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Vol. 26 No. 2Spring 2015
Columns
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The Opportunity Dodge
It's an empty promise—because the chance to thrive will never be good amid great inequalities. -
What We Know Now
Twenty-five years later, the world has changed in crucial ways that factor into our thinking.
Notebook
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Anxiety Itself
As a party identified with women, Democrats face a distinctive challenge in 2016. -
The Marriage Cure
Policies to help the broad range of families are better for kids—and better for progressive politics. -
The Cyber Conundrum
Why the current policy for national cyber defense leaves us open to attack. -
Why Public Silence Greets Government Success
Hardly anyone notices when government works—so how to design policies that get credit?
Culture
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The Real Story of the American Family
Two new books explain how rising inequality shattered the working-class family of the mid-20th century. -
Piety and Politics in America
The tension between religiosity and secular government goes back to the nation’s founding. -
How the Bankers Destroyed the Dream
The mortgage collapse was an entirely avoidable crisis—a brew of elite financial lobbying and bad policy. -
It's All About the Money
How America became preoccupied with higher education’s bottom line. -
Has Child Care Policy Finally Come of Age?
The Democrats may now be turning to a long-stalled agenda for working parents. -
The Evolutionary Roots of Altruism
Do altruistic groups always beat selfish groups? A new book claims they do.
Features
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The Wealth Problem
Aspiring to own a home and pursue an education are quintessentially American ideals. It's time to make those dreams accessible again. -
Senior Class: America's Unequal Retirement
One of the cruelest manifestations of widening inequality happens in life's final quarter. -
How Progressive Policies Can Lead to a Democratic Majority
The new American electorate could offer a durable majority--if Democrats address economic needs with progressive policies, not centrist ones. -
Raising Wages From the Bottom Up
Three ways city and state governments can make the difference. -
A Radical Pope
Francis has challenged the Catholic Church. How much can he change it? -
The Junior Justice
Elena Kagan is rewriting the role of a Supreme Court justice in American democracy. -
The High Road Wins
How and why Minnesota is outpacing Wisconsin -
The Political Roots of Widening Inequality
The key to understanding the rise in inequality isn’t technology or globalization. It’s the power of the moneyed interests to shape the underlying rules of the market. -
The Politics of Offense and Defense
Once reliably blue strongholds, Wisconsin's and Minnesota's political paths have diverged in recent years. -
No Cost for Extremism
Why the GOP hasn't (yet) paid for its march to the right. -
The Civil Rights Movement and the Politics of Memory
As opportunists try to hijack the movement's legacy, let's remember what actually occurred. -
How Gilded Ages End
Protecting democracy from oligarchic dominance is, once again, a central imperative of American politics. -
Poised for Prosperity?
Drawing the right lessons from the past quarter-century
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Vol. 26 No. 1Winter 2015
Columns
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Can Liberal Democracy Survive?
America is becoming more like the illiberal pseudo-democracies and kleptocracies. -
The Crash of The New Republic
The mass exodus from the storied magazine was not the result of disagreements about the value of new technology.
Notebook
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The Democrats in Opposition
They can become the party of working Americans and win. Or they can appease Wall Street and lose. -
Atlantic Surging, Virginia Sinking
Rising sea level in Norfolk threatens the town, the Navy, and a state in denial.
Culture
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When the Student Movement Was a CIA Front
The CIA's manipulation of the National Student Association foreshadowed other forms of Cold War blowback that compromised democracy at home. -
The Great Party Switch
From 1968 through 1992, Republicans tended to control the White House. Since then, they’ve more frequently controlled Congress, which has moved them even more to the right. -
Looking Forward to the Sequel
If we don’t alter the power distribution that led to the financial collapse, it will happen again. -
Sharing the Wealth
Why can’t we broadly distribute the wealth produced from America’s common resource pool? Conservative Alaska manages to do it. -
Truth in Politics Now
Demanding that we seek out the truth is a start—but it is only a start.
