Roundup Top Ten for November 6, 2020
An Embarrassing Failure for Election Pollstersby W. Joseph CampbellPollsters problems predicting the 2020 election deepened the embarrassment for a field that has suffered through – but has survived – a variety of lapses and surprises since the mid-1930s. |
We Must Do More to Honor the People and Places Lost to Violent Racismby Walter GreasonTeaching a course about collective racial violence in the United States showed a professor the extent to which this history is both integral to the nation and completely hidden from the majority of Americans. |
Trumpania, U.S.A.: Making Federal Buildings Fascist Againby Ed SimonTrump's obsession with establishing neoclassical architecture as the default style for federal buildings echoes the delusional plan of Adolf Hitler to rebuild bombed Berlin in a monumental style purged of "decadent" modernism. |
Good TV Demands Results on Election Night, But that’s Bad for Democracyby Kathryn Cramer BrownellElection night 2020 promises to test whether the media has learned from failures of the past. |
Aaron Sorkin’s Inane, Liberal History Lessonby Charlotte RosenAaron Sorkin's Chicago 7 film strips away the radical, anti-imperialist, anti-racist, anti-capitalist politics of the 1960s New Left to make the defendants heroic defenders of liberal democratic politics. |
Monstrous Men: The Medusa #MeToo Monument Has an Oedipal Complexby Erin Thompson and Sonja DrimmerA New York statue of Medusa erected as a monument to the #MeToo movement of identifying sexual abusers of women is in fact yet another instance of fighting among male artists using women's bodies as symbolic weapons. It also garbles the myth of Medusa, draining it of its relevance to #MeToo. |
What Modern Voter Suppression Looks Like In Floridaby Julio Capó Jr. and Melba V. Pearson"The result of legal maneuvering in Florida is a 21st-century version of Jim Crow, now matured into James Crow Esq. The intent — to restrict minority community access to the ballot box — is the same, but the methods of voter suppression have become more sophisticated." |
President Trump’s False Claims about Election Fraud are Dangerousby Sid BedingfieldElected officials' use of the media to claim election fraud has resulted in violence in the past; the news media must take responsibility to avoid fanning the flames. |
A Large Portion of the Electorate Chose the Sociopathby Tom NicholsBy picking Trump again, those voters are showing that they are just like him: angry, spoiled, racially resentful, aggrieved, and willing to die rather than ever admit that they were wrong. |
The Racist Lady with the Lampby Natalie Stake-Doucet"Nursing historiography is centered on whiteness. Even worse, nursing history revolves largely around a single white nurse: Florence Nightingale. This, unfortunately, doesn’t mean nurses understand who Nightingale was." |