Adele M. Stan
Adele M. Stan is a columnist for The American Prospect. She is research director of People for the American Way, and a winner of the Hillman Prize for Opinion & Analysis Journalism.
Recent Articles
The Real Enemy of the People Sits in the Oval Office
Trump’s attacks on the press amount to an assault on democracy.
Aug 03, 2018
In a 2017 Freedom House report titled “ Breaking Down Democracy: Goals, Strategies and Methods of Modern Authoritarians ,” author Arch Puddington notes, “The rewriting of history for political purposes is common among modern authoritarians.” Though the line was used to describe the actions of Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin, it fittingly applies, as well, to Donald J. Trump, president of the United States. At a rally last night in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, the president characteristically whipped his supporters into a frenzy of repeated Two Minutes Hate rantings against the news media . What made it different this time, though, are the events that preceded it. First Daughter and presidential adviser Ivanka Trump, earlier in the day, told Mike Allen of Axios that she does not view the press as “the enemy of the people,” an assertion her father has made repeatedly , naming mainstream outlets such as The New York Times and CNN as “...
Trump, Putin, and the Plague on America
It’s not just them—it’s us.
Jul 27, 2018
In March of 1973, White House Counsel John Dean famously told Richard Nixon, “There’s a cancer on the presidency.” Dean referred, of course, to criminal actions taken on the president’s behalf, and the president’s involvement of a cover-up. Today, there’s clearly a disease on the presidency—and on the entire Cabinet, and on the majority in Congress, as well. But more than that, the plague is overtaking the body politic. There’s a pox on all of our houses. I recall when the Republican brand was a patriarchal vision dressed up in patriotism. Ironically (or not), it was that “love it or leave it” variety of American nationalism that led us to the abandonment of loyalty to the notion of American democracy—of an America led by Americans. The people who voted for and support Donald Trump don’t care that Vladimir Putin, president of the Russian Federation and no fan of democracy, has his hooks into the U.S. president,...
Trump Is Selling Out America, and His Supporters Love It
Whatever Putin has on Trump is reshaping global politics.
Jul 20, 2018
President Donald J. Trump loves Vladimir Putin, the Russian strongman—as do the right-wingers who love Trump. Some on the far right see Putin as the restorer of Christendom ; others simply see him as a champion of the white race . Donald Trump apparently sees Putin as the savior of, well, Donald Trump. But motives hardly matter in this new time; for white nationalists like former White House strategist Steve Bannon, Trump’s weakness for Putin serves Bannon’s dark vision for a reordering of the world , one that has little respect for democracy or civil rights. In the days preceding Trump’s visit to London, Bannon got himself a nice hotel suite in which he courted European far-right leaders , such as Brexiteer Nigel Farage and the National Front’s Louis Aliot—during which he stoked the chaos gripping the government of the United Kingdom over negotiations with the European Union over the terms of the U.K.’s exit from that economic alliance. As he...
Trump the Destroyer
Jul 13, 2018
Donald Trump knows how to land himself on the front pages. Possibly distressed that his visit to London was playing second fiddle in the British news cycle to England’s World Cup loss to Croatia, Trump used an interview with The Sun to make threats against U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May that could further destabilize her government and push her from power. If May sealed the “soft Brexit” deal she’s negotiated with the European Union for the United Kingdom’s exit from the EU, Trump said, a trade deal between the U.K. and the U.S. was probably off. Oh, and by the way, he thinks that Boris Johnson, a leading Brexiteer and political nemesis to May, would make a great prime minister. Last week, Johnson quit May’s government, where he had served as foreign secretary, in protest of May’s EU exit deal. For good measure, he threw in chilling comments that showed his real reason for opposing Western nations’ acceptance of migrants from the...
If You Think This Week Was Bad, Just Wait Till Next Week
Jun 29, 2018
Even before four journalists and one publishing staffer were murdered yesterday afternoon in Maryland, it was a terrible week in America—all because of the noxious and corrupt Trump regime, which includes the majority of people in the United States Congress. It was only a couple of nights ago that Donald J. Trump, the likely illegitimate president of the United States, described the media for the umpteenth time as “ the enemy of the people ,” so you’d be forgiven for wondering if the grudge-carrying, violent misogynist charged with murdering employees of the Capital Gazette in Annapolis was inspired by the grudge-carrying, violence-inciting misogynist who occupies the Oval Office. The truth is, we’ll probably never know. But the fact that so many of us leapt to that conclusion tells you just how toxic our political environment has become, yet how inured we are to its poison. It’s just what is. What we do know now, beyond the shadow of a doubt, is...
