Last week, a few moments before Senators Richard Burr and Mark Warner, chair and co-chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee respectively, came out to present an update on their investigation into Russian attempts to interfere with the 2016 election, a man walked out carrying a large cardboard sign — not a protest sign, but the clip-arty press-conference explainers that are always terrible but expensive looking.
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Democracy in Crisis Podcast: Politics, guns and terror in Las Vegas
In this week’s episode cohosts Baynard Woods and Brandon Soderberg talk about right-wing politics, country music, guns and the terror in Las Vegas.
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Democracy in Crisis: Alabama’s special election and Trump’s attack on Kaepernick point to an even more racist Republican future
Last week, the populist theocratic authoritarian former Alabama chief justice Roy Moore beat Luther Strange in a special election to fulfil the rest of Jeff Sessions’ term in the Senate. Strange, who had been filling the seat, was endorsed by President Trump, even though Moore, who pulled a gun out at a rally right before the special election, is far more Trumpian than Strange. In some ways, he is even more Trumpian than Trump. Moore’s closest analogue may be fascist former Maricopa County sheriff Joe Arpaio, whom the president recently pardoned.
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Democracy in Crisis: How Pepe-posting meme warriors responded to real violence from the alt-right
For the internet’s Trump-endorsing shitposters, it seems that the big problem with the Nazis is that they aren’t ironic enough in their hatred.
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Democracy in Crisis: The Juggalos March on Washington eclipses pro-Trump ‘Mother of All Rallies’
The political heat of 2017 has finally boiled all the political chants down to their essence. “Fuck that shit!” More than a thousand juggalos — fans of the horror-art rap group the Insane Clown Posse (ICP) — chant this perfect refrain for our insane era in front of the Lincoln Memorial on Saturday, Sept. 16. Many of them are wearing clown paint on their faces or sporting tattoos or other signs that they are down with the clown.
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Democracy in Crisis Podcast: Dale Beran on 4chan, the alt-right and the rise of Donald Trump
This week, co-host Baynard Woods talks with Dale Beran about 4chan, the alt-right and the rise of Donald Trump. Earlier this year, Beran wrote an article about the growth of 4chan from a message board used by (mostly) young men talking about things like comics and video games to a site associated with far right movements.
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Democracy in Crisis: Fearing deportation, Haitians flee the U.S. for Canada
Francois LeFranc, 45, lingers over breakfast in the dining room of the NAV Centre, an Ontario hotel and conference center on the banks of the St. Lawrence Seaway. Dressed in a t-shirt and jeans, he displays only one sign that he had been detained by the Canadian immigration authorities five days earlier: a plastic, hospital-style turquoise bracelet he wears with his I.D. number on it.
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Living and training in Iowa City helps keep world-class runner Erik Sowinski grounded and focused
Erik Sowinski, one of Nike’s best and most consistent athletes, lives and trains in Iowa City.
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Democracy in Crisis Podcast: D. Watkins on white supremacy, policing and the Trump administration
This week, co-host Baynard Woods talks with author D. Watkins about white supremacy, policing and the Trump administration. D. is the author of ‘The Beast Side: Living (and Dying) While Black in America’ and ‘The Cook Up: A Crack Rock Memoir’ and is editor at large for Salon.
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Democracy in Crisis Podcast: Wil Hylton on Breitbart and Bannon
This week, co-host Baynard Woods talks with Wil Hylton, whose New York Times Magazine story “Down the Breitbart Hole” gives readers an up-close view of the inner workings of the media platform. But just two days after the story came out, Steve Bannon was booted from the White House and returned to the website, potentially shifting the trajectory of the website. And then Bannon called Wil …
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Democracy in Crisis Podcast: Charlottesville
On this week’s episode Marc Steiner talks to co-host Baynard Woods and City Paper editor Brandon Soderberg about their experiences at the racist rally in Charlottesville.
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Democracy in Crisis: Activist Medea Benjamin raises hell in the halls of power
Medea Benjamin, the firebrand activist and author of a dozen odd books, looks surprisingly small in the midst of the lunchtime crowd jostling one another in the basement cafeteria of the the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington, D.C. Her pale face is framed by straight-cut bangs that are pretty darn close to pink in […]
