The Troubling Lack of Rage from the Right
As soon as Donald Trump stepped off of his escalator and announced his candidacy for President of the United States last June, we knew he was not going to be a typical candidate. If you were critical of him, you called him an inexperienced reality star who was not to be taken seriously. But from […]
David Foster Wallace and the Election That Made Fun of Itself
On the 20th anniversary of the late-author’s Infinite Jest, an inquiry into satire. Viking Penguin offices, New York City, 1986. The twenty-three year old sitting in editor Gerry Howard’s office is wearing a U2 t-shirt and sneakers so untied Howard is afraid that the kid (who eschews “Gerry” in favor of “Mr. Howard”) will trip […]
Political Satire in the Era of Trump
Donald Trump, reality TV star and celebrity billionaire, is shown on television descending down an escalator inside one of his infamous hotels, announcing to an adoring crowd that he will run for the office of President of the United States. When writer Dan Greaney wrote this scene into an episode of The Simpsons sixteen years […]
The Overlooked Racial Complexities of the Opioid Epidemic
Prescription opioids and heroin (from this point on summarily referred to as opioids; despite differences in legality, they both have opiate bases and fall under a shared political umbrella) have created the latest substance-related epidemic in America.[1] In a rare frenzy of bipartisanship, the House of Representatives passed 18 opioid-related bills during one week in […]
Felon Disenfranchisement in Light of Unjust Laws
The New York Times recently published a “Room for Debate” on the topic of felon disenfranchisement with Roger Clegg, president and general counsel of the Center for Equal Opportunity, arguing for felon disenfranchisement, and Janai S. Nelson, associate director-counsel at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, arguing against it. The debate centered on the […]
Trump and the Party Establishment
The 2016 election cycle is shaping up to be the most interesting in years. This is the result of a “revolution” brewing among both Democratic and Republican bases alike — where “outsider” candidates garner major support and their party establishments try to tear them down. The Democratic Party has had some success keeping Bernie Sanders […]
A Dereliction of Duty
February 13, 2016: Antonin Scalia is dead. The brilliant conservative jurist, beloved on the right and often demonized on the left, had for decades stood as a conservative titan and stalwart on the Supreme Court. Scalia, 79, was discovered dead in his room at a luxury resort, where he had been visiting for the weekend, […]
Lena Dunham’s Girls: Promoting Feminist Discourse
The HBO series Girls — and its creator, writer, director, and star Lena Dunham — have attracted overwhelming media attention since the show first aired in 2012. Girls has received mixed reviews; some applaud the show and Lena Dunham, a self-proclaimed feminist, for bringing women’s issues to the forefront of social and political discourse, while […]
Why Donald Trump Needs to Have a Conversation with Amal Clooney
International lawyer Amal Clooney has taken on the case of imprisoned investigative journalist Khadija Ismayilova, signaling hope for media freedom in Azerbaijan and striking fear in the hearts of repressive regimes everywhere. Khadija Ismayilova, 37, is an investigative journalist from the former-Soviet state of Azerbaijan. She dug into the regime of President Ilham Aliyev, whose […]
In the Age of Acceptance, North Carolina Chooses Intolerance
LGBT rights have expanded exponentially in the past year. The Supreme Court case Obergefell v. Hodges (2015) legalized same-sex marriage across all 50 states, briefly putting an end to state-imposed discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.[1] The majority of political backlash following the Obergefell decision, primarily from conservative states and politicians, consisted mostly of […]