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Occasional Commentary

Eric Busch

A progressive, historically-minded look at the news and events of the day.

news & politics higher education

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Fighting Words

Occasional Commentary ·

2016/11/10

So Trumpism is a thing now. The specifics of Trumpist ideology are still unclear, since the president-elect himself is too obtuse, dishonest, and contemptuous of the American tradition of representative government to have developed a cohorent political worldview. But clearly, Trumpism is a civic expression of some familiar and deeply human impulses--unreasoned fear, uncurbed spite, bullheaded ignorance and religious fundamentalism--just like every other authoritarian "ism" in memory, both

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Stoking the Fire

Occasional Commentary ·

2016/10/17

Rage is not conducive to peaceful self-governance.

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Despots and Borderlands

Occasional Commentary ·

2016/09/16

“For some months, I have traveled and traversed the border in every sense of the word. I have seen, investigated, and inquired about the needs of the population. To the Dominicans who were complaining of the depredations by Haitians living among them, thefts of cattle, provisions, fruits, etc., and were thus prevented from enjoying in peace the products of their labor, I have responded, ‘I will fix this.’ And we have already begun to remedy the situation. Three hundred Haitians are now

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Teach for Yourself?

Occasional Commentary ·

2016/08/19

Compensated by contact hour, adjuncts are paid to lecture. But they're still expected to teach.

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"America First" and the Hacking of American...

Occasional Commentary ·

2016/07/26

It wouldn't be the first time a foreign power tried to sway the results of an American election by tapping into the political impulse of isolationism.

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Justified

Occasional Commentary ·

2016/07/12

American cops kill lots of people because there are lots of guns in America.

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Brexit and the Return of the Nation-State

Occasional Commentary ·

2016/06/24

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Their (Straw)Man in Washington

Occasional Commentary ·

2016/06/21

About a week after any particularly shocking or spectacular mass shooting, the nation is usually treated to the thoughts of Wayne LaPierre of the National Rifle Association. Recall that one week after Sandy Hook, LaPierre blamed the mass murder of 20 children on “gun free zones” in schools, and claimed that “the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.” The real culprits, he said, were violent videogames, along with the country’s “refusal to create an active national

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Trump and the End of "It's Not About Race"

Occasional Commentary ·

2016/06/09

In a now-infamous 1981 interview, Republican strategist Lee Atwater opined that the New Right no longer needed to be explicitly racist to carry the South. In fact, Atwater argued, by refusing to discuss race, while simultaneously pushing policies that “hurt…blacks…worse than whites,” Republicans could potentially “[do] away with the racial problem” altogether. In the decades since, artful phraseology (think welfare queens, forced bussing, states’ rights, super predators) has allowed conservatives to

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The Future of Public Water

Occasional Commentary ·

2016/05/20

In 2013--about the same time that the State of Michigan enacted a law enabling 'emergency managers' to take over financially-distressed municipal governments like Flint--the North Carolina General Assembly passed a bill make it easier to force the regionalization the state's public utilities.The law, which was ostensibly written to improve the efficiency of municipal services,appeared to specifically target the city of Asheville's water system, which was to be annexed to the Buncombe County regional

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The Post-Policy President?

Occasional Commentary ·

2016/05/13

To talk public policy in the context of Donald Trump's presidential campaign kind of misses the point of Trump-as-politician. This should worry Democrats. Earlier this week,Paul Krugman gamely laid outa few of the almost preposterous inconsistencies in Trump's evolving tax policies--particularly in light of his refusal to release his own returns. Much of what Krugman writes is so true as to be self-evident. And, a la Krugman, Democrats will continue to hammer Trump every day from now until November

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