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Washington Monthly
A New Look at the Feminist Earthquake
On August 26, 1970, the 50th anniversary of women’s suffrage, an estimated 50,000 women marched down New York City’s Fifth Avenue as part of a daylong general strike. Betty Friedan, the author of the seminal work The Feminine Mystique, which had sparked the so-called second wave of feminism, had called for the strike as a way to cast media attention on the nascent women’s movement. She declared the day “a resistance both passive and active, of all women in America against the concrete conditions of their oppression.” Never one to shirk the spotlight, Friedan led the brigade, flanked by a gaggle of former suffragists, veterans of feminism’s first wave now in their 70s and 80s. Women chanted, held signs, and cheered, “Liberté, égalité, sororité,” “Don’t iron while the strike is hot,” and “Uppity women unite.”
VIDEO: Anne Kim Discusses “Poverty for Profit” with Paul Glastris
In her brilliant new book Poverty for Profit, reviewed here, Washington Monthly Contributing Editor Anne Kim pulls back the curtain on a vast, predatory corporate sector that few middle-class Americans know anything about. Over the past few decades, she explains, government has increasingly handed off the delivery of safety net...
The Empirical Case for Supreme Court Term Limits
President Joe Biden has announced his intention to pursue term limits for Supreme Court justices, a reform with broad public support across the political spectrum. As the public increasingly loses confidence in the Court as an apolitical institution, it is both timely and prudent for Biden to consider this path.
The Perpetrator and the Prosecutor
Kamala Harris, off to a formidable start in a most unlikely presidential campaign, has cast the race as the prosecutor against the perpetrator. She utters this line repeatedly. It’s a narrative that fits the situation and may catch on among the undecided, the swings, the young, and even those Donald...
Data Don’t Lie: Harris Has the Facts to Refute Trump’s Lies About the Economy
With Kamala Harris’ fast-approaching nomination, her campaign has an opening to call out Donald Trump’s lies about his economic record and reset the economic narrative based on facts. Trump regularly claims that “we had the greatest economy in history” under his leadership. In late June, Trump declared that he had left Biden an economy that “was so good, all he had to do is leave it alone … [instead] he destroyed it.”
Venezuelan Elections Could Turn the Refugee Tide
Refugees stream across borders to neighboring countries and add to what already is the world’s largest refugee crisis. The nation they are fleeing is embattled, violent, and experiencing extreme shortages of medicine and food. This is not Ukraine. It is Venezuela. While Ukraine is undergoing invasion and a hot...
Biden and Harris Broke the Suffocating “Washington Consensus” on Economics
As Kamala Harris campaigns for president, one of her challenges is the economic record of the administration she still serves. Of course, she can point out that we have the strongest economy in decades, seen in metrics such as the Dow Jones Industrial Average, GDP growth, and jobs paying a living wage. She can also highlight the administration’s success in passing landmark economic legislation, which has resulted in massive investments in long-neglected infrastructure, rebuilding America’s hollowed-out industrial base, and regaining America’s competitive edge in critical technologies.
Project 2025 is Even Worse Than You Think
You’ve likely heard of Project 2025, the policy blueprint ginned up by the Heritage Foundation for Donald Trump’s second term as president (although the Republican nominee has tried to distance himself from the plan). Many of its proposals would be terrible for American families, but they’d be especially devastating for the poor.
The Balance of Powers Demands a Strong Congressional Research Service
Is it too late to fix the Congressional Research Service, Congress’s in-house think tank? On March 20, interim director Robert Newlen described encountering a staffer balancing her cell phone on a door jamb in the repurposed Washington, D.C. book depository that houses CRS. When asked why, she explained that it was the only place she could get cell service and be responsive to calls from congressional offices. When called, she would answer, hang up, and call back from outside the building.
The Reporter Who Made Us Love Politics—Or Tried
Charlie Peters, my original mentor in the magazine world, used to say that the hardest talent to find among aspiring writers was a true, light, instinctive comic touch. Lots of people could work hard, write fast, and stay up late. Lots of people were politics nuts or history buffs. Many people were willing to ask questions and do research and go through the repeated self-education that is the reporter’s life.
