Новости за 25.01.2017

Those who expected the worst from President Donald Trump have every reason to feel vindicated. In the first six days of his presidency, two patterns are already evident. First, despite winning an election and being elevated to the position of the most powerful man in the world, Trump remains deeply insecure, constantly searching for validation from his coterie of cronies. Second, despite hopes that Trump’s fiery campaign rhetoric was just to please his supporters, Trump is fully committed to carrying out his most extreme promises... Читать дальше...

While outrage greeted the announcement in December that Threshold Editions, a conservative imprint of Simon & Schuster, had agreed to publish a book by Milo Yiannopolous, an alt-right troll who has peddled misogyny and racism to moderate fame, things quieted down soon after. Ultimately, a book published by a hate-monger couldn’t compete with the inauguration of one.

Betsy DeVos’s Senate confirmation hearing last week was, by most accounts, a train wreck. The education secretary nominee aired extreme views that alarmed public education advocates, but she also showed an unfamiliarity with basic policy issues. So it came as no surprise when Democrats demanded a second hearing for the billionaire Republican donor, ostensibly because they want more time to vet her potential conflicts of interest. Republican Senator Lamar Alexander, who chairs the education committee, denied their request. Читать дальше...

There’s a tension at the heart of biographies of radicals. No matter how much they emphasize the “times” in their exploration of “the life and times,” biographies are pushed by the conventions of the genre to highlight the individual, above all else. The biographer is inclined to find interest in those things that makes the biographer’s subject distinct from her social world: This is, presumably, what made her a compelling subject to begin with. When faced with socialists and radicals whose lives were defined by community and mass struggle... Читать дальше...

Against a backdrop of increasing liberal concerns that Democrats in Congress are being too solicitous of President Donald Trump, too accommodating of his cabinet nominees, too concerned about the challenges they will face in the 2018 midterms, it is worth noting that Democrats have given Republicans no quarter in their efforts to abolish the Affordable Care Act. Democrats have insisted, too, that any alternative health care reform plan be just as expansive as Obamacare and provide people access to a similar level of care. Читать дальше...

Last week, the leaders of the world’s two largest economies gave important speeches offering diametrically opposed visions of the global economic order.