You are browsing the archives of American Politics.

Liberals, it would seem, are at their most influential in years in U.S. politics. They’re saving the environment, getting Democratic presidents elected, trying to legalize gay marriage (and, on occasion, marijuana), plotting to end the war in Iraq and dictating where various bail-out funds should go. At the dawn of the Obama White House, liberal [...]

By the time you read this post, New York Governor David Patterson will have announced his pick to replace Hillary Clinton as New York Senator. The winner, after Caroline Kennedy dropped out, is Kirsten Gillibrand (pictured at right), an upstate Democratic Representative. Though we see Patterson’s fixation on finding a female replacement for Clinton in [...]

We find it fascinating that both the Republicans‘ and Democrats‘ zoological shorthands come from Thomas Nast cartoons. Supposedly today’s press is supremely powerful, but back in the 19th century clever satire could eventually become official signage. Today, the best we can do is delightful postmodern bricolage and pastiche, taking wonderful symbols like those popularized by [...]

If we’re looking at movies that might influence today’s new U.S. President Barack Obama, it’s rather worrisome to note that his favorite movie is The Godfather. Hoping that Obama doesn’t turn out like Don Vito Corleone, those tireless film archivists at Future of Classic have parsed their DVD libraries for movie presidents whose onscreen behavior [...]

A few years back (we can’t say how many) we took an American Politics 101 class during our freshman year of college and learned all about the American tradition of Gerrymandering. Aside from the tactical partisan redistricting practice’s funny name, we didn’t think a whole lot of it, and the knowledge quickly sank into an [...]