subtle Force of Tom Perez
The labor secretary, a son of Dominican immigrants, has used his power to make real gains for workers—so successfully that he’s become a vice presidential prospect. -
Special Report: The Immigrant FactorSpecial Report: The Immigrant Factor
How Asian Americans Became Democrats
The last two decades have seen a major shift in the party preferences of Asian Americans, but they're still not deeply engaged in civic life. -
Special Report: The Immigrant Factor
Is This the Year of the Latino Voter?
Latinos have had some of the lowest voter turnout rates, but this November—with unprecedented mobilization campaigns and the specter of a Trump presidency—may be different. -
Special Report: The Immigrant Factor
Don’t Assume Trump’s Bias Is Mere Bluster
How the Republican nominee could bar Muslim immigrants. -
Special Report: The Immigrant Factor
Arizona's Blue Horizons
With increasing Latino activism, once-Republican Arizona is becoming contested terrain, though registration still lags. Will this be the year? -
Special Report: The Immigrant Factor
How ‘They’ Become ‘We’
Here’s what America does well in integrating immigrants and what we could do better—unless anti-immigrant passions take over. -
Trump and the Racial Politics of the South
The legacy of slavery and segregation creeps northward. -
A Just Transition for U.S. Fossil Fuel Industry Workers
A combination of better jobs and pensions will remove one political obstacle to a green transition—and it’s the right thing to do. -
Liberal Governor, Divided Government
Pennsylvania’s Tom Wolf, among the nation’s most progressive governors, has been checked by the most right-wing legislature in state history—but there are always executive orders. -
Philly’s New Mayor
How many progressive changes can Jim Kenney bring to an old-style city with an antique political culture?
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Vol. 27 No. 2Spring 2016
Columns
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The Democrats as a Movement Party
What would it take to get the “broken engine of progressive politics” working again?
Notebook
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Crashing the Party
An earthquake has hit the GOP, and it’s shaking up Democrats as well. The election poses dangers for both parties, but Republicans face the greater peril; even if they win the White House, they will have lost their party. -
Toward a 21st-Century Labor Movement
The old model of collective bargaining can’t be resurrected. Herewith, some new models of how workers can win and wield power. -
Heights of Privilege
How the rich get relief on property taxes—and what to do about it. -
Maryland Senate Showdown Pits Left Against Lefter
In the state's Senate primary, an establishment progressive faces a more progressive outsider. Sound familiar?
Culture
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Can the Working Family Work in America?
America still hasn’t adjusted to family realities in the 21st century. Here’s what needs to be done and why we need to do it. -
Worlds of Inequality
The winners and losers of globalization. Must it be this way? -
Harnessing the Power of the New Working Class
If the new proletariat starts identifying as a class, it could transform politics. -
The Bankers' Bank
Does the Federal Reserve govern the banking system—or vice versa?
Features
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The Long March of Bernie’s Army
Where it came from; where it’s headed. -
The Other Woman: Elizabeth Warren and the 2016 Election
Senator Warren is not running, but she will be a major influence this year. -
What Good Are Hedge Funds?
Hedge funds make big returns by manipulating markets in ways that are illegal for small investors. Remind us: Why are they permitted? -
Hedging Education
How hedge funders spurred the pro-charter political network. -
The Real Stakes in the Veepstakes
Here’s what the Democratic nominee—and all of us—should consider in thinking about the vice presidency. -
School Closures: A Blunt Instrument
Shuttering “failed schools” can have painful consequences for children and neighborhoods. -
The Great Diversion
Charter schools may or may not improve student outcomes—but they divert funds from other public schools. -
Special Report: Funding Government FairlySpecial Report: Funding Government Fairly
We're Going to Need More Tax Revenue. Here's How to Raise It.
More tax dollars will be essential to improve our infrastructure, push back on global warming, fight poverty and inequality, and improve health and retirement security. -
Special Report: Funding Government Fairly
International Tax Evasion: What Can Be Done?
Multinationals save hundreds of billions of dollars by offshoring income and manipulating their books — and it's perfectly legal. -
Special Report: Funding Government Fairly
How Plutocrats Cripple the IRS
You pay more because elites use their influence to pay less. -
Dangerous Bedfellows
The stalemate on criminal justice reform. -
Volkswagen's Big Lie
How VW's decision to double down on a fossil-fuel technology led it into deceit and disaster. -
Will Workers and Consumers Get Their Day in Court?
