South Korea’s failed self-coup follows global trend of political leaders trying to seize absolute power
By John Joseph Chin, Assistant Teaching Professor of Strategy and Technology, Carnegie Mellon University; and Joe Wright, Professor of Political Science, Penn State Something unexpected – but hardly unprecedented – happened in South Korea on December 3. With little...
Fulfilling Reagan’s vow: How eliminating the Education Department fits a larger political agenda
By Kevin Welner, Professor of Education Policy & Law; Director of the National Education Policy Center, University of Colorado Boulder In her role as former chief executive of World Wrestling Entertainment, Linda McMahon oversaw an enterprise that popularized the...
A history of military rule: What the short-lived Martial Law says about South Korean democracy
By Myunghee Lee, Assistant Professor, Michigan State University During a whirlwind few hours in South Korean politics, President Yoon Suk Yeol placed the country under martial law on December 3, 2024, only to lift it just a short while later. It marked the first time...
Great power competition: Why U.S. military planning pivoted from terrorism back to old adversaries
By Eric Rosenbach, Senior Lecturer in Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School President Joe Biden’s recent approval of a major shift in U.S. nuclear weapons strategy highlights the attention the country’s national security officials are paying to Chinese ambitions for...
Comeback victories: Trump follows the example of how Andrew Jackson reshaped national politics in 1828
By Spencer Goidel, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Auburn University As the nation prepares for a second Donald Trump presidency, some history-minded people may seek understanding in the idea that it was not until Richard Nixon’s second presidential term...
Racial hierarchy: Why Trump is a savior to people who want to enshrine the dominance of White culture
By Marya T. Mtshali, Lecturer in Studies in Women, Gender, and Sexuality, Harvard University Americans who heard former President Donald Trump claim that Vice President Kamala Harris previously identified as “not Black” in a July 2024 interview may wonder why he...
Nationalism is not patriotism: Trump proves that an autocrat is easy to underestimate
By Mark Satta, Associate Professor of Philosophy and Law, Wayne State University Shortly after Donald Trump was inaugurated as president of the United States in January 2017, George Orwell’s 1949 novel “Nineteen Eighty-Four” shot to the top of Amazon’s bestseller...
Trump’s Shadow Government: Details from the Russell Vought plan to implement a MAGA takeover
A key ally to former President Donald Trump detailed plans to deploy the military in response to domestic unrest, defund the Environmental Protection Agency, and put career civil servants “in trauma” in a series of previously unreported speeches that provide a...
A Political Paradox: Why Gen Z’s cynical worldview goes beyond stereotypes of disenfranchised youth
Over the past several years, media pundits have repeatedly documented Gen Z’s unique engagement with politics. Nearly three-fourths of “Zoomers,” the generation born after 1996, are involved in a social or political cause. They are the age demographic with the highest...
Private photos in the public domain: When families push back against journalists who mine social media
By Laura Wajnryb McDonald, PhD candidate in Criminology, University of Sydney Less than 24 hours after Ashlee Good was killed in Bondi Junction, her family released a statement requesting the media take down photographs they had reproduced of Ashlee and her family...
Generative journalism: The risk of newsrooms experimenting with AI tools that are still unreliable
By Nir Eisikovits, Professor of Philosophy and Director, Applied Ethics Center, UMass Boston The journalism industry has been under immense economic pressure over the past two decades, so it makes sense that journalists have started experimenting with generative AI to...
Underconsumption core: How the minimalism trend is challenging the culture of toxic consumerism
By Omar H. Fares, Lecturer in the Ted Rogers School of Retail Management, Toronto Metropolitan University; and Seung Hwan (Mark) Lee, Professor and Associate Dean of Engagement & Inclusion, Ted Rogers School of Management, Toronto Metropolitan University A new...
