Where Did Argentina’s Firebrand New President Get His Political Ideas?

Javier Milei Has Changed the Meaning of Libertad From Collective Struggle to Libertarianism—With Help from the U.S. Right

Last month, Argentina swore in as president yet another right-wing populist with mutton chops and bad hair who built a political career out of screaming at people on television with threatening chutzpah.

Javier Milei’s signature campaign proposal was dollarizing Argentina’s economy, which both the Financial Times and the Economist criticized as a death blow to the country’s economic sovereignty. He has backed away from that proposal since being elected but has kept others, such as shutting down all public infrastructure work unless privately funded and slashing regulations and subsidies on everything …

How Hollywood’s Black Friday Strike Changed Labor Across America

A 1945 Union vs. Studios Battle Set Off Broad Right-Wing Hysteria—Its Lessons Should Resonate Today

It was October 5, 1945. The Conference of Studio Unions (CSU), a union representing craft laborers in Los Angeles, including painters, carpenters, set designers, cartoonists, and others, was seven months …

On a Rocky Hill in Athens, a ‘Democratic Odyssey’ Begins

Could a European People’s Assembly—Politician-Free and Chosen by Lottery—Become a Permanent Branch of Government?

Democracy was first built on a lot of loose rock.

Can democracy now be rebuilt on that very same ground?

Recently, I spent a long afternoon on a dusty and rocky Athens …

Jimmy Carter’s Pragmatic Path to Power

An Idealist in and After Office, He Became a Governor and a President By Appealing to Racial and Class Prejudice

Former president Jimmy Carter, who will be 99 this Sunday, October 1, was only 46 when he first popped up on the national political radar. After declaring in his 1971 …

What the GOP Gets Wrong About the Puritans

Reagan and Pence Invoked Them as Inspiration, But a True Reckoning With Their History Provides a Different Vision of the Nation’s Future

During the first Republican presidential primary debate, on August 23, former Vice President Mike Pence spoke of founders of the nation conquering the American “wilderness.” It was one …

I Hereby Censure the Censure | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

I Hereby Censure the Censure

When California Politicians Pass Resolutions Denouncing One Another, They Make a Mockery of Democracy

It’s time that we Californians censure the whole idea of censure.

Because it’s consuming the precious time and money of our local governments.

Censure is the name often given to resolutions or …