Category: Partisan Politics (Page 6 of 18)

Gun Control: Don’t “Go Medium”

June 2, 2022 / baseblogger

U.S. politics move through familiar cycles. Here’s one of them: A mass shooter kills lots of people, most (or all) of them children. Media attention and public outrage follow. Many in the GOP dismiss the incident, blaming mental health and framing Democrats as opponents of gun rights. Democrats use the incident to push their usual set of ‘gun control’ solutions to gun violence – background checks, assault weapon bans, and targeted limits on who can own guns (e.g., red flag laws).

The Uvalde shooting at Robb Elementary School, of course, serves merely as the most recent example of this cycle.

Expressivism Dominates US Politics

March 21, 2022 / baseblogger

In his book Know-It-All Society, Michael P. Lynch claims that intellectual arrogance rules US politics. Along the way, he points out that people share the news not to get at the truth. Or even to engage with ideas. Rather, they share the news an act of expression – a case of what Lynch calls ‘expressivism’ (related to, but somewhat distinct from, ethical expressivism). ‘Expressivism,’ here, means they post news stories on Facebook and Twitter to say something about themselves rather than about the world.

I think Lynch makes a good point. And I want to extend that point a bit. I think the term ‘expressivism’ provides us with a useful way to look at how people talk about COVID policy and even the politics they want to see.

Jacobin Study on Working-Class Voters

December 6, 2021 / baseblogger

As some readers might know, Jacobin ran a study of working-class voters. The study hits an unusual depth, and it provides lots of useful info.

In the past I’ve criticized many views on elections and politics expressed in Jacobin. As have many others on the left. But let’s not play up any ‘feud’ with Jacobin. I read the magazine, and I also read Jacobin’s more academic journal Catalyst. And I think they do some great things with this study. They point to some of their own errors, and they show an interest in doing real electoral work that doesn’t fall prey to the magical thinking that’s all too common on the left.

And so, let’s take a look at the Jacobin study. What can it teach us about working-class voters? And what can it teach us about building solid leftist electoral campaigns?

The Power Broker

November 22, 2021 / baseblogger

The trick to reading a Robert Caro biography? He writes about places more than people. And, above all, he writes about power. I pointed to this feature in a post on Caro’s book series The Years of Lyndon Johnson. But before Caro wrote about LBJ, he wrote about Robert Moses and New York. I’ll say a word here about The Power Broker: a book about how one builds (and then loses) power in a major US city.

COVID-19 Data Update (October 2021)

October 21, 2021 / baseblogger

I wrote my last update on the COVID-19 data near the height of the delta variant phase of the pandemic in late August. At the time, case numbers were still rising. Since then, they continued rising until September 2. And then they started an extended decline. Let’s revisit the topic of COVID-19 and see where we’re headed.

Readers looking for my full history of posts on the topic can find links here: March 2020, August 2020, January 2021, August 2021.

Category: Partisan Politics (Page 6 of 18)

Gun Control: Don’t “Go Medium”

Expressivism Dominates US Politics

Jacobin Study on Working-Class Voters

The Power Broker

COVID-19 Data Update (October 2021)

Categories

About This Site

Base and Superstructure RSS

Archives

Recent Posts