Dictators and Democrats
Plus: Influencer intellectuals, murder, cicadas and QAnon
Hubert Airy's 1870 visualization of the scintillating scotoma of his migraine (1873) Image: Public Domain Review
Public Seminar, Week of June 4, 2021
Politics
Julián Gómez Delgado, “The Decline of Colombia’s Centaur State: By launching a general strike, a broad coalition of Colombians has invited state violence—but united to demonstrate what real democracy looks like.” (June 1, 2021)
Claire Potter, “We Don’t Need a Commission to Study January 6: We need a functioning government. National commissions rarely solve the problems they are formed to address–and often, they create new ones.” (June 2, 2021)
Francisco Rodríguez, “The Perfect Dictatorship: The perfect dictatorship is not one in which there are no elections. The perfect dictatorship is one in which the government does not lose elections.” (June 2, 2021)
The Economy
Pat Garafolo, “Corporate Handouts Kill Small Businesses. So Why Do Politicians Continue to Offer Them Up? Voters think corporate subsidies help the local economy.” (June 2, 2021)
The Media
Annabel Schwartz-Horney, “The Rise of the “Influencer-Intellectuals”: How a new generation of social media leftists is marketing a counter-culture online to young radicals.” (June 2, 2021)
Books
Bliss Bowen and Deanne Stillman, “Murder, Marines, and the Mojave: On the 20th anniversary of its publication, author Deanne Stillman contemplates the repercussions of her much-discussed book, `Twentynine Palms.’” (June 2, 2021)
Podcast
Nicole Hemmer, Natalia Mehlman Petrzela and Neil J. Young, “Cicadas! Past Present Podcast, Episode 282.” (June 1, 2021)
Columnists
Heather Cox Richardson, “Democrat-in-Chief: Why the ‘Battle for the Soul of the Nation’ is a fight for democracy Itself.” (June 2, 2021)
John Stoehr, “No, It’s not Shocking that QAnon Believers Long for a Military coup. For Them, This Is the End Times: There are millions of Americans for whom hate is their faith.” (June 2, 2021)
Call for papers: The June 24 issue will focus conservatism. Think big: what does it mean to be a conservative now—in the United States, Africa, Europe, Latin America, Israel, Australia, India? What are the ties between national movements? Is a healthy conservatism necessary for democracy? What are the different conservatisms? Do you have a recent book that should be excerpted or a conference paper that could be crafted into an article? Pitches should be geared to an educated, general audience and arrive no later than Monday, June 14, 2021, to be considered for the issue. Please indicate in your subject line that this is for the special issue on conservatism.