Journalism

Last time, the courts were an essential checking force on the Trump administration. This time around, they may again provide a check—if we push.

We shouldn’t underestimate the threats that Trump poses, but we shouldn’t underestimate the headwinds he’s likely to face if people oppose his initiatives. Remember, autocracy takes time. It’s hard work. Trump is not good at that. Let’s be realistic about our goal: We can probably limit the damage; we can prepare the ground for future victories. But how much can we limit the damage? Really, nobody knows, and the only way to find out is to try. We do know the writers of the Constitution did a lot to try to prevent one-man rule—by creating the famous checks and balances, including the courts as a check on the president.

But most of our friends think this Supreme Court will not stop Trump. To discuss, we are joined by David Cole, legal affairs correspondent for The Nation. Cole recently stepped down as national legal director of the ACLU to return to teaching law at Georgetown. He writes for The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The New York Review of Books.

… continued at The Nation, HERE 12-10-2024

… continued at The Nation, HERE 4-29-2024

The Oregon senator who tried to get into Gaza explains what he saw and learned.

Jon Wiener: Recently you went to the Rafah border crossing, between Gaza and Egypt—it’s one of the very few ways for anyone to get into or out of Gaza, and is the principal route for delivery of humanitarian aid. Why did you go, and what did you see?

… continued at The Nation, HERE 2-9-2024

Drew Faust was the first woman president of Harvard, from 2007 to 2018. Before that, she was the founding dean of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, and before that, she was the Annenberg professor of history at Penn. Now, she’s a member of the history department at Harvard. She’s the author of six books, including This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War. Her new book is Necessary Trouble: Growing up at Mid-Century. This interview has been condensed and edited.

JON WIENER:​  I’ve read a lot of memoirs written by sixties people and virtually all trace the origins of their activism to the same moment: the sit-in movement in the spring of 1960.  But your epiphany, as you call it, the shock of recognition that spurred you to take your first political act, came well before 1960​…

… continued at The Nation, HERE  5-30-2023

“Sowing the Future” (co-authored by Mike Davis), LARB Quarterly 37 (Spring 2023), pp. 37-44.  Excerpt from “Set the Night on Fire: L.A. in the Sixties,” with a new introduction.

… continued in LARB Quarterly, HERE  6-10-2023

Eyal Press on courage and caution among abortion providers.

JON WIENER: When the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, a lot of our friends immediately sent a check to Planned Parenthood—because Planned Parenthood is known to all as the organization that provides abortion services and defends abortion rights. But it turns out some of the affiliates are less willing to provide abortion services than others. And in many places, independent abortion clinics do a lot of the work, and face a lot of the threats from violent anti-abortion activists: for example, in Montana.  

… continued at The Nation, HERE  5-30-2023

WRITING ABOUT LA IN THE SIXTIES WITH MIKE DAVIS – LARB

“A moment in rock-and-roll dreamtime: Saturday night on Sunset Strip in early December 1967.”

That beginning of an academic article was the first thing anybody saw about Mike Davis’s new project, a movement history of L.A. in the sixties. “Riot Nights on Sunset Strip” recounted how thousands of young people fought the police, ostensibly over a curfew.

… continued at Los Angeles Review of Books, HERE   11-11-2022

“City of Quartz,” Mike Davis’ masterpiece, was remarkable in many ways, not the least of which was the author photo, which became the focus of the Nation magazine’s review. There, Marshall Berman wrote that Mike looked like “an aging, ravaged light-heavyweight” who “doesn’t want company.” Berman confessed he was so turned off by the photo that the book “lay on my night table for weeks” before he started reading it. So began Davis’ ambivalent career in the intellectual trenches, declaring his independence by defying the convention of the warm, inviting author photo.

… continued at LATimes.com, HERE   10-26-2022