From the Left
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What Moved Us From the Land of Plenty to Unease?
During a visit to one of our supermarkets, a French friend looked over a long shelf of apples. Seeing several varieties piled halfway to heaven, she remarked, "This is truly the land of plenty." It truly is, but how, for so many of us, did it become the "land of discontent"?
Of course, our political battles require challengers to go on and on...Read more
We're Fighting for Our Freedoms -- No Matter Who Is President
As we near Election Day, the ACLU is in conversation with state and local activists about how to prepare for, and respond to, the election outcome. Many people we spoke with are grappling with how they can best protect their communities and fight back against unprecedented attempts to restrict our rights. Right now, there's real concern about ...Read more
We the People Will Succeed
These are the most stressful and nerve-racking days I can recall. I vacillate between optimism and fear, hope and dread.
You?
I don’t recall an election in which the two candidates represent such opposite poles of the American character.
Harris is the rule of law; Trump, lawlessness. Harris, inclusion; Trump, exclusion. Harris, decency; ...Read more
Campaign Season Ends on Cruel Notes
It seems to me that Tony Hinchcliffe, the podcast host and alleged "roast comedian" who warmed up the crowd at Donald Trump's recent campaign rally at Madison Square Garden in New York, could have found a less gratuitously cruel way to get laughs than to call Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage.“
Call me old-fashioned, but I long for ...Read more
What Do You Hear?
Will angry young men who are attracted by Donald Trump's sexist machismo and utter lack of a filter actually turn out to vote? Will latent sexism rear its ugly head, as it did in 2016, leading Trump to perform better than his poll numbers predict?
Will young women, who have every reason to be angry about losing their rights, and every reason ...Read more
Why Can't Kamala Talk Dude?
One of the most persistent challenges faced by Kamala Harris' abbreviated presidential campaign is a vexingly wide gender gap. Men just aren't that into her.
Democrats have deployed several approaches to convince male voters to feel the joy.
Divide and conquer: Harris' policies divvy up guys by race. Her "Opportunity Agenda for Black Men" ...Read more
The Grift That May Cost Trump the Election
If Kamala Harris and Tim Walz win the White House on Nov. 5, the Democrats may owe their triumph to the notorious character flaw that plagues the Republican Party of Donald Trump: an irresistible urge to grift.
In an election likely to be determined by a very narrow proportion of votes in a few states, the difference between winning and ...Read more
Tequila and America
I used to drink tequila.
I drank it when I was a lot younger. I only drank it seriously for about six months, then I stopped, which is one of the reasons I got to be a lot older.
It had some romance, tequila did.
I drank it straight, out of a shot glass, with the salt and the lemon in the non-shot glass hand.
Drinking tequila that way, in ...Read more
Campaign 2024: A Tale of Two Rallies
With so many twists and turns, this presidential campaign is unlike any other: the incumbent president dropping out and endorsing his vice president; two assassination attempts against the former president; the Democratic candidate endorsed by a former Republican vice president, three former Republican members of Congress, the former Republican ...Read more
Donald Trump Is a Foreign Influence
I recently spent time flying to various regions of this country and was struck by how nice almost everyone was. Whether boarding to New York, Chicago or Albuquerque, I found fellow passengers to be super polite, patient with slow movers, helpful lifting bags into the overhead. The number of racial and ethnic backgrounds sharing the aircrafts ...Read more
The Bully and the Billionaire
It was a front-page story in The Washington Post back in October 2019. Amazon was in line to receive a $10 billion contract from the Department of Defense for cloud computing (the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure, or JEDI, contract) when, at the last minute, the contract was awarded to Microsoft. Then-President Donald Trump has been ...Read more
Keeping the Faith in America
WASHINGTON -- Greetings from riding shockwaves in the nerve center of the free world.
Bleak fury is passed around like the plague here since The Washington Post's owner, billionaire Jeff Bezos, nixed its endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris.
This column before Election Day is filled with foreboding.
Then came former President Donald ...Read more
The Shame of TD Bank's Jolly Bankers
Woody Guthrie satirized Depression-era bankers who routinely gouged farmers and poor people. "I'm a jolly banker, jolly banker am I," Woody sang about the joyful lenders who profiteered on people's misery.
Woody's song could be sung today by Bharat Masrani, CEO of the TD Bank empire. Investigative digger Judd Legum reports that Masrani has ...Read more
No Do-Overs: Americans Reckon With the H-Word
On Feb. 20, 1939, 20,000 Americans filled New York City's Madison Square Garden to pronounce themselves Nazis, giving Nazi salutes and cheering for Adolf Hitler. The rally took place just two days before George Washington's birthday, the stage outfitted with a massive portrait of our first president, flanked by both American flags and ...Read more
When I Need a Plumber, I've Got One Handy
The first chilly day of the year, I heard scary banging in the basement. It was the boiler.
I walked upstairs and woke my husband.
"Honey, there's banging in the basement," I said.
"You've got a guy," he responded, half-asleep.
My husband, you see, is a master plumber. When someone desperately needs a plumber or an electrician or another ...Read more
W. Kamau Bell and Michigan's Top Rap Stars Get Down for Voting Rights
Greeted by the newly constructed "Detroit" sign, my colleagues and I arrived in the Motor City for the final stop on the ACLU's Know Your Rights bus tour. We didn't actually ride our Know Your Rights bus to Detroit. Instead, we arrived to find the bus in all its glory parked outside the Garden Theater, just off the bustling Woodward Avenue. ...Read more
Who Cares About Endorsements? Not You.
Sitting at dinner in a local restaurant, I saw breaking news come across the TV screen near the bar. It read, "Washington Post says its editorial board is done with presidential endorsements." This was on the heels of LA Times editors resigning over the decision not to endorse a presidential candidate.
It's interesting to me that this is ...Read more
Harris’ Closing Message: Why it Must Center on Anti-Elitist Economics
I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling more anxious about the outcome of the upcoming election. I’m still nauseously optimistic, but the nausea is growing.
I’m as skeptical of polls as any of you, but when all of them show the same thing — that Kamala Harris’ campaign stalled several weeks ago, yet Trump’s continues to surge — ...Read more
Is Donald Trump a Fascist at Heart? Close Enough
Donald Trump and MAGA loyalists may scoff at the charge that he’s a fascist, but let’s face it, he at least offers a remarkably good imitation.
The F-word came up prominently as radio host Charlamagne Tha God interviewed Vice President Kamala Harris in mid-October about her vision compared to that of her Republican rival.
“The other is ...Read more
The Week That Was
It was a week that would doom most candidates for high office. It began with Donald Trump going on a riff about Arnold Palmer's penis size, that the late golfer's daughter understandably found offensive. Did his supporters? Apparently not.
It got worse from there. If you don't mind a president who is focused on penis size, what about one who ...Read more