Steve Hochstadt

Steve Hochstadt is a writer and an emeritus professor of history at Illinois College.

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• 
  Feb 20, 2018
  

  President Trump Versus Trump Voters

  by Steve Hochstadt

  Will Trump’s so-called “base” ever wake up? Does he have to shoot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue before his supporters recognize who he is? Or was he right that even that won’t hurt him?

  

• 
  Feb 2, 2018
  

  Justice: Late, But Not Too Late

  by Steve Hochstadt

  Some Americans apparently feel that men are under attack. I disagree – men who abuse women are under attack and it’s about time
  

• 
  Jan 23, 2018
  

  The Greatest Show on Earth

  by Steve Hochstadt

  I didn’t expect much more than a bit of diversion from the new film about P.T. Barnum, “The Greatest Showman”. A musical biopic from Hollywood is rarely a source of thoughtful history or powerful emotion. But “Greatest Showman” delivered something unexpected: a morality tale appropriate to 21^st-century America.
  

• 
  Jan 16, 2018
  

  Dangerous Words in the White House

  by Steve Hochstadt

  It is difficult to find a clearer expression of white supremacy than Trump’s words to a gathering of Senators in the Oval Office.
  

• 
  Jan 9, 2018
  

  The Biggest Personality of the Year

  by Steve Hochstadt

  Trump is blowing up our relationships with all our most important foreign friends. He is not the biggest peacemaker, as we have long hoped our Presidents could be. He is not the biggest promoter of democracy, which we have long claimed is our national interest. He is not the best advertisement for America, not the face we wish to show the world. His work is a world-wide disaster.

  

• 
  Dec 30, 2017
  

  Arcing Toward Equality in 2017

  by Steve Hochstadt

  American liberals have been thrown into despair in 2017 by the new nastiness of American politics. But behind the headlines, our country has been evolving in directions that liberals could find encouraging.

  

• 
  Dec 12, 2017
  

  Keeping the Blacks Far Away

  by Steve Hochstadt

  American cities used zoning laws to direct new construction and to control where people lived. Black people were harmed in the process.
  

• 
  Dec 6, 2017
  

  Santa’s On His Way

  by Steve Hochstadt

  The Republicans say that the best way to help the rest of us is to give billions now to the wealthy and to corporations. They will be so happy that they’ll raise everybody’s wages and create new jobs.
  

• 
  Nov 28, 2017
  

  Political Humor, Then and Now

  by Steve Hochstadt

  Tom Lehrer poked fun at serious subjects, such as racism, fascism, pollution and nuclear war. Listening to him skewer racist hypocrites, imagine World War III, and exaggerate the effects of poisons in our air and water certainly contributed to the development of my political views.
  

• 
  Nov 22, 2017
  

  This Tax Cut Is Not For You

  by Steve Hochstadt

  The Republican tax cut is not about economic policy and is certainly not for the middle class. It is political legislation about economic issues: cut corporate taxes to satisfy Republican donors and try again to kill Obamacare.
  

• 
  Nov 14, 2017
  

  Election 2017: Repudiation of Republicans

  by Steve Hochstadt

  The Washington Post wondered whether “the Trump era will one day be remembered as the last gasp of white male privilege.” That will only happen if Trump continues his descent into national disapproval and the energy of liberal voters can be sustained through more election cycles.

  

• 
  Sep 26, 2017
  

  The Health of the Senate

  by Steve Hochstadt

  Republican politicians are worried about money they could raise for the 2018 elections, not about depriving millions of their health care. Their donors want to slash Medicaid, so that’s what they’ll vote for. Republican senators apparently don’t even know in detail what their bill contains.

  

• 
  Sep 5, 2017
  

  Payng for Big Storms

  by Steve Hochstadt

  Only an ideologically immovable force like the current Republican Party could ignore the mounting crises caused by our changing weather systems. In their refusal to acknowledge the basic facts of climate change, Republicans in Congress and the White House put Americans at risk of losing everything.

  

• 
  Aug 29, 2017
  

  The Character Test Is Dead

  by Steve Hochstadt

  The character test may have been turned on its head. Trump appeals to a surprisingly large segment of Americans who like nastiness, who applaud insults, who cheer bloodshed, and who hate liberals and liberal ideas. When he grabs women and laughs about it, when he tells lies about good people, when he calls journalists “sick”, when he mocks the handicapped, and when he winks at white supremacists, his supporters are happy.
  

• 
  Aug 23, 2017
  

  I Am An Antifa

  by Steve Hochstadt

  It was dangerous when my father and father-in-law and their whole generation went off to fight fascism on opposite sides of the globe. It was dangerous when young Americans volunteered to fight Jim Crow in the South in the 1960s. The defenders of American fascism and their fellow travelers want to make that dangerous now.

  

• 
  Jul 26, 2017
  

  Conversations About Health Care

  by Steve Hochstadt

  The creators of our nation believed that “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” were the most important universal rights to be protected by government. It’s not clear what led Thomas Jefferson to elevate the pursuit of happiness to an inalienable right. If that phrase means anything, it must include government participation in our efforts to stay healthy. How can anyone be happy who can’t pay for health care they need?

  

• 
  Jul 18, 2017
  

  The Republican Way of Governing

  by Steve Hochstadt

  When Senator Joe McCarthy tried to use hysterical fears of communism to attack all liberals, he was following a playbook used by both Democrats and Republicans. When Richard Nixon tried to corrupt our governmental structures to elect and then protect himself, I didn’t think his dishonesty was especially Republican. But the current “anything we can get away with” method of governing appears to have become standard Republican practice.

  

• 
  Jul 11, 2017
  

  Why Americans Voted For Trump

  by Steve Hochstadt

  Too many Trump supporters take their beliefs in what is right as license to be hateful toward people who are not like them. Combine that with nostalgia for a time when blacks had to defer to whites, men could grope women, and gays stayed in the closet, and you have a Republican Party which cuts health insurance for millions of Americans, which keeps foreign students from returning to their American universities, which cuts federal programs for Americans in need.
  

• 
  Jul 6, 2017
  

  Gay Equality is Coming Quickly

  by Steve Hochstadt

  Bigots will keep using religion as a cover for prejudice, as in the so-called religious freedom laws. But the shift toward acceptance of homosexuality will continue, as older opponents are replaced by younger advocates. Because our gay relatives and friends do not fit the prejudicial stereotypes, discriminatory impulses will lose their persuasive power.
  

• 
  Jun 14, 2017
  

  The Amazing Mind of Donald Trump

  by Steve Hochstadt

  Trump doesn’t mostly make up the untruths he tells the world. He takes them from these professional spreaders of political lies. Trump takes his “news” from supermarket tabloids and their internet equivalents. He said, “You can’t knock the National Enquirer. It’s brought many things to light, not all of them pleasant.”