For progressives, the goal is ultimately about working toward a society built on one unified vision of policy and culture, rather than a diverse array of policies and cultures. “If you’re confident that you can get the right answer to something, like health care policy, or welfare, or any number of very difficult social problems, it’s hard not to say that right answer should be equally available to everyone,” says law professor Ernest Young, meaning that progressives believe their “right answers” should be legislated through federal policy.
Read More in The AtlanticCategory: Politics-Public Policy
U.S. Sidelined as Putin Calls Shots on Syria Cease-Fire
President Obama’s aides say what’s important is that the violence stops. But the president’s critics say his hesitation to use force has led others to fill a power vacuum in the Middle East. Bruce Jentleson, a Sanford School professor and former State Department official, says Obama “over-learned the lessons of Iraq.”
Read More in Politico
Washington Waits, Worries, Wonders About Trump Era
The president-elect is “willing to say or do the thing that’s just not done, that breaks a tradition or a norm or unwritten rule,” says political science professor Peter Feaver. “It’s a mistake to call it erratic. There’s more of a purposefulness behind it. They’re not going to accept arbitrary restrictions that were accepted at face value.”
Read More in The Philadelphia Inquirer
When One Party Has the Governor’s Mansion and the Other Has the Statehouse
Sanford School professor Pope “Mac” McCorkle says that if North Carolina Republicans “keep on sending people a message they are right-wingers,” newly elected Democratic governor Roy Cooper will have an advantage in the “outside game” of appealing to voters who think the state has veered too far from its moderate political tradition.
Why I Got Arrested at the General Assembly
“We scholars evenhandedly weigh evidence — but as citizens we should never be ‘evenhanded’ about democracy,” writes Elizabeth Oltmans Ananat, an associate professor of public policy and economics.
The One-Person, One-Vote Myth
William Chafe, an emeritus history professor, writes that the issue of race has been a continuing thread in our country’s history of voting inequality. “If in fact we believe in one person, one vote, we need to change our electoral system now!”
