When I was 15 years old, my sister and I went on a trip to Europe. We went on scholarship because my mother didn't have the money to pay the full fare for the two of us, which ran into the thousands of dollars.
Trump's more outre economic ideas, like repealing trade bills and implementing a massive surcharge on imports, would seem like non-starters in a Republican-led House and Senate, except when you consider a second point as a kind of syllogism: Republicans fear their angry, white electorate. Their angry, white electorate chose Donald Trump.
If I had to reduce 'Black Panther' to a single word, it would be 'glorious.'
Too great a love for the presidency has caused Democrats to neglect state and local politics and to overly prize compromise and a futile quest for bipartisanship. It has made liberals too allergic to federalism and too shy about grassroots politics.
Local government is a gamble that can have disastrous consequences when it fails.
Ailes built a Kingdom of Yes. That was his genius. He understood the id of many white conservatives - their sense of constant persecution and victimization; and their existential fears of an America whose racial makeup, sexual mores and gender roles were careening in the opposite direction of the country of their childhood.
We are not, in some fundamental ways, a single country. The map of that vast red swatch of states and rural counties that voted for Trump, and the blue coastal edges and scattered urban centers where Clinton won, are a pictograph of mutual contempt.
If a novel were written about Florida's administration of its healthcare for the working poor, an appropriate title might be: 'Don't get sick, and God help you if you do.'
Even at its most outrageous early moments, the Tea Party movement was treated to sober and at times breathless media coverage, to the point of being invited to co-host a presidential debate.
Technology has made it a lot easier to be productive. It's incredibly helpful to be able to get little bits of information quickly.
For decades, the GOP has faithfully served the rich, corporations, polluters and purveyors of pure, unadulterated greed, and brought blue-collar white voters along for the ride with promises of cultural revival.
Trump, who in his own history as a developer preferred mob concrete and Chinese steel to the variety produced in the Rust Belt, cannot bring back the steel and manufacturing jobs lost in Lorain, Ohio or western Pennsylvania.
The work of anti-racism can only take place inside each individual soul, where we all try to grow into better people. There is no national tonic or instant cure.
I always want to be doing something - going somewhere, doing a project, teaching a class, writing an article. I try to use up my day. You have a limited time on this planet - try to use as much of it as you can for productive purposes.
Even without the euphoria of 'yes we can,' Hillary Clinton is to white women what Barack Obama was to African-Americans. She represents the opportunity to see a like image in the Oval Office for the first time.
Authoritarianism doesn't fall on a nation like a book falling from a shelf and striking you in the head. It rolls in like a slow tide.
If you are a certain kind of white conservative, especially a white male conservative, then Roger Ailes was a hero. He constructed a world in which your core beliefs and your gut instincts were, and still are, constantly validated.
Trump's affinity for Russia dates back at least to the late 1980s, during the time of the Soviet Union, and it intensified after his financial empire collapsed.
Bill Clinton had a hell of a first 24 months, even though he, like Trump, enjoyed a congressional majority. Scandal after scandal befell the White House, including the failure of Hillary Clinton-led healthcare reform. But Clinton's scandals, from 'filegate' to 'travelgate' to a brouhaha over a haircut, were petty, personal and domestic.
Whatever its cause, the media's general Hillary Clinton loathing is a foundational truth that would define her as president.
