This page examines substantive injustices in U.S. politics, like different levels of public investment, welfare and relief, social determinants of health, placement of jobs, etc.

These are the images used in artistic physical displays. They are survey questions and conversation starters that are topically and thematically organized. They demonstrate how Jesus is relevant to each topic or theme. You can also just view the images on your device. If you would like, see all our Conversation Stations; below are the ones that relate to the topic of Race.

Whose Justice? (and instructions