Special Report
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Why Markets Can't Price the Priceless
It takes government planning to promote the rational conservation and use of water. -
The Perils of Privatization
When a public function is privatized, the result is a muddled middle ground. -
Markets, States, and the Green Transition
To get renewable energy technologies into broad use, government needs to promote both supply and demand. Markets are too risk-averse. -
Why Economists Cling to Discredited Ideas
Free-market theory may be at odds with reality, but it fits the needs of the rich and the powerful. -
The Libertarian Delusion
The free-market fantasy stands discredited by events. The challenge now: redeeming effective and democratic government
Features
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A Needless Default
The administration’s foreclosure relief program was designed to help bankers, not homeowners. That disgrace will haunt Democrats. -
How Democratic Progressives Survived a Landslide
They ran against Wall Street and carried the white working class. The Democrats who shunned populism got clobbered. -
Sex, Lies and Justice
Can we reconcile the belated attention to rape on campus with due process? -
Can Moral Mondays Produce Victorious Tuesdays?
North Carolina’s protest movement has galvanized the state’s progressives, but couldn’t stop 2014’s Republican tide. Its leaders say they’re only just beginning. -
When Liberals Were Organized
Progressives seeking a model for an effective Congress could learn from the nearly forgotten history of the Democratic Study Group. -
Blind to the Future
Chris Christie and the Republican default on public investment. -
What to Do When 'I Do' Is Done
LGBT activists and funders are debating the movement’s post-marriage priorities.
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Vol. 25 No. 5Fall 2014
Columns
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Democracy's New Moment
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The American Situation
The country is stuck but it is not stationary. Some things are changing—just not at the federal level.
Notebook
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In 22 States, a Wave of New Voting Restrictions Threatens to Shift Outcomes in Tight Races
The last large-scale push to curb voting access was more than a century ago, after Reconstruction. Until now. -
Road Hazard: Millions of Autos On U.S. Highways Recalled But Not Repaired
Why we have millions of cars with unfixed safety recalls — and Germany has none. -
The Targeting of Young Blacks By Law Enforcement: Ben Jealous in Conversation With Jamelle Bouie
What will it take to reshape America’s police departments, and curtail the unprompted police killings that beset us still?
Culture
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The End of the Lavender Ghetto
As gays and lesbians gain acceptance, they are moving away from the old neighborhoods that long epitomized gay culture. -
Music and Memory
The dangerous state of Zionism invites us to cherish the diaspora as Jewish cultural and religious homeland. -
A Talent for Storytelling
Rick Perlstein tells how Reagan imagined his way into the American psyche. -
What Women Need
Can women translate symbolic victories into durable progress on multiple fronts, from financial status to physical safety? -
Abortion Without Apology: A Prescription for Getting the Pro-Choice Groove Back
Only by reclaiming abortion as a fundamental right and normal part of health care can the pro-choice movement hope to win, writes Katha Pollitt in a lively new book.
Features
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On Realism, Old and New
With new threats to the peace, it’s more important than ever to be clear about America’s core national interests. -
Black America's Promised Land: Why I Am Still a Racial Optimist
Hope and pessimism have defined two traditions of American thinking about race. Fully acknowledging recent setbacks, the author makes the case for the tradition of hope. -
Must Environmentalists and Labor Activists Find Themselves at Odds With Each Other?
The need for jobs, and the ecological limits to growth -
The Making of Ferguson: How Decades of Hostile Policy Created a Powder Keg
Long before the shooting of Michael Brown, official racial-isolation policies primed Ferguson for this summer’s events. -
Rand Paul's Millennial Quest: A Little Libertarian, A Lot of Something Else
Win or lose, the neo-libertarian stands to change the DNA of the Grand Old Party. -
Labor at a Crossroads: The Seeds of a New Movement
SEIU’s David Rolf—virtuoso organizer and mastermind of Seattle’s $15 minimum wage campaign—says labor needs radically new ways to champion worker interests. -
Elizabeth Warren's Challenge to Hillary Clinton
A more insurgent campaign, like the one the former professor waged for the Senate, could make the Democratic frontrunner a stronger candidate.
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Vol. 25 No. 4July/August
Columns
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Three Reasons Liberals Lack Traction With Voters, Despite Conservative Failures
The liberal imagination has been stunted by decades of conservative obstruction.
Notebook
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The Little-Known Force Behind the Hobby Lobby Contraception Case
How the Becket Fund became the leading advocate for corporations’ religious rights -
Armed Resistance in the Civil Rights Movement: Charles E. Cobb and Danielle L. McGuire on Forgotten History
Cobb, author of This Nonviolent Stuff'll Get You Killed: How Guns Made the Civil Rights Movement Possible, and Danielle McGuire, a historian at Wayne State University, discuss the fundamental role of armed resistance in the civil rights movement.
