For the last eight years, pedestrians crossing Esther Street in Orlando, Florida would step across a rainbow crosswalk, a memorial to the 49 people who lost their lives in the 2016 mass shooting at Pulse, a gay night club in the city. At the time, Pulse was the deadliest shooting in American history, a brutal […]
Category: United States
A High-speed Game of Catchup
In 1963, America stood unrivaled as the world’s leader in all things infrastructure. It was a nation of engineering marvels, with millions flocking to witness the products of publicly-funded infrastructure projects, such as the Golden Gate Bridge and the Hoover Dam. Six decades later, the year is 2025 and we’ve fallen seriously behind. What’s New? […]
Where is Trump leading NASA?
When the world watched Neil Armstrong take mankind’s first steps on the moon in 1969, the United States solidified its place in leading the push into the great unknown of space. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), in turn, not only elevated humanity’s collective knowledge but also America’s international reputation for scientific innovation. However, […]
When the Free Market Isn’t Free
The promise of American capitalism has long offered a vision of prosperity driven by the market and the people, where the government’s role was simply to stay out of the way. This American creed is embraced by conservative politicians shaped by Reagan-era beliefs in deregulation and small government, but it does not belong to conservatives […]
Judicial Volatility on Section 2 Endangers Minority Representation
In what has taken over the national conversation surrounding next year’s midterm elections, Republicans are redistricting mid-decade to bolster the party’s chances of keeping congressional control. With explicit encouragement from the White House, state lawmakers in Texas and Missouri muscled through new gerrymandered maps that reconfigure Democratic-held districts for presumptive Republican pickups. In the past, […]
School Vouchers: Salvation or Scam?
Imagine if you were only legally allowed to shop at one grocery store. The produce is rotten, and the store doesn’t have any of your favorite items. Worse, other customers are violent, and they harass you, so you feel unsafe every time you shop. If you pay an exorbitant amount of money, you could shop […]
The Supreme Court has Empowered Cities to Crack Down on Homeless Camps
City of Grants Pass v. Johnson In June of 2024, the Supreme Court handed down its most important decision concerning homelessness in decades. In City of Grants Pass v. Johnson, the Court decided that a prohibition on public camping does not violate the Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause of the Eighth Amendment. The case concerned […]
Names Games and America’s Re-Frame: Trump’s Renaming Spree
My phone was constantly buzzing with “Breaking News” alerts during the first day of Trump’s presidency. Seeing the flood of his executive orders, withdrawing the U.S. from the Paris Climate Agreement, the World Health Organization, eliminating DEI programs, and more was exhausting. But I caught a break when I saw the headline reading “Trump renames ‘Gulf of Mexico’ […]
A Post-Mortem of the Youth Vote in 2024
This article is a follow-up to an earlier Berkeley Political Review article entitled “Blue Generation: Gen Z and the Democratic Party.” In the 2024 presidential election, Democratic candidate Kamala Harris underperformed President Joe Biden’s vote share in 2020 nationally by three percentage points. Harris’ underperformance is more striking when looking at individual states, even states […]
DOGE Doom and Gloom: The Gutting of the CFPB
The past weeks have generated national outrage in response to the mass federal employment cuts pursued by the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). From Raleigh, North Carolina, to Washington, D.C., protestors are standing up to DOGE and DOGE-overseer Elon Musk after mass dismissals of federal workers. The Billionaire CEO has sought to reap the […]