Published: Quartz (April 20, 2016) Senator Bernie Sanders is the most successful Jewish presidential candidate to date. But he did not prevail in the Apr. 19 Democratic primary in New York–despite the state’s massive Jewish community and his personal ties to Brooklyn. Even if Sanders does not end up the Democratic nominee, his efforts to push Americans politics to the left will be remembered for...
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Why have we forgotten about free speech?
Apr 19, 2016 | Civil Liberties, mic
Published: The Good Men Project (April 19, 2016) Last week I had a conversation with Mark Schierbecker, and it has put me in a bit of a bind. I reached out to him for an interview because I care about First Amendment issues and he has, without question, qualifications to discuss them. While covering a student protest at the University of Missouri, a professor named Melissa Click led a mob of...
Martin Luther King and the Panama Papers
Apr 9, 2016 | Class Issues, Economic Policy, History, mic, Scandals
Published: Salon (April 9, 2016), The Good Men Project (April 7, 2016) When Martin Luther King Jr. is brought up in a political conversation, it is usually in reference to his work for civil rights.... and if you're a member of the proverbial one percent, this is definitely for the best. Considering the reverence with which King is held today, it would ill-serve them if the general public...
Donald Trump’s secret weapon against Hillary Clinton
Apr 6, 2016 | Conservativism, Democrats, Economic Policy, Elections, Elections - Presidential (2016), Foreign Policy, Liberalism, mic, Political Ideologies, Political Parties, Republicans
Published: Salon (April 5, 2016) There is one issue in which Donald Trump is much more progressive than Hillary Clinton – and, unless she learns from history and decisively changes the way Americans perceive her positions here, it may wind up costing her the presidency. I’m referring, of course, to American trade policy. Although the last president to oppose free trade was Hebert Hoover (and his...
Why Hillary Clinton’s shift to the left makes some liberals so mad
Mar 30, 2016 | Centrism, Democrats, Elections, Elections - Presidential (2016), History, Liberalism, mic, Political Ideologies, Political Parties
Published: Quartz (March 30, 2016) With many months to go before the conclusion of the US presidential primaries, battles lines in the Democratic party have become deeply entrenched. Just as right-wingers love to claim that Hillary Clinton is a radical liberal disguised as a moderate, so too are many progressives inclined to see her as a conservative corporatist whose liberal stances merely...
The Wall of Hate
Mar 29, 2016 | Education, Gay Rights and Other LGBTQIA Issues, Gender and Sexism, mic, Race and Racism
Published: The Good Men Project (March 29, 2016) Let’s talk, for a moment, about the Wall of Hate. It may not look like much, but it was enough to grab my attention as I walked home from the Fairchild-Martindale Library at Lehigh University. Various students were standing in front of it with markers, scribbling words that I could not as of yet discern, and several more were present to hand out...
The Danger of Ideologues
Mar 26, 2016 | Centrism, Conservativism, Extremism, Liberalism, Libertarianism, mic, Political Ideologies
Published: The Good Men Project (March 26, 2016) "The only index by which to judge a government or a way of life is by the quality of the people it acts upon. No matter how noble the objectives of a government, if it blurs decency and kindness, cheapens human life, and breeds ill will and suspicion—it is an evil government." - Eric Hoffer I posted this quote not only because I agree with its...
Does hashtag activism work?
Mar 24, 2016 | Conservativism, Elections, Elections - Presidential (2016), Extremism, Internet Culture, Liberalism, mic, Political Ideologies, Science and Technology
Published: The Daily Dot (March 24, 2016) There was an interesting debate at the University of Pennsylvania this week. TheFoundation for Individual Rights in Education, or FIRE, hosted a panel discussion on the effectiveness of hashtag activism. The debate featured Zeynep Tufekci, an assistant professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Zellie Imani, an educator whose...
Why I Write About Asperger’s Syndrome
Mar 24, 2016 | Asperger's Syndrome, Autobiographical, mic
Published: The Good Men Project (March 24, 2016) When my first article was picked up by Mic in February 2012, I thought that my dream of becoming a political columnist had finally started to come true. I wasn’t wrong, but I never anticipated one turn that my career was destined to take. Although I still love writing editorials on political and social issues, I also find that more and more often...
Obama needs to stop undermining Sanders
Mar 22, 2016 | Democrats, Elections - Presidential (2016), mic, Political Parties, President Obama
Published: Salon (March 22, 2016), The Good Men Project (March 19, 2016) Shame on you, President Obama, for trying to undermine Senator Bernie Sanders' campaign. As The New York Times reported on Thursday, Obama privately told a group of Democratic donors in Austin, TX that they needed to unite behind Hillary Clinton because Sanders would soon have to end his presidential bid. "Mr. Obama...