The Irrepressible Walter Shapiro
It was October 27, 1994, and a day earlier, Israel and Jordan had signed a peace treaty in the desert expanse that straddled the once-warring nations. It was just a year after the Oslo Accords. Bill Clinton and his press corps were on the road to Damascus, where he would be the first president to meet strongman Hafez al-Assad in Syria in almost 20 years. When our charter flight touched down at Damascus International Airport, amid propaganda posters of Assad and plenty of menacing Syrian security forces, my friend Walter Shapiro asked me to snap a few photos. One Jewish kid from the New York suburbs to the other, we looked at each other with the same can-you-believe-this grin.
I’m 84 and Know Something About Aging. It Was Right for Biden to Get Out of the Race
At age 81, President Joe Biden finally threw in the towel. He will not be the Democratic party’s nominee. He was quick to tap his Vice President Kamala Harris to head the ticket, and if the Democrats rally around her, as Biden urged, she will be a formidable candidate.
Kamala Can Correct Trump’s Tallest Tale
Any incumbent president running for re-election tells some variation of this basic narrative: We are better off than we were four years ago. Voters can be confident our policies are working and will help solve the remaining problems. The 2024 election was unusual because two incumbents were running, each selling...
Kamala Harris: Woman of the World
This story was originally published on October 24, 2020. California is waiting to be welcomed back into the national conversation after four years of disrespect and neglect from the White House. In a Joe Biden-Kamala Harris administration, not only will California’s favorite daughter bridge the widened — and widening — federal-state divide, she will team with a President Biden to rebuild America’s powerful role in the world.
Be of Good Cheer!
The painful circumstances of the end to Joe Biden’s candidacy will soon be forgotten, but the accomplishments of his presidency will be remembered for generations. Biden will be seen by historians as the most consequential one-term president in American history, with trillions in investments in infrastructure, technology, and green energy that will propel the United States forward. And his exit will be in the selfless tradition of Cincinnatus and George Washington, who originated the peaceful transfer of power that is the sine qua non of our republic.
The Democratic Nominee Needs to Put the Supreme Court Front and Center
The Supreme Court is out of the news, and reporters are focused on the presidential election, including whether Joe Biden will be the Democratic nominee, the despicable attempted assassination of Donald Trump, and the nomination of J. D. Vance for vice president. But no one should take the summer off from what the Court is doing. America is facing an assault on our democracy, carried out by the Court’s supermajority, led by Chief Justice John Roberts, and lower court judges. Democrats must respond to this attack, no matter their nominee, even if the Court is out of the headlines with its term concluded earlier this month. We’re glad to see reports that President Biden will soon propose term limits and a binding ethics code for Supreme Court justices.
Good News for Democrats: Trump’s Bad Speech Wrecked the Republican Convention
On Thursday, July 18, I felt more hopeful than I have in months about the future of this country. Actually, I should say on Friday, July 19, because Donald Trump’s horrible 93-minute speech—which literally put some Trump-loving delegates to sleep—didn’t end until after midnight. Trump shattered...
The “Meh” Performance of J. D. Vance at the Republican Convention
When J. D. Vance took the podium at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee last night, it was with lofty expectations from critics and supporters alike. He may not have been a surprise pick to be the vice-presidential nominee, but he was a bold one for his youth (39), intelligence (bestselling author, Yale Law School), and ferocious America First-style nationalism. (See Jacob Heilbrunn’s terrific piece on this.) But by the time the self-described hillbilly left the stage, it was a big “meh.” No wonder the headlines the following day were, not only understandably, dominated by high-level leaks about pressure on President Joe Biden to drop out of the race but also more findings about the would-be Donald Trump assassin and how the U.S. Secret Service failed to prevent him from shooting the former president. Vance’s headlines were way down your scroll, not just because he got a late start with much of his speech running after 11:00 pm on the East Coast.
With Vance Selection, Trump Doubles Down on America First
Last week, amid the NATO summit in Washington, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell boasted that he had effectively stymied the America First movement by helping pass a $61 billion aid package for Ukraine. Republicans, he said, were starting to realize that supporting assistance to Kyiv was “not some kind of political suicide mission.” The 82-year-old Cold Warrior went on to condemn Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban for his intimate ties to Russia and China, and he suggested that Donald Trump and other conservatives might be having “second thoughts” about cozying up to the authoritarian leader.
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The Washington Monthly was founded in 1969 on the notion that a handful of plucky young writers and editors, armed with an honest desire to make government work and a willingness to ask uncomfortable questions, could tell the story of what really matters in Washington better than a roomful of Beltway insiders at a Georgetown dinner party.
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