Our 47th President: Welcome Back, William McKinley
In his second inaugural address, president Donald Trump rattled off a list of legislative initiatives that he claimed would “completely and totally reverse a horrible betrayal” that had been levied upon the American people. Among them were solutions to various hot-button issues which compelled voters to elect Trump to a second term, such as illegal […]
How Harris’s Fate Could Await Vance
Although pre-election forecasts predicted the 2024 election would be mathematically closer than a coin flip, everything seemed to go perfectly for former President Donald Trump on Election Day. By receiving 2.5 million more votes than he did in the 2020 presidential election and flipping six of the seven swing states which voted for Biden in […]
The Pardon Problem
The president’s power to pardon has been enshrined in the Constitution ever since it was first ratified at the Constitutional Convention of 1787. Among the convention’s Framers, it was Alexander Hamilton who argued most fervently for the existence of pardon powers. Hamilton argued in Federalist 74 that the president’s ability to grant clemency and pardons […]
Geopolitically Fickle States and the Liberal International Order
In the coming decades, there are a handful of states that could realistically align themselves with either the liberal-democratic international order—a system of international relations defined by adherence to international law, open and liberal free trade, and belief in the natural rights of human beings—or today’s autocracies. Such geopolitically fickle states hesitate to commit themselves […]
The Dark Past and Uncertain Future of Nuclear Energy in Japan
In October 2020, then-Prime Minister Suga Yoshihide declared that Japan would reach net-zero greenhouse gas emission by 2050, an extremely high hurdle for the country to achieve in just thirty years. Japan is among the world’s largest carbon emitters, with forty percent of its emissions coming from energy production; in 2019, fossil fuels composed 88 […]
The Complexities of Queer, Caribbean Identities, and the Dangers of West-Centric LGBTQ+ Advocacy
Introduction As of 2020, nine Caribbean countries criminalize same-sex relations. Beyond legal discrimination, queer Caribbean people face increased threats of violence, abuse, and oppression. In 2006, Time magazine went as far as insinuating that the Caribbean region is “the most homophobic place on Earth.” But despite this environment, queer Caribbean communities have continued to resist […]
Impacts of Direct-to-Consumer Pharmaceutical Advertising on Quality of Care
Advertisements for drugs have long inundated television and other media platforms. They all follow roughly the same formula: miraculous claims, moving images of families, the music swells, and then a long, incomprehensible list of possible side effects written in fine print and recited so quickly that the dangerous ones almost go unnoticed. This style of […]
Move on From Implicit Bias
In the bestseller White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism, Robin DiAngelo writes, “Prejudice always manifests itself in action because the way I see the world drives my actions in the world. Everyone has prejudice, and everyone discriminates.” She later clarifies that White supremacist messages “circulate 24-7 and have […]
Invisible Man and the Twenty-First Century Black Bildungsroman
Last summer, as I processed the news of the murder of George Floyd, I felt like I could keep it together. I was eighteen; the past decade saw numerous police killings that drew national attention. I had no illusions about any of this. Yet something felt different. It might have been the sheer barbarity, the […]
Petruchio, Peterson, and The Taming of the Shrew
The Taming of the Shrew is widely considered a misogynistic play, a relic of a time best forgotten. And while its sexist themes cannot be dismissed, a reimagining is possible and necessary—lest today’s reactionaries get to it first.