"We" v. "Me"

"But do liberals understand sacrifice? Liberalism did grave damage to its reputation in the 1960s by demanding real sacrifices from ordinary people and very little from elites, whose children were not the ones being bused to inner-city schools, nor drafted and sent off to fight in Vietnam. Has anything changed today? So many of the things liberals favor—globalization, a generous immigration policy, an increase in the minimum wage, affirmative action—do them real good and little harm, while impinging, or at least seeming to impinge, on Americans a few steps down the ladder. What do liberals favor that's good for America broadly but not good for them?"

James Traub at The Atlantic argues that "Selfishness Is Killing Liberalism."

"The 'Authentic' Politician Is a Myth"

"This taste for the apparently uncoached and unscripted goes way back; more than a century ago, the rise of image management was already sowing skepticism about campaign-trail stagecraft and stimulating a hunger for unvarnished candidates. Yet despite its deep roots, our disdain for artifice is itself somewhat superficial. In reality, we're quite happy to tolerate some image-making when it produces a leader with political traits we find congenial."

David Greenberg in the Los Angeles Times looks back at presidential image-making since the early twentieth century.

"Government That Served the Wealthy Would Ruin the Country"

"Twice in its history, the Republican Party regained its direction and popularity after similar disasters by returning to its original defense of widespread individual economic success. The same rebranding is possible today, if Republicans demote Reagan from hero to history and rally to a leader like Lincoln, Roosevelt or Eisenhower—someone who believes that the government should promote economic opportunity rather than protect the rich."


Heather Cox Richardson in The New York Times argues that Republicans should "Bring Back the Party of Lincoln."

"So the Purpose–the Fundamental Purpose–of Our First Federal Anti-Monopoly Law Was Precisely to Avoid Inequality"

"Well, legally what happened was that in the early days of the Reagan Administration, one of their very first actions was to say, hey, these anti-monopoly laws and antitrust laws that you use to make markets, and create competition, and spread out opportunity, and insure industrial liberty, and, protect our democratic institutions—all these many laws that make up our competition policy, wouldn’t it be better if we take all of these laws and simplify them, so we aim at one outcome only, efficiency? Because if we are able to make our economy more efficient, we'd be able to produce more stuff for you, the consumer. Won't that be a swell world to live in, with more stuff for you, the consumer?"


Thomas Frank in Salon talks with Barry Lynn about the reemergence of monopoly.

"A Constant Reminder that We Live in a Hydraulic Society"

"First, worried that the aqueduct couldn't meet its needs, Los Angeles shouldered aside San Diego's plans to tap the Colorado River and took over that project for itself. That may help to explain San Diego's abiding resentment of all things Angeleno, its persistent opposition to water planning that might benefit the city and its often fruitless quest for an 'independent' water supply of its own, no matter what the cost.
"Second, to ensure that it was getting all the water the aqueduct could convey, Los Angeles determined to strangle agricultural water use in the Owens Valley. This prompted the valley's armed resistance. The aqueduct was repeatedly blown up, and at one point, it was seized by the embattled farmers, who shut it down entirely.
"Los Angeles ultimately won that conflict. The Owens Valley economy was devastated and the city wound up owning most of the area, which it attempted to run as a virtual colony. For half a century, investments in valley business were actively discouraged."

William Kahrl in the Los Angeles Times marks the centennial of the Los Angeles Aqueduct.

"Zelig in the Corner of Someone Else’s Portrait"

"When he crosses a present-day mind, it is almost never as the plump, white-mustachioed burgher painted by Sargent. We see instead the slender young man, one hand playfully on his hip, the other on the back of Lincoln’s chair, being photographed with Nicolay and the president in Alexander Gardner’s Civil War studio. Hay may have written, in 1900, that 'the most important part of my life came late,' but his heart and subconscious are unlikely to have believed it. While sailing home from Europe shortly before his death—he’d gone for a rest cure but succumbed, as always, to social distractions—he had a dream about going 'to the White House to report to the president who turned out to be Mr. Lincoln' instead of the incumbent Roosevelt. It was his service to the first that brought him into the realms of myth and even religious mystery; his work for the second put him in the mere thick of history."

Thomas Mallon in The New York Times reviews John Taliaferro's All the Great Prizes: The Life of John Hay, From Lincoln to Roosevelt.

"Winners Deserve to Be Winners Because They Are Winners"

"'The reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand,' Paul Ryan said in 2009.  'And the fight we are in here, make no mistake about it, is a fight of individualism versus collectivism.' In time for Team Romney’s vetting process, the freshly-minted V.P. nominee has since walked back his devotion to Rand and her philosophy, telling National Review that an admiration for the mid-century Soviet émigré does not 'suggest that a person is therefore an Objectivist.'

"Wherever Ryan currently stands on Objectivism, which Rand invented, it’s worth reviewing the basics of the world’s greediest philosophy."

In The New Republic, Simon van Zuylen-Wood names "The Ten Strangest Things About Objectivism."

Ann Friedman at New York calls Paul Ryan "Your Annoying Libertarian Ex-Boyfriend."

David Stockman in The New York Times says that Ryan "is preaching the same empty conservative sermon."

