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Steve Hochstadt

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

  • Mar 21, 2017

    Democracy Demands Wisdom In Its Citizens

    by Steve Hochstadt

    Conservative Republican politicians don’t believe that “democracy demands wisdom and vision in its citizens”. They attack the findings of geology, evolutionary biology, and climate science. They support the spread of fake news and promote alternative facts. They disparage the media in general. There is nothing new about the attacks on truth and knowledge by the Trump administration except its shamelessness.

  • Feb 28, 2017

    Museums and the Power of Facts

    by Steve Hochstadt

    Seekers of illegitimate power always create distorted narratives to justify their dominance. Freedom and justice depend on popular insistence on learning the truth about themselves, their world and their rulers.

  • Feb 21, 2017

    The World is Laughing at America

    by Steve Hochstadt

    A Dutch television program aired a satirical video with a voice-over pretending to be Donald Trump. Soon similar videos were being produced by late-night shows across Europe. The whole world is invited to laugh at, and simultaneously disdain, the American President. America has become the laughingstock of the world.

  • Feb 14, 2017

    Capitalism + Bauhaus = Ikea

    by Steve Hochstadt

    The failure and success of the Bauhaus idea might demonstrate that the radical leftists of the early 20th century produced some wonderful ideas for improving daily life, but that their social implementation needed capitalist economic structures.
  • Jan 28, 2017

    Marching Around the World

    by Steve Hochstadt

    Marches alone won’t stop Trump. Real political influence requires continued and widespread popular pressure in favor of positive action.
  • Dec 15, 2016

    We Need Help Fighting the Banks

    by Steve Hochstadt

    Dodd-Frank makes it less possible for the big banks to push us into tilted arbitration when the banks act like Wells Fargo. It’s an equalizer for the little consumer dealing with the big banks. Without it, we’re at their mercy.

  • Dec 7, 2016

    How Government Really Works

    by Steve Hochstadt

    Everyone appears to be worried that soon-to-be President Trump will make some gigantic blunder, putting us all at risk. More likely is that the Republican Congress and the Republican President will pass hundreds of less notable acts which together will make the rich richer, the powerful more powerful, and the rest of us less able to control our lives.

  • Nov 22, 2016

    Get the Lead Out!

    by Steve Hochstadt

    Conservatives say regulations are “job killers”. I say they are life savers.
  • Oct 18, 2016

    Republican Conspiracy Theories

    by Steve Hochstadt

    Republican voters have been well prepared by their political leaders to believe wild theories which make them victims of vast conspiracies.
  • Oct 4, 2016

    Women as Second-Class Athletes

    by Steve Hochstadt

    Will corporate America only change its bottom-line mindset when the real America buys more tickets to see professional women play? Will that only happen when our public media, from the cable giants to our local papers, pay more attention to professional women?
  • Sep 30, 2016

    Donald Trump Believes in Climate Change

    by Steve Hochstadt

    When he considers his financial interests, Trump is a climate change believer. Trump the businessman was arguing with the Irish authorities about allowing him to make an extraordinary investment to protect his property over the course of this century, because “it could reasonably be expected that the rate of sea level rise might become twice of that presently occurring”. All the while, Trump the politician insisted over and over to the American public that he did not believe in global warming, that the scientists cited in his Irish petition were liars and cheaters, that the whole thing was a hoax.
  • Sep 13, 2016

    The Paralympics: A History of Inclusion and Inspiration

    by Steve Hochstadt

    The athletic performances of the thousands of Paralympic athletes in Rio, far exceeding what most “normal” athletes could accomplish, make the word handicapped seem inappropriate. They have achieved much more: pride in what their bodies can do, rather than shame for what they can’t.

  • Sep 6, 2016

    The Architectural Politics of Rebuilding Berlin

    by Steve Hochstadt

    Discussions about demolition and reconstruction inevitably touched political ideologies of all kinds. Two Berlin sites, one east and one west, show the variety of architectural politics which determined the process of rebuilding.

  • May 24, 2016

    What Does Retirement Mean?

    by Steve Hochstadt

    Our most eloquent revolutionary, Thomas Paine, was a “forerunner of modern social insurance”, as the Social Security Administration calls him. In 1796, he advocated a 10% tax on the inheritance of property to create a fund which would pay a yearly pension to everyone over 50, “to enable them to live in Old Age without Wretchedness, and go decently out of the World.”

  • Apr 26, 2016

    Women in the Boston Marathon

    by Steve Hochstadt

    Women were banned from the Boston Marathon. Into the 1960s, athletic authorities claimed women were incapable of running that distance. The longest AAU-sanctioned race for women was 1.5 miles. Women could not compete further than 800 meters in the Olympics.
  • Apr 13, 2016

    To White Men Who Like Trump

    by Steve Hochstadt

    The economic program Republicans have offered to the American middle class has been remarkably consistent: give more money to the richest Americans by radically cutting their taxes. Trump has shown not the slightest sign that he cares about or will do anything for Americans who are struggling.

  • Apr 5, 2016

    Donald Trump Is Done

    by Steve Hochstadt

    I think Trump is done. Or as my mother-in-law would say, “Done is for meat. Trump is finished.” Everyone who said that before was wrong. But now his run is over.

  • Mar 29, 2016

    Can We Be a Better Neighbor?

    by Steve Hochstadt

    Long after the juvenile Republican presidential campaigns and campaigners of 2016 are forgotten, President Barack Obama’s movement toward normalization of relations with Cuba will still be talked about. Ending the Cuban embargo is one necessary step in creating a real “good neighbor policy”.

  • Mar 15, 2016

    Why Are Some Americans So Angry?

    by Steve Hochstadt

    Trump the birther gave birth to Trump the candidate. Outrageous racist attacks on a black President provided a base of support: two-thirds of Trump supporters still believe that Obama is a Muslim born outside of the US.