“I beheld the wretch — the miserable monster whom I had created.” Dr. Frankenstein Early in the second Bush Administration, even before the 9/11 attacks, reporters began to describe a strange pattern of delusion among aides and advisors. Any expression…
Lost amid the cheering as the Supreme Court finally ends the battle over gay marriage is a strange paradox. Gay marriage is a fundamentally conservative concept. Its legal basis was established and promoted by key conservatives. It exists as a…
Originally, ‘States Rights’ was a dry Constitutional premise explaining the shape of our federal system. After long misuse as a political subterfuge it has been redefined as a byword for racial discrimination. ‘Patriot’ was once among the highest complements we…
This is what the GOP might look like when the culture wars finally end. Republicans in Massachusetts have openly backed same sex marriage, joining an amicus brief filed by former RNC Chair and Bush Administration official Ken Mehlman. Almost all…
Alabama’s Chief Justice, Roy “Standing in the Courthouse Door” Moore, has instructed the state’s probate officials to deny marriage licenses to same-sex couples. The move comes in response to the Supreme Court’s refusal to stay a lower court’s decision striking…
Let’s recite the myth together. Richard Nixon, on the campaign trail in 1968, visits a Southern state and is shocked by the enthusiastic reception he receives. His campaign team scrambles to build a strategy that will tap into Southerner’s rage…
There is still today a Southern Baptist Church. More than a century and a half after the Civil War, decades after the Methodists and Presbyterians reunited with their Yankee neighbors, America’s largest Protestant denomination remains defined, right down to the…
Democrats are seeing a steady erosion of their traditional support among low and middle-earning white families. That drift contributed heavily to the outcome of the 2014 mid-terms, but it has been in motion since the Civil Rights Acts of the…
As a child of the bus wars, Slate’s new series of articles on the late Civil Rights Movement rings painfully true. Once the Civil Rights campaign progressed beyond equal access and voting rights, it began to take on a harder…
When Congress passed the Johnson-Era Civil Rights Acts, America began an unprecedented expansion of personal liberty that reached far beyond the black community. For the first time ever, the meritocratic ideals that have always rested at the foundation of the…
GOPLifer 