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MichaelE.RossinSwamp
SEP
11
American Makeover
By:
Michael E. Ross
on
SEP
11
It had been expected for weeks and months, but its arrival on August 12 – a chronicle of an evolution foretold - announced itself like a thunderclap: According to results of the 2020 census, the United States of America is experiencing unprecedented growth in its minority communities, with black and brown populations showing robust growth, and numbers of white Americans growing more slowly, so much so that the nation’s white majority is the smallest it’s been in more than 200 years. Data from the official U.S. Census 2020, the decennial survey of the nation’s people prescribed in the Constitution, finds that the United States experienced panoramic change in its demographic makeup, with its white non-Hispanic population dropping to 57.8 percent (191 million), an 8.6 percent decline since the 2010 census (196 million), and the lowest percentage of white Americans since 1790. In addition to that, the Hispanic population of the country has grown to 18.7 percent
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JUN
11
Along intraparty lines
By:
Michael E. Ross
on
JUN
11
We're still a year and a half from the election, and the 2020 campaign has already been a shape-shifting thing, with the biggest Democratic field in history, and a Republican president determined to prove that he and he alone can defy political gravity, a second time. The Democratic herd will thin itself out, of course; it’s subject to the same law of political thermodynamics as the president*: things fall apart. Majorities narrow. Bedrock constituencies have second thoughts. Lately, everyday GOPeople have done just that, pushing back against the transmitted wisdom of the Republican church. From those occupying the seats in Congress to the ones in folding chairs at town halls, Republicans are starting to think for themselves vis-à-vis Trump's legislative agenda, and who on the other side might be in a position to stop it a year from November. That fact will be problematical for a White House determined to establish a sense of Republican invincibility, behind a si
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APR
03
Watch Kamala Harris. Now keep watching.
By:
Michael E. Ross
on
APR
03
Don’t fall asleep on Kamala Harris. The Democratic California senator, who jumped out front as a declared candidate for the presidency, has been quietly going about her business since her splashy Oakland campaign rollout in January, when Harris both announced her candidacy and set the emotional bar for the campaign — a deft blend of ebullience and duty — that no other Democrat in the race has matched yet. Other candidates have announced since then, like Beto O’Rourke, the early imagistic darling of the 2020 race. Others haven’t formally announced but might as well have; South Bend, Ind., mayor Pete Buttigieg, a startlingly nimble, intellectual force seemingly come out of nowhere, comes to mind. But modern American politics needs money; modern American presidential politics demands it. Cash flow buys a campaign time and space, and imparts the credibility of staying visible. Money keeps the lights on in the office of a presidential dream ... and
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MAR
02
Why Trump bombed in Hanoi
By:
Michael E. Ross
on
MAR
02
WHEN GLOBAL summit meetings end as fast as the one just wrapped in Hanoi, it’s for one of two reasons: Either the summiteers realized they had no differences of opinion to slow things down, or they found out early that their differences of opinion would short-circuit anything else from happening. We might have guessed that the second Donald Trump summit with Kim Jong Un of North Korea, just ended in Hanoi, would have the same kind of unsatisfying stalemate as happened last June in Singapore. We could tell that the first day, when it was announced that North Korea and the United States had already failed to reach agreement on the crippling sanctions imposed on North Korea. What followed that first news were claims and counterclaims, concessions asked for and concessions purportedly ignored, each country offering an explanation as to why things went south so fast. From the North Korean perspective, it may have come down to intransigence, an unwillingness to budge. But for
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FEB
17
Liam Neeson and the Outrage Age
By:
Michael E. Ross
on
FEB
17
WHEN YOU first heard it, it sounded as if Liam Neeson was offering an expression of life imitating art, speaking in an outtake from any of his Taken trilogy or Gangs of New York, or from Non-Stop or The Commuter, or a scene from his latest film, Cold Pursuit: the famed Oscar-nominated Irish actor as the bludgeoning avenger, the everyman prowling the streets, seeking justice — or at least vengeance. But Leeson’s admission in a Feb. 4 interview with The Independent, was a deeply personal one, and all too real. The actor said that some 40 years ago while living in Northern Ireland, he was told by a friend that she’d recently been raped. “I asked: Did she know who it was? No. What color were they? She said it was a black person.” Thus marginally informed, Neeson apparently wandered the streets brandishing a club and looking for a person of color, identity unknown. He told The Independent: “I did it for maybe a week, hoping some black bastard woul
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