John Nichols at The Nation writes that Wisconsinite Ryan is against the "Wisconsin Idea."

Conor Friedersdorf at The Atlantic argues that Ryan makes for a poor Randian.

In The New Republic, Jennifer Burns traces Ayn Rand's influence over the past fifty years.

"Before There Was Rudy Giuliani, There Was Teddy Roosevelt"

"The reason Roosevelt’s quest was doomed, this account makes clear, is that New Yorkers—then and now—like their vices neat. Sure, they did not favor police and political corruption, but they would not stand for the abridgment of their pleasures, even if the consequence was police and Tammany Hall graft.

"Into that impossible contradiction barged Roosevelt, possessed of enormous intellect, physical courage and vaulting confidence, but also cursed with the relentlessness of a true believer and a thick streak of prudishness."

In The New York Times, Joseph Berger reviews Richard Zacks's Island of Vice: Theodore Roosevelt’s Doomed Quest to Clean Up Sin-Loving New York.

Styles for 1912

"The exciting portion of the 2012 primary season may be winding down, but one hundred years ago one of the most dramatic elections in American history was just getting underway. Which made us wonder: what would it be like to cover the 1912 race the same way we cover the current contest? An experiment then: blogging the 1912 election."

Gabriel Snyder at The Atlantic Wire introduces the 1912 Project.

"The Basic Bargain that Made This Country Great Has Eroded"

"This is the defining issue of our time. This is a make or break moment for the middle class, and all those who are fighting to get into the middle class. At stake is whether this will be a country where working people can earn enough to raise a family, build a modest savings, own a home, and secure their retirement.
"Now, in the midst of this debate, there are some who seem to be suffering from a kind of collective amnesia. After all that’s happened, after the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, they want to return to the same practices that got us into this mess. In fact, they want to go back to the same policies that have stacked the deck against middle-class Americans for too many years. Their philosophy is simple: we are better off when everyone is left to fend for themselves and play by their own rules.
"Well, I’m here to say they are wrong."

The Washington Post publishes President Obama's speech on the middle class, given in the same town where Theodore Roosevelt gave his New Nationalism address in 1910.

Ben Soskis and Timothy Noah react in The New Republic.

As does Robert Reich in Salon.

And John Nichols and Ari Berman in The Nation.

Fit as a Bull Moose

"Morris recounts his battle first to wrest control of his party from Taft and the conservatives and, when that failed (only because of 'naked robbery' by 'the forces of reaction,' Roosevelt insisted), to lead a third-party campaign he understood to be doomed almost from the start. Roosevelt’s courage cannot be questioned. Who else would have insisted on delivering an 80-minute speech with a would-be assassin’s bullet freshly lodged in his chest? And the Progressive platform on which he ran was a bold, even visionary document: it recognized labor’s right to organize and promised to curtail campaign spending, promote conservation and provide federal insurance for the elderly, the jobless and the sick. But the evangelistic fervor with which he campaigned probably alienated more voters than it attracted. He had the satisfaction of swamping Taft on Election Day, but the victory went to Wilson, giving the Democrats the White House for the first time in a quarter of a century."

Geoffrey C. Ward reviews Edmund Morris's Colonel Roosevelt in The New York Times.

What Woodrow Wought

"Roosevelt and Wilson had plenty of differences, but in the long view of history their affinities loom large. For Roosevelt, presidential activism meant cracking down on the railroads, regulating food and drugs, breaking up trusts, protecting lands from exploitation, and arbitrating labor disputes. For Wilson, it involved regulating finance and the money supply, limiting the corporations' demands on their laborers, aiding farmers, preventing monopolistic practices, and making the new federal income tax a graduated one. Just three months ago, I wrote in Slate that over the last century, almost no one has questioned these achievements; clearly, I hadn't been watching enough Fox. Nonetheless, it's telling that these Progressive Era reforms have enjoyed such an enduring and uncontroversial place in our sense of what government should do. Their long-reigning acceptance shows better than anything else just how deeply reactionary Beck and company are."

David Greenberg in Slate explores why Woodrow Wilson has become the bête noire for today's Fox News conservatives.

Some Men Worked while Others Snored

"A second tragedy in the immediate background of the 1892 Columbus celebration took place in New Orleans. There, on March 14, 1891–only 10 weeks after the Wounded Knee Massacre–11 Italians were lynched in prison by a mob led by prominent Louisiana politicians. A trial for the murder of the New Orleans police chief had ended in mistrials for three of the Italians and the acquittal of the others who were brought to trial. Unhappy with the verdict and spurred on by fear of the 'Mafia' (a word that had only recently entered American usage), civic leaders organized an assault on the prison to put the Italians to death. This episode was also troubling to the U.S. Government. These were legally innocent men who had been killed. But Italians were not very popular, and even Theodore Roosevelt was quoted as saying that he thought the New Orleans Italians 'got what they deserved.' A grand jury was summoned, but no one was charged with a crime. President Harrison, who would proclaim the Columbus holiday the following year, was genuinely saddened by the case, and over the objections of some members of congress he paid reparations to the Italian government for the deaths of its citizens."

William J. Connell in The American Scholar defends Columbus Day.