With a new high court majority, the era of mandatory arbitration could end. -
Our Beleaguered Planet
The interaction of global climate change, poverty, affluence, and overpopulation
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Vol. 27 No. 1Winter 2016
Columns
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Accelerating the Fight Against ISIS
Going into 2012, Obama had Osama. Going into 2016, the Democrats need the fall of Raqqa and Mosul. -
What We Can Do about Gun Violence
Incremental changes to existing gun laws could help deter mass shootings and gun homicides.
Notebook
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Going After the Big Bucks
Pumping big money into the national political parties, as many now propose, would weaken the parties in the long run and invite another round of soft-money abuses. -
Progressive California: The Long Road Back
The Golden State is the nation’s most liberal—but it has yet to untie its fiscal knots. -
Tickets Out of Poverty?
Housing voucher recipients can move to better neighborhoods only if states and localities break down suburban barriers.
Culture
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Perpetually Outraged, Perpetually Outrageous
Donald Trump, a candidate with all the subtlety of talk radio, is the perfect expression of both the politics and media of our time. -
Leading from the Left
For Ted Kennedy, political leadership meant moving public opinion—not chasing after an elusive center. -
The Big Financial Divide
Why we have one banking system for the well-off and a “Wild West” fringe for everyone else. -
The War on the Poor
The welfare reform of the 1990s left millions of Americans near destitution. -
It Didn't Start with Stonewall
A new history deepens our understanding of the origins of the gay rights movement and the transformation it has brought about. -
Shall We Be Released?
The mass folly of mass incarceration and the road back to sane prison policy.
Features
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Grace Under Fire
Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards is one of the nation’s premier political strategists and organizers—exactly what the cause of reproductive rights needs now more than ever. -
The Uber Challenge
Uber drivers are getting creative in their fight for basic workplace rights. -
Vultures Over Puerto Rico
Vulture investors have descended on the commonwealth, taking advantage of a debt crisis that has impoverished citizens and created massive unemployment. -
The New Inequality Debate
More mainstream economists now find that the income mal-distribution reflects the political sway of elites, not economic imperatives. -
The Likely Persistence of a White Majority
How Census Bureau statistics have misled thinking about the American future. -
The Budgetary Backdoor to Reduced Minority Representation
The political and economic ramifications of a tightened Census budget. -
Race and Representation in the Twilight of the Obama Era
Will the eight years of America's first black president lead to more political voice for black citizens—or less? -
Can Democrats Channel America's Discontent?
The party has moved left in response to hard times. That should help it at the polls—but will it? -
Labor Goes South
Can the movement rebuild itself below the Mason-Dixon line, and change Southern politics in the process? -
Black Culture and History Matter
It took 150 years after America officially abolished slavery to get a national museum on the black experience. -
That Sinking Feeling: The Politics of Sea Level Rise and Miami's Building Boom
Why is Miami—America’s most vulnerable metropolis to sea-level rise—having yet another beachfront development boom? -
The Other Tech Bubble
How tech companies became detached from urban life and its problems—even when the city is their home.
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Vol. 26 No. 4Fall 2015
Columns
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The European Prospect
With all the pathologies of the 1930s resurgent, Europe's experiment in economic and social union has never been more at risk. -
The Politics of Frustration
Voters on both sides of the partisan divide are being driven toward radical make-believe
Notebook
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Employer Political Coercion: A Growing Threat
Since Citizens United, companies can legally require workers to participate in politics—and fire them if they refuse. -
55-45 Politics in a 50-50 Country
Republicans start every election cycle with structural advantages regardless of the issues and all the other factors that usually determine who wins elections.
Culture
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A Caricature of Black Reality
Ta-Nehisi Coates has written the race book of the year. Too bad it’s disempowering. -
It's Still a Struggle
The fight for voting rights hasn’t been the straightforward battle we once might have expected to win and be done with. -
Security for a Precarious Workforce
What will it take, economically and politically, to broadly regularize employment? -
A Government Both More Secretive and More Open
The same decades that saw the growth of national-security secrecy saw the rise of the public’s “right to know.” -
The Shame of Tax Havens
Taxes evaded in offshore havens could fund a lot of public services.
