Cafe : Opinion

Vaccine Skepticism And A Failed Coup: How Disinformation Is Striking Back
It was one thing to know data, but it’s quite another thing to know how to interpret it. That requires critical thinking or experts to explain statistics, two elements lacking on social media.

Gerrymandering Created The Vacuum Trump Needed To Inspire Faux Coup. Here’s How Dems Can Fix It
It’s no coincidence that the vast preponderance of those who incited the insurrection by objecting to the counting of electoral votes were politicians who owed their perpetual re-election to gerrymandering.

Yesterday Was Just The Beginning
While the election of Joe Biden as President was confirmed, the country will need to brace for conflict left in Trump’s wake.

Americans’ Trust In The Vaccine Has Fallen. Here’s How The Gov’t Could Frame The Rollout To Restore Trust.
It is not enough for political elites to tell us the vaccine is safe.

A CFPB Snap Back: Reinvigorating The Bureau Will Be Crucial To Post-Trump Recovery
The Trump administration pulled the consumer financial watchdog’s teeth. It’ll be up to Biden to give its bite back.

Politicians Need To Work For Voters, Not Extremists
Elected officials' attacks on election workers are a dangerous new form of radicalism.

For Democrats To Win In Georgia, Messaging Should Link Race And Class
The math is clear: Democrats must excite and animate a coalition base of Democratic voters, and lure over a portion of the middle.

Enough Already: Forgiving Student Debt Is The Only Way To Get College Educated Young People Into The Middle Class
It’s time to do away with the bad faith arguments against student debt forgiveness — and the time for forgiveness is now, while the nation attempts to economically recover from a pandemic.

The Number Of Democratic Socialists In The House Will Soon Double. But The Movement Scored Its Biggest Victories Down Ballot
The resurgence of democratic socialism has occurred during a period of growing activism against widening inequality, persistent racism and looming environmental disaster.

The Lumpenproletariat: The Long-Discarded Economic Theory That Helps Explain An Increasingly Divided America
In America, how is it that the very poorest counties, the cities with minimal health care, voted for Trump, a supposed billionaire who wanted to take what little revenue flows their way and give it to his 1 percent friends, via a tax cut?

Trump Will Name Houthis A Terrorist Group To Box In Biden On Iran. This Will Lead To Death And Diplomacy Demise In Yemen.
No matter the final U.S. decision on licensing and waivers related to the impending Houthi designation, only one thing is clear: the job of staving off the world’s worst humanitarian disaster will be unnecessarily complicated by a terrorist designation that lacks efficacy.

It’s Not Just Trump: COVID-19 Is The Test That Conservatism Was Built To Fail
Focusing solely on the ousting of this particular president and his friends — and on their considerable failures as leaders — risks missing a deeper, more fundamental point: that though Donald Trump lost reelection, the ideology and belief system underpinning so many of the debacles of his presidency prevails, and was always doomed to fail the country in the face of a disaster like this one.

Dems Will Welcome One Of The Most Diverse Groups Of Elected Officials To Public Office In 2021. GOPers Will Get A Little More Diverse Too
The GOP caucus became less white and male in 2020, adding conservative pro-life women to Congress and state legislatures.

Bipartisan Cooperation After Trump: The Ball Is In The Republicans’ Court
And if GOP Obamacare repeal was any indication, they’re not ready for bipartisanship.

A More Diverse And Inclusive Gov’t Could Be Biden’s Most Significant Policy Legacy. But It Must Extend Beyond Admin Leadership.
There are profound ripple effects from having a federal government made up of people who don’t look like or live like America — and it’s not just a matter of symbolism.

Trump Is Still Raging Against Democracy. But It’s Time To Applaud The Tenacity Of Voters, Poll And USPS Workers
I cannot think of another election where the mettle of the legions of Americans who make our Democracy function were challenged and their integrity so maligned as it was this year.

Giuliani Whiffed On A Legal Question Every Law Student Knows The Answer To. But The Underlying Issue Is More Complex Than It Seems
There’s a bigger issue in how election cases are litigated — namely, no one knows at the outset what standard a court is likely to apply, and that’s a real problem.

Progressive Wins And Democrats’ Losses: Who And What Are To Blame?
Trump’s victories in many states, as well as the success of Republican candidates in areas that Democrats were expected to win, may have had less to do with fear mongering about socialism and more to do with another factor: Republican-sponsored voter suppression.

America Has Yet To Shake Its Addiction To Hate
Black Americans did not grieve Trump's 2016 win in the same way as white liberals.

Progressive Wins: Voters Supported Down-Ballot Reforms And Candidates That Address Racism, Police Abuse, Mass Incarceration
On several fronts, 2020 voters embraced changes that will reign in the police, restore voting rights to people on parole, relax drug laws and challenge long-standing racist practices.

What Happened In Maine? Collins Surprisingly Held Her Own This Election. Here’s Why.
Collins benefited from a tendency among Mainers to split tickets in 2008, when 58 percent backed Barack Obama, and 61 backed her. The same tendency helped her in 2020.

Even After Biden Win, Our Obsolete Electoral College Must Go
For days, Americans fretted over just a few thousand votes in swing states.

The Unexpected Benefits Of Thinking For Yourself In An Age Of Polling
The most important thing journalists can do as they think about covering and investigating government and politics in election years is to not assume any outcome.

Legislative Appointment of Electors Would Be Unlawful. And It Won’t Even Work For Trump.
Congress enacted the Electoral Count Act to deal with precisely this sort of hypothetical, and the law working just as designed would prevent the sort of gamesmanship that’s being floated.

Black Women Led Us Through The Most Consequential Political Contest Of Our Lifetimes. It’s High Time We Thank Them.
Exit polls report that more than 90 percent of Black women cast their ballots for Biden and Harris, voting as a bloc.

Legislative Appointment Of Electors: An Extreme Legal Move And An Unlikely Profile in Courage
The GOP leadership in Pennsylvania has decisively disavowed moving to seize the power to appoint electors directly under any circumstances.

Trump’s Election Lawsuits: Full of Sound and Fury, But Mostly Signifying Nothing
There are critical differences between the legal and political landscapes in the 2000 election and today that make it exceptionally unlikely that any of this legal wrangling will matter.