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JD Vance

JD Vance Tells Republicans Who America’s Real Birthright Citizens Are

US President Donald Trump

Trump’s obsessions help bury GOP chances

Adult man holds a microphone while asking a question during a town hall meeting.

Consensus Without Power: How Sortition Could Break America's Legislative Gridlock

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The Questions We Should Be Asking About the Lindsay Clancy Case

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How Anti-Bribery Laws Apply to Trump’s Promise of $5,000 Payments if Republicans Keep Control of Congress

Top-seeded campaign finance reforms squaring off in Democracy Madness

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The Fulcrum
By The FulcrumMay 13, 2020
The Fulcrum
The Fulcrum staff.
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It's down to the top two in the Money in Politics "region" of our reader-driven Democracy Madness tournament. Repealing the Supreme Court's 2013 Citizen United decision (No. 1) is taking on "dark money" disclosures (No. 2) for the championship in this quarter of our bracket.

Similar to an earlier bracket, ideas for bettering voting, the second seed has coasted its way into the finals, blowing out every opponent it came across. The top seed faced a couple of matchups that were a little tighter — but also didn't face any real challenges along the way.

Will the Money in Politics quarter of the draw deliver an upset in the championship round, which is what happened when ranked-choice voting and the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact got past higher-seeded ideas to earn the first births in our Democracy Madness Final Four? You decide.

Cast your vote by Thursday for the campaign finance reform you view as the single most important. Click the Vote Now button and take your pick.

We'll unveil our 16 "best of the rest" democracy reform proposals and start whittling them down next week.


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Economy

The $5,000 Question — Campaign Promise or Something Congress Should Worry About?

Keep Politicians, Not Politics Out Of Sports: Let Athletes Speak

Keep Politicians, Not Politics Out Of Sports: Let Athletes Speak

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What's Good for the Blue Collar Worker is Good for America

While our culture of consumerism has benefited corporate America, it has harmed our citizens, hurt our economy, and weakened our nation. It has been particularly harmful to the American blue-collar worker, sacrificed to the holy grail of maximizing profit and globalization by America's multinational corporations. America's welfare depends on a thriving middle class, on prosperous blue-collar workers.

How has our consumer economy hurt America? Let me count the ways.

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Cracked Dry Earth - stock photo A pair of worn brown boots stand on cracked, dry earth. Sparse green plants struggle to grow amidst the barren landscape, creating a stark contrast.

After the AfD’s historic wins in Saxony-Anhalt and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, an analyst links climate migration to democratic decline and a possible fix.

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Climate, Migration and the Far Right: Democracies Need a Short-Term Plan

On September 6, the far-right German party Alternative for Germany (AfD) made a historic breakthrough. 100 years after Hitler’s official reorganization of the Nazi Party, a group that has openly strategized and worked with neo-Nazis won a plurality of the vote in the state of Saxony-Anhalt and is on the precipice of forming a government there. 14 days later, they won a plurality again in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. This is the AfD's strongest electoral result yet, and the closest a far-right party has come to a majority in postwar Germany.

In a country with numerous safeguards against right-wing co-option – from a 5% minimum threshold to enter the Bundestag to bans for undemocratic parties – this democratic victory of a far-right movement shook the country to its core. Whether AfD is able to make up the handful of seats it needs in coalition agreements to form governments in both states isn’t the point; AfD’s stock is on the rise, and at this rate, they will likely continue to win at both the state and federal level. Even if Chancellor Merz’s coalition government can start delivering for the increasingly underemployed and isolated German people, by all signs, far-right support will only continue to increase.

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The Rule of Law depends on action, not blind optimism. Explore how critical hope, civic engagement, and accountability can strengthen democracy.
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The Law Was Supposed to Be a Shield. I Found the Bars.

I used to believe that learning the law meant learning the architecture of protection.

I believed statutes existed because someone, somewhere, had anticipated injustice and decided certain lines should never be crossed. I believed due process meant power could not simply declare itself correct. I believed whistleblower protections, grievance procedures, public-records laws, administrative review and courts formed a structure designed to restrain institutional misconduct.

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