John Judis
Stop the Damn Robocalls
George W Bush was one of our worst presidents, but he did one really good thing: in 2003, he established the “do-not-call-registry” to prevent telemarketers from besieging people like me who work at home with unwanted phone calls. Fine. And it worked and was a very popular program. But then telemarketers started to get around it – Brigid and her sisters of Hell from Cardholder Services began calling several times a day along with other deplorables offering to pay my credit card bills and increase my life span.
Fidel Castro: Memories of a Lost Time
I am not going to try to assess Fidel Castro’s historical significance. I’ll leave that to people who know the history of Latin America better than I do. But I want to make one historical and a personal comment.
The New York Times subheads its decent story about Castro, “The Man Who Brought the Cold War to the Western Hemisphere.” That’s entirely untrue. Well before Castro and Che Guevara stepped on the world stage, the U.S. was involved in overthrowing governments in Latin America on the grounds that they were too close to “communism.”
Is SLATE’s Deal with Silicon Valley Subverting the Presidential Election?
I’m very leery of SLATE’s decision to publish projections beginning at 8 AM tomorrow of who is going to win the presidential election in so-called battleground states. They are teaming up with VoteCastr, one of these Silicon Valley startups, who claims to have devised extensive data networks to forecast results. Leave aside the question of whether the predictions by this latest band of hotshots will be accurate. Is SLATE setting a dangerous precedent by teaming up with them?
Proposition 69: The Battle for Health Care Reform Moves to Colorado Nov. 8
It’s hard to look past the presidential election, or even the battle for the senate, but there are a few initiatives on the ballot that are significant. On election day, voters in Colorado will decide whether to create a single-payer health insurance system in their state that would replace both private insurance from employers and the Affordable Care Act’s exchanges. The vote will tell something about whether Americans in a relatively progressive state would now favor going beyond Obamacare to a system of “Medicare for all” like Bernie Sanders proposed in the primary. Based on what I’ve seen in Colorado, I’m not optimistic.
Democracy at Stake in a New Mexico Race for Secretary of State
In warning about voter fraud, Donald Trump is following in the footsteps of more respectable Republicans like Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker. For decades, Republicans have used charges of fraud to enact legislation that would make it more difficult for predictable Democratic constituencies (minorities, the young) to vote. A key battle this November will be the Secretary of State’s race in New Mexico. It’s a doozy, with a truly scary Republican candidate.
Donald Trump: Meet Lenny Bruce. He had your number fifty years ago
Lenny Bruce was a “sick comic” from the 1950s and early 1960s who was arrested for drugs and obscenity and was appealing a four-month jail sentence when he died in 1965. He was a genius. One of his bits, about a comic who plays the London Palladium, perfectly sums up what has happened to Donald Trump in the fall election. (Click on the link to hear it.) It’s about Frank Dell, a third-rate comic who plays Las Vegas lounges, but who tells his agent he wants to play a “class room” like the London Palladium. The agent tries to discourage him, but Dell insists — “I’m going to murder these people” – and the agent gets him booked there.
Reflections on the Second Debate between Trump and Clinton
I am no good at deciding who won or lost debates. I react to them as a voter and not as a journalist. And I tend to fasten on things that don’t necessarily upset or thrill other voters. Here are two things that bothered me – not because they’ll determine the election, but because they could foreshadow trouble after the election.
Why Hillary Clinton hasn’t been able to leave Donald Trump in the Dust
If I had to bet on this election, I’d still put my money on Hillary Clinton. But there is a big question about why she is not doing better. When presidential candidates face opponents who can’t even command the support of their party’s leadership and leading interest groups, it’s usually landslide time. Think of Lyndon Johnson against Barry Goldwater in 1964, and Richard Nixon against George McGovern in 1972. And Trump has less support in his party’s leadership than either Goldwater or McGovern had. Yet if the polls are to be believed, the race between Clinton and Trump is close.
Two Myths about American Elections: Bigoted voters and Red vs. Blue States
Political scientists, public opinion analysts and pundits often make two erroneous assumptions about American politics: the first is that there is an ironclad division between red states and blue states; the second is that on the Republican side, the division is based on voters’ racism, nativism or some other “ism” – that is, on irrational prejudice that blinds these voters to their own real interests.