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2 weeks ago | 
washingtonmonthly.com | David Masciotra
Since assuming power in January, President Donald Trump has ordered the destruction of the so-called administrative state (social services, regulatory agencies), revoked and threatened to revoke funding from universities that don’t bend to his political will, and attempted to eliminate anything resembling Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs from government, public education, and public health.
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3 weeks ago | 
unherd.com | David Masciotra
Ben ShapiroIntellectual Dark WebJoe RoganPodcastsPoliticsTrumpUS Every era has a class of leading intellectuals, those rare scholars who can break outside the cloister of academia to penetrate the public consciousness. In the mid-20th century, Europe had the existentialists, while America boasted luminaries such as Sontag and Vidal.
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3 weeks ago | 
crimereads.com | David Masciotra
James Lee Burke is one of the most prolific authors in the United States. Averaging a book a year throughout his sixty-years in literature, he is also one of the most profound, riveting, and stylistically beautiful. His new novel, Don’t Forget Me, Little Bessie, acts as both a companion to his other work, exploring violence and the quest for justice through the lens of a courageous protagonist. It is also a departure, demonstrating that Burke is still full of surprises.
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3 weeks ago | 
progressive.org | David Masciotra
Despite the increasingly somber political reality outside its doors, the lobby of the Brave Space Alliance in Chicago is all smiles as Sharmaine Canady holds court. Waiting for a package of food from BSA’s community pantry during a visit in March, she regales staff and volunteers about her plans to cook chicken noodle soup with turmeric to share with her dog that afternoon.
The organization has been critical for Canady during a difficult time.
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1 month ago | 
counterpunch.org | David Masciotra
Two songs have brought me to tears since the death of my friend, Alanna Ford. The first was a new song from Warren Haynes called “Real, Real Love.” Haynes took a partially composed lyric that his late friend, Gregg Allman, wrote, and crafted a beautiful and soulful full-length exploration of the purpose, meaning, and sadness that love ushers into our lives.
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2 months ago | 
washingtonmonthly.com | David Masciotra
Donald Trump’s America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions; doctors who offer reproductive health services to women could go to prison; Blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters; rogue police could break down citizens’ doors and bust into college dormitories in midnight raids; schoolchildren could not be taught evolution, Black history, or gay rights; writers, artists, and journalists would be censored at the whim of government; and the doors of the federal...
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2 months ago | 
counterpunch.org | David Masciotra
One of the late Jacques Derrida’s most useful exercises in linguistic play was to hyphenate “represent.” The word that appears after the alteration, “re-present,” offers transformed definition and application. To re-present something, especially a memory, is to present it anew, but also to mark, mangle, and manufacture a different present.
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Mar 25, 2025 | 
unherd.com | David Masciotra
ExtremismLiberalismPoliticsTrumpUS Donald Trump is a great uniter, bringing together the most delusional elements of American life. Attacks on his administration’s reactionary turn are, of course, accurate. But it is far wiser to see his cabinet as a crackpot coalition. Served by representatives from the extremist Left and Right, the President appears to reward any idea, no matter its absurdity or origin, as long as it breaks with the exhausted liberal consensus.
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Mar 9, 2025 | 
salon.com | David Masciotra
Most Democratic elected officials are behaving with stunning timidity, at the exact moment that the crisis facing American democracy demands strength and aggression. Combining the neuroses of insecure teenagers and the poll-monitoring reticence of politicians fit for parody, they appear both weak and bashful. They are acting like losers, but their constituents will suffer the gravest losses. Chief among those endangered constituents are transgender and nonbinary people.
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Feb 14, 2025 | 
washingtonmonthly.com | David Masciotra
Jay Farrar, one of the best American songwriters, describes the exurban life in his rock band, Son Volt’s aptly named song, “Exurbia”: Exurbia, someone’s nightmare dream… No people walking No people conversing Just work, car, interstate then house. The nightmare dream has invaded national politics, transforming conventional notions of the American dream—not to mention Martin Luther King’s egalitarian dream—into a cruel taunt.
