In a historically progressive city, San Francisco’s Asian American community showed up and showed out in support of right-wing candidates and policies down the ballot in the 2024 election. While Trump’s share of Black and Latino voters hardly shifted, Trump captured Asian Americans in tension with the Democratic Party. After President Donald Trump’s onslaught of […]
Tag: Republicans
UC Berkeley’s Free Speech Identity Crisis
“Speech is not violence. The Left conflates the two in order to justify its own violent reactions to differing points of view.” Michael Knowles “I go to UC Berkeley…” Usually, when a Berkeley student utters these words to those who aren’t lucky enough to attend our university, they are met with praise about how they […]
Clashes in Leadership
As the election looms ever closer, Congressional Republicans found themselves between a rock and a hard place: a government shutdown, and the demands of their presidential nominee, Donald Trump. However, this conflict arose not just from Democrat-Republican relations, but internal party politics. Through the whole month of September, Republicans and Democrats debated amongst themselves on […]
For someone who possibly had one of the easiest paths to the presidency set up for him, Ron DeSantis is doing all the things he needed to do right, wrong.
Traditional conservative voters wanted to be excited about Ron DeSantis. Independents and fed-up Democrats wanted him to be tolerable. His recent tack to the hard right is pushing these crucial voters away. With about half the country identifying as Independent voters, the path to victory for any major candidate in a general election must involve […]
The Fight for Fair Maps Continues in California
The 2022 midterm elections have proven once more how much the California Citizens Redistricting Commission has failed to live up to its mission: drawing fair maps. In 2022, Democratic House candidates in California won 63% of the state’s popular vote but 77% of California’s House seats. The California Citizens Redistricting Commission, approved by voters in […]
The Democratic Party is Untenable
The United States stands at the precipice of so many crises that I cannot hope to list them all here. We seem intent to drive straight off the cliff of imminent climate catastrophe. Our healthcare and education systems balloon in costs, run by and for profit-seeking middlemen rather than the interests of the people that […]
Ten Years Post-Reform, How Are California’s Congressional Maps Still Unfair?
What a success story for California! After decades of Democrats and Republicans in the state legislature rigging Congressional maps through gerrymandering, citizens finally came together in 2008 to pass Prop 11, and in 2010 to pass Prop 20, putting redistricting in the hands of a bipartisan citizen commission. Once and for all, California had fair […]
Our Politics Has A Sexual Violence Problem
Bill Clinton, Joe Biden, Andrew Cuomo, Donald Trump, Brett Kavanaugh, and Clarence Thomas: what do all these men, Democrats and Republicans alike, have in common? Numerous allegations of various forms of sexual misconduct. What is further troubling is that these are only a few names in a long, exhaustive list of elected politicians that have […]
As COVID-19 Rages On, So Does the GOP’s Attack on Trans Rights
During the early months of 2021, a notable amount of anti-transgender bills have been introduced in state legislatures across the country — as of mid-March, bills targeting the transgender community have been proposed in at least 20 states. Although most of these bills have not been voted into law yet, their introductions alone represent an […]
Will ICE Freeze the Blue Wave?
On March 1st, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced that operations in their Northern-Central California jurisdiction have resulted in 232 arrests for violations of federal immigration law. 117 of these offenders were “non-criminals” innocent of any offense unrelated to immigration. A few months later, a three-day criminal sweep mostly centered on immigration violators […]
To Spy or Not to Spy: Questions Raised by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act
In June of 2008, then-presidential candidate Barack Obama stated that “Given the grave threats that we face, our national security agencies must have the capability to gather intelligence and track down terrorists before they strike while respecting the rule of law and the privacy and civil liberties of the American people.” However, he went on […]
Gassed up: Standoffs, Strikes, and Tension in West Virginia
A couple weeks ago, Lissa Lucas, a Democratic political candidate for the West Virginia House of Delegates, was physically dragged off the House Chambers floor during a Judiciary Committee hearing. Prior to this, Lucas had taken to the podium at the hearing and listed donations that Congresspeople, primarily Republicans, had received from the oil and […]
GOP Going Green: The Power of Economics and National Security on Republican Support for Renewables
By Alexander Casendino On Feb. 26th, 2015, Senator Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, a climate change skeptic, decided to put an end to the global warming debate once and for all using a peculiar prop to convey his message on the Senate floor: a snowball. According to Inhofe, it was simply too cold outside for man-made […]
Democrats Join the Mad Tea Party: The Contest Begins between Feinstein and De León
The December midnight was drenched in silence. A large crowd stared on from the harbor as the Sons of Liberty crept along the docks in Mohawk Native American costumes. They swept through the streets of Boston with one pursuit in mind: dump the coercive British tea. With the quiet punctuated only by the sound of […]
Presidential Election Primaries: The Struggle for Influence
For nearly a century, a well-established political institution within the United States, the presidential primaries, has convinced many in its influential power to decide the nominee for each political party’s presidential candidate. The deeply-rooted drive for a greater influence on the outcome of the presidential election recently drove California to pass new legislation that would […]
Gun Violence and the American Mind
“Reform the mental health care system.” Time and time again, this has been the right-wing response to mass shootings. From three years ago, when 26 lives were lost at Sandy Hook Elementary School, to more recently, when ten people were killed at Umpqua Community College, right-wing politicians have consistently shifted blame onto the American system of […]
AUMF 2015 and the War on ISIL
There is a common refrain in American politics when politicians discuss taking military action in foreign countries. “[insert country of interest here] is going to be another Afghanistan… another Iraq… another Vietnam.” In Vietnam, what began with light air support and humanitarian aid lead to deployment of “advisors,” who invariably were involved in firefights, escalating […]
The Trans-Pacific Partnership and Fast Track Authority: What’s the Big Deal?
A cornerstone of President Obama’s trade agenda has created a rift between his administration and his Democratic base, who have joined with Tea Party Republicans in an unusual marriage of convenience. The legislation in question, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), is a colossal proposed trade agreement that involves twelve countries, including Australia, Canada, Japan, Mexico, and […]
A Possible Return of Partisan Gerrymandering
As the Arizona State Legislature resumes its fight to reinstate gerrymandering for congressional districts, California may also witness the rebirth of gerrymandering in future elections. The case, Arizona State Legislature v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission, is pending before the U.S. Supreme Court, which has decided to hear oral arguments from Arizona attorneys on March 2 and […]
Immigration Reform: The Echo That Can’t Be Ignored
The loud words “We need relief now!” echoed through the ballroom and paused President Obama mid-sentence. Open heckling, shouts, and insults met the President when he attended the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Awards Gala for the first time during his second term on October 2nd. The very demographic President Obama had once been proclaimed a “champion” […]
2014 Midterms Recap: What You Need to Know
Though one of the biggest stories from the midterm election results on Tuesday was the Republicans gaining control of the Senate, there were other significant stories as well. Not only were pollsters incorrect in predicting how close certain Senate races would be, many of the gubernatorial races went the way of the Republicans as well […]
Gerrymandering and the Government Shutdown
The recent government shutdown has severely shaken the American people’s faith in their government (even more so than before), and has people wondering “what happened?” The inability of our elected leaders to keep our government functioning, at the very least, is symptomatic of a much larger problem– the extremely polarized political environment of Washington. […]