Departments

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Democratic Party

  • SOURCE: Public Books
    5/17/2023

    Two New Books Take the 1990s as a Pivotal Decade

    by Henry M.J. Tonks

    Books by Lily Geismer and Nicole Hemmer look at the changes that took place within the Democratic and Republican parties (respectively) during a decade that was supposed to be the end of history. 

  • SOURCE: The Nation
    1/24/2023

    Why Can't the Democrats Build a Governing Majority? (Review of Timothy Shenk)

    by Kim Phillips-Fein

    In an implicit response to Richard Hofstadter's finding of the continuity of a narrow "American Political Tradition," Timothy Shenk examines the ways that activists have occasionally disrupted the political order and convinced people to "take a leap into an unknown future."

  • SOURCE: Slate
    1/21/2023

    Why do Republicans Keep Calling it the "Democrat Party"?

    by Lawrence B. Glickman

    The odd rhetorical device isn't just trolling—it reflects 70 years of the Republican Party seeking to define itself against the opposition even as terms like "liberal" and "conservatism" had not yet taken on stable meaning. 

  • SOURCE: 19th News
    1/12/2023

    Anastasia Curwood on New Shirley Chisholm Bio

    By framing Chisholm as a person with a life history, Curwood elevates knowledge of the New York congresswoman from a "first major party candidate" to a political theorist and visionary. 

  • SOURCE: Washington Post
    9/1/2022

    Labor Day is a Chance for Unions and the Democrats to Renew Their Shared History

    by Michael Kazin

    The Democrats and American labor unions have enjoyed success proportionally to the strength of their partnership. Pro-labor rhetoric by President Biden and the upsurge of grassroots union organizing are a sign to renew a formal partnership, says a historian of the Democratic Party. 

  • SOURCE: The American Prospect
    8/4/2022

    Review: Two Books on the Recent History of Polarization

    by Paul Starr

    Historian Michael Kazin and journalist Dana Milbank approach the nation's dire politics from the perspective of the two respective parties, Kazin examining the long conflicts within the Democratic party to create a broad and stable populist coalition, and Milbank examining the GOP's increasingly nihilistic efforts to break it up.

  • SOURCE: New York Times
    8/1/2022

    Fed Up with Emails from Democratic Pols? You're Not Alone

    by Lara Putnam and Micah Sifry

    The Democratic Party's strategy of electronic communications to raise fear and money is backfiring, as voters see little change despite their contributions. The party must reach people at their doorsteps, not through their inboxes. 

  • SOURCE: The Forum
    7/18/2022

    Stuck on the Rufo Road

    by Jennifer Berkshire

    As conservative activists mount a multi-front campaign to discredit and defund public education, too many leading Democrats seem unaware that the popularity of public education means they have a winning issue right in front of their faces, says an education historian and policy analyst. 

  • 6/5/2022

    Is the Republican Party Willing to Purge its Extremists?

    by Jeff Kolnick

    Beginning in the 1920s, the Democratic Party began the long, difficult, and politically costly process of dissociation from white supremacy. Do today's Republicans who claim to reject extremism have the courage to do the same?

  • SOURCE: Black Perspectives
    6/1/2022

    Rescuing Shirley Chisholm's Life from Symbolism

    by Anastasia Curwood

    Writing a biography of the Congresswoman and presidential candidate required working through the distinction between Shirley Chisholm the symbol and the much more complex reality of Shirley Chisholm the woman, to see how big trends in Black history unfolded at a human scale.

  • SOURCE: CNN
    5/20/2022

    Are the Dems Doomed?

    by Julian Zelizer

    The Democrats are leaving themselves open to taking the blame at the polls for the war in Ukraine and high gas prices and the inevitable next wave of the COVID pandemic. 

  • SOURCE: Washington Post
    5/20/2022

    Nicole Hemmer Reviews Martin and Burns's "This Will Not Pass"

    by Nicole Hemmer

    The book by two political reporters portrays the dire contrast between a Republican Party willing to do anything to hold power between November 2020 and January 2021 and a Democratic Party enmeshed in business-as-usual. 

  • SOURCE: Salon
    5/14/2022

    We're Facing the Results of the Dems' Retreat from Secularism

    by Jacques Berlinerblau

    By trying to match the Republicans on bringing Christian faith into policy, Democrats abandoned the difficult but necessary struggles to define how a diverse society protects religious freedom for majority and minority faiths – and those of no faith.