Author name: Teri Kanefield

First, some history for perspective. (Stick with me. I promise this will be worth it). Nineteenth-century American society was a patriarchy: a social hierarchy with White men at the top and Black women at the bottom. Laws reflect cultural values. As the culture changes, laws change. Laws in the 19th century reinforced the patriarchy. Example: A […]

I first posted this on March 13, 2022, and then revised it through May. The updated version is here. Contents: What Merrick Garland and DOJ Officials Say Is Happening What We Know from Public Reporting is Happening Media’s Love Affair with Former Prosecutors Frequently Asked Questions Nobody can Guarantee a Particular Outcome Rule of Law

I. The Progressive or Liberal View Correct. A good way to understand today’s politics is by considering the different views of American history. The liberal, or progressive view, can be visualized as an upward slope. According to this view, the founders started with some pretty good ideas: The idea of a government based on rule

There’s a thing called Do Something Twitter. These are people on Twitter who loudly demand that those in power DO SOMETHING to save democracy. I’ll give a few examples. After Hayden Brown reported that Biden talks energetially about the importance of democracy, Sarah Kenzdior (who has appeared on news programs and presents herself as an

First, the definition of cynicism from my Oxford American Dictionary: Cynic: A person who believes that people are motivated purely by self-interest rather than acting for honorable or unselfish reasons. A person who questions whether something will happen or whether it is worthwhile. Right-Wing cynicism Cynicism is a characteristic of fascism. The best way to

This blog post started as a video. You can see it here. In the struggle to save democracy, there are some who insist that Democrats should “fight like Republicans.”  This is sometimes framed as “Democrats are bringing a knife to a gunfight” or “you have to fight fire with fire” or “it’s time for hardball tactics.”

This blog post started out as a YouTube video. You can see it here. This week we learned that a lawyer who was working with Trump to try to overturn the election detailed a six-step plan for how to hand the presidency back to Donald Trump. The lawyer is John Eastman, a former clerk for

This blog post started as a YouTube video. You can see it here. A lot of this blog post comes from the NBC Think Op-Ed piece I published this week entitled, “What was Trump’s Role During the Capitol Riot? The House Plans to Find out. You can read it here. I’ll expand on the ideas

This blog post started as YouTube video, here. Last week I wrote about the link between white supremacy, hierarchies and the anti-mask and anti-vaccine “debate.” I received some interesting comments and questions, which will serve as a good jumping-off point to expand on those ideas, and dig deeper into these connections. So, first, to very

This blog post started as a YouTube video. You can see it here. You may have noticed that certain Republican leaders have evidently decided that coming out against masks and vaccines during a pandemic is a winning strategy. The Republican governors of Texas, Florida, and Mississippi, for example, have taken particularly strong anti-mask positions. Mississippi

This blog post started as a Youtube video. You can see it here. Today I plan to talk about a question I often get: “Is it too late to save democracy.” A few weeks ago someone asked me this: I’ve observed what seems to be a state of almost constant panic or despair among people

This blog post started out as a short (14-minute) youtube video. What follows is an edited transcription. The video is here. What follows is an [edited] transcription. The historical background, and ideas for how to weaken the strongman cult, comes from this book by New York University professor Ruth Ben-Ghiat: The question of the hour

This post draws from this Op-Ed I wrote a few days ago for NBC and a fourteen-minute video (I’ll add the link here shortly.) Last week Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, said that it’s “highly unlikely” that he would allow President Joe Biden to fill a Supreme Court vacancy in 2024 if he becomes Senate

Before I talk about Susan B. Anthony, I want to talk a little about reactionary (or regressive) v. progressive politics. Make America Great Again is an expression of reactionary politics. Reactionaries seek to return back to a bygone era. They feel a “forceful desire” to return to the [mythic] past. Conservatives want to maintain the

As usual, this post started out as a 15-minute video. You can see it here. Harvard Prof. Daniel Ziblatt, one of the authors of How Democracies Die, talks about what he calls the “conservative dilemma” which is this: How can conservatives win national elections with unpopular economic policies? Turns out American conservatives have been quite