You are browsing the archives of Democrat.

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 [...]

Call it the backlash against the backlash: after heaping wild hopes on president-elect Obama, and then turning around and professing in a disenchanted manner that he’ll invariably disappoint us, we’re now back to piling on the starry-eyed expectations.
That said, here at Listicles we prefer unreasonable expectations to presumed disappointment, in which spirit we pass along [...]

Those mainstream mediators at TIME have released their annual list of lists, and among the most fascinating is their hierarchy of time-capsule buzzwords. Their Top 10 Buzzwords listicle goes like so:

1. Change: The all-pervasive shorthand for Barack Obama’s campaign, uses of “change” in 2008 automatically assumed a time of hardship and a vague, knee-jerk optimism, [...]

The New Yorker interviewed Prince this week, touching on both his conversion into a Jehovah’s Witness seven years ago and his anti-gay marriage views. I don’t think I’ve been so shocked to learn a likable celebrity’s religious and political stance since I found out Beck is a Scientologist (and he’s just number 8 on Cracked.com’s [...]