Mark Schmitt

If the current revival of progressive politics were the civil-rights movement, the role of Rosa Parks would be played by Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer. Every child in America learns each February the story of how Parks one day decided that she just wasn’t going to take it any more and refused to move to the back of the bus. And from that spontaneous act of courage, the civil-rights revolution was born.

But behind Parks, there was a movement that kids… more

Paycheck paralysis, rising cost of living, out of control student loans, credit card debt... many young workers, even those with college degrees, are facing hard economic realities. Is it just perception, or is it really tougher being a 20- or 30-something today than it was 30 years ago? Americans of all ages face an era of economic insecurity. This uncertainty is now so common that younger generations know it as part of the experience of being American. But it hasn't… more

Since 9/11, many have cast the Global War on Terrorism as the forces of democracy and freedom pitted against an emerging and increasingly dangerous “Islamofascism”. Author and editor Robert Dreyfuss contends that during the Cold War (and since), the forces of the Islamic right have been erstwhile allies of the United States.

Dreyfuss, author of Devil's Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam, will discuss the lessons our shared history offers us in dealing with the war… more

Suppose that you wanted to find a list of the 30 or 40 Republican members of Congress most vulnerable to defeat this fall (and assume that you couldn't afford the Cook Political Report). Here's an easy trick: Take a particularly egregious piece of legislation passed by the House, then look at the Republicans who voted against it.

For example, last year the House passed Congressman Richard Pombo's bill to "modernize" (repeal) the Endangered Species Act. Thirty-four Republicans voted… more

America’s image has been steadily deteriorating over the past five years, with a slight recovery in some countries in 2005. Yet overwhelmingly, anti-Americanism is on the rise. Why is this so? Pew pollster Andrew Kohut and journalist Bruce Stokes use surveys from more than 91,000 people in 50 countries to explore this deeply unsettling finding in their recently released book, America Against the World: How We Are Different and Why We Are Disliked.

Kohut and Stokes argue that… more

London is a place where Thomas Frank's famous book bears the title What's the Matter with America?, thus extending the indictment to the whole nation, and where a small American child is required to affirm that she hates George W. Bush before she can join English tykes on the jungle gym. Even so, the principal obsession is no longer the subservience of Tony Blair to Bush, but a much older soap opera, now entering its dreary tenth season: Blair versus… more

Let me begin by admitting that if fortune decrees that the next president of the United States must be another conservative Republican, I'd certainly rather it be John McCain than George Allen, Tom Tancredo, Newt Gingrich, or most of the other current right-wing heartthrobs.

But have no illusions: McCain is a very conservative Republican who has now embarked on the project of reaffirming his position as the rightful heir to Barry Goldwater's politics as well as his Senate… more

What's most provocative in this year's crop of books about renewing the Democratic Party is what's missing. The old sectarian fights about ideology, between the Democratic Leadership Council and labor-left factions, seem to have disappeared. None of the four books reviewed here makes the argument that the Democratic Party is in a substantive way out of line ideologically. None argues that the party needs to move as a bloc to the left, right, or center. The prevailing tone, particularly in… more

Our long national nightmare has just begun. There is now little doubt that the next three years will bring one revelation after another about the magnitude of congressional corruption. Democrats will relish this prospect, and "reform" will be an inevitable theme of the next two election cycles. But some political scandals lead to change, while others dominate the headlines for a year and leave no trace. Why? Some of it has to do with managing the media, but it also… more