Features
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Our Incoherent China Policy
The proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership is bad economics, and even worse as containment of China. -
Bronx Cheer
The New York borough that once symbolized urban decline is safer and more stable—but most Bronxites' lives are still precarious. -
Eight Principles for Reforming Solitary Confinement
How we can reduce, make more humane, and ultimately eliminate a practice that, in Justice Kennedy's words, drives prisoners "to the edge of madness" -
Hedge Funds: The Ultimate Absentee Landlords
How Wall Street capitalized on the foreclosure crisis to become the nation's largest owner of single-family homes. -
The New Public Option
Despite hostile courts, can our campaign-finance system be reformed from the bottom up? -
Pushing Civic Tech Beyond Its Comfort Zone
By all means, let's use technology to improve government services. But the real promise is greater political accountability. -
The Unsavory Side of Airbnb
How the popular matching company facilitates landlord conversion of entire rental buildings to de facto hotels. -
Unfriendly Fire
Despite ideological attacks and under-funding, the Veterans Health Administration is a model public system. -
Bring Back Antitrust
Despite low inflation and some bargain prices, economic concentration and novel abuses of market power are pervasive in today's economy—harming consumers, workers, and innovators. We need a new antitrust for a new predatory era. -
Still We Rise
The continuing case for America's historically black colleges and universities.
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Vol. 26 No. 2Summer 2015
Columns
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Cultures of Impunity
Whether it's corporate crime, police homicide, or sexual assault, the issue is the same: Does the law apply to everyone? (PDF version) -
An Embarrassment of Riches
The Republican primary is drenched in money from super PACs and billionaire political investors. Could there be a silver lining?
Notebook
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World Cup Corruption: The Bigger Scandal
In the shadow of Qatar's new soccer stadium, Nepali migrant workers face exploitation, injury, and death. -
We Don't Need 'Modern Asylums'
We need to make deinstitutionalization work for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. -
Betrayers of the Dream
How sleazy for-profit colleges disproportionately targeted black students.
Culture
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Why Mothers and Daughters Tangle Over Hair
While men's hair can often be neutral, women's hair is fraught with questions of sexuality, professionalism, and identity. -
The French Disconnection
Can the ideal of a secular Republic accommodate the new cultural pluralism? -
Get Out of Jail Free
How prosecutors and courts collude to keep corrupt executives from doing prison time. -
The Sometime Liberal
An intellectual in public service, Pat Moynihan defied categorization. -
Should Liberals Back Public Employee Unions?
The stakes in the new battle over unions have far-reaching implications.
Features
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Immigration and America's Urban Revival
The evidence favors a hypothesis many Americans reject: Immigration has helped reduce crime and revitalize city economies. -
The Politics of Virtual Reality
With inexpensive immersive media about to hit the market, we need to ask: How will they affect us? And can they be put to good use? -
Boosting Low PayCover Package
Boosting Low Pay
A look inside the Summer 2015 cover package on new fronts in the labor movement. -
Boosting Low Pay
How the American South Drives the Low-Wage Economy
Just as in the 1850s (with the Dred Scott decision and the Fugitive Slave Act), the Southern labor system (with low pay and no unions) is wending its way north. -
Boosting Low Pay
How to Live Happily with Robots
It takes extensive government intervention to assure that gains of automation are broadly shared. -
Boosting Low Pay
When Charters Go Union
Most charter school funders hate unions and unions generally hate charters. But more and more charter teachers want to unionize, and labor is helping them do it. -
Boosting Low Pay
When Adjuncts Go Union
On campuses across America, contingent faculty are fighting back against low wages and precarious employment. -
Boosting Low Pay
A Decent Living for Home Caregivers—And Their Clients
At-home caregivers are among the least protected and most undervalued workers in the U.S. Low federal reimbursement rates lay at the heart of the problem. -
Fast Track to the Corporate Wish List
The Trans-Pacific Partnership displays a deep rift in the Democratic Party. -
Urban Policing, Without Brutality
Cincinnati has emerged as a role model of policing reform—but even the best-in-show has a long way to go. -
Conscience and the Culture Wars
Conservatives say marriage equality and health-care laws threaten their religious freedom. Should they be exempt? -
Bringing Labor Rights Back to Bangladesh
After a horrific factory collapse in 2013, pressure from global unions, human rights groups, and reputational damage to big fashion brands led to a groundbreaking accord to improve labor conditions. What has it achieved?
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