Culture
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The Road to Marriage Equality: Boies and Olson’s Wedding March
What the limelight-loving legal team did and didn’t win for same-sex couples' right to marry. -
Astronaut Sally Ride and the Burden of Being The First
America's woman space pioneer paid a price back on Earth. -
The Brothers Koch: Family Drama and Disdain for Democracy
Lawsuits are the billionaire brothers’ weapon of choice—against each other—writes Daniel Schulman in his first-rate new bio. But buying our democracy, and maybe killing it, is pure self-interest. -
Race or Class? The Future of Affirmative Action on the College Campus
Focusing college-student recruitment on poor neighborhoods can overlook middle-class African Americans entitled to affirmative action. -
Have Literary Prizes Lost Their Meaning? (Have They Ever Had Any?)
Cultural prizes notoriously reward the wrong works for the wrong reasons: On the long list of worthies deprived of the Nobel for literature are Tolstoy, Proust, and Joyce. -
Is 'The Fault In Our Stars' Author John Green His Generation's Pop Philosopher?
The author and phenom, with a bajillion Internet viewers, has built an avid Internet following with pep talks on how to be good. What does it mean to live like one of Green's "Nerdfighters"?
Features
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Meet the Billionaires Backing Team Blue With a Megaphone Only Money Can Buy
Conservatives have the Kochs and Rupert Murdoch, but progressives have their mega-donors, too. -
Hillary Clinton's New Image: Cool Grandma. Can She Maintain It?
Her attitude—unabashedly feminist, casually in charge—was captured most effectively toward the end of her stint as secretary of state. Can she keep it as a candidate? -
Why Democrats Need to Take Sides in America's Class War
Straddling class divisions is so last century. There's a new base in town, and it includes a lot of people who used to be middle-class but aren't anymore. -
How Two Centrist Dems May Herald a Progressive Future for Georgia
As Republicans head to the polls to select a U.S. Senate candidate who will almost certainly hail from the right, Michelle Nunn and Jason Carter--daughter of Senator Sam and grandson of President Jimmy--take the middle path on a road destined to veer left. -
Can Liberalism Survive the Obama Presidency? (Yes, It Can.)
If Obama is a transformative figure, it isn’t in the ideological way he seemed after his election. -
Will Economic Populism Win Back the Midwest for Democrats?
The decline of industrial unions and significant demographic changes portend challenging times for the region’s Democrats.
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Vol. 25 No. 3May/June
Columns
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Can Reformers Save Our Election System from the Supreme Court?
Slowly but steadily, SCOTUS is decimating every legal justification for campaign-finance rules. -
The Three Curses Faced By Democrats -- And How to Lift Them
In creating a better political future, it is better to be cursed with youth than blessed with age.
Notebook
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Breaking the School-to-Prison Pipeline: Rethinking 'Zero Tolerance'
A new approach to discipline seeks to keep kids in school and, ultimately, out of prison. In one high school, the number of serious incidents of misbehavior plummeted 60 percent, after the start of a "restorative justice" program. -
The Politics of Pain
How do liberals and conservatives view suffering? Two leading experts discuss.
Culture
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Karl Polanyi Explains It All
Want to understand our market-crazed era? Rediscover the 20th century’s most prophetic critic of capitalism. -
Too Big to Fail. Not Too Strong.
Nomi Prins’s new book traces America’s propping up of banks since the robber barons. -
Food TV’s Sadistic Glee
Competitive cooking shows and our yearning for what we dare not eat -
The Soul-Killing Structure of the Modern Office
Our artless workspaces have been the twisted end result of utopian thinking.
Features
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The Revolt of the Cities
During the past 20 years, immigrants and young people have transformed the demographics of urban America. Now, they’re transforming its politics and mapping the future of liberalism. -
For the U.S., Israel and Palestine: What's Plan B?
As a concept, the two-state solution is more broadly accepted than ever, even as achieving it seems more remote. -
The Next Christian Sex-Abuse Scandal
As sex-abuse allegations multiply, Billy Graham’s grandson is on a mission to persuade Protestant churches to come clean. -
The Great American Chain Gang
Why can't we embrace the idea that prisoners have labor rights? -
The Hidden History of Prosperity
In the crisis of World War II, the nation made the political choices that created the robust egalitarian economy of the next 30 years. Can we respond to the climate crisis with similar policies to rebuild the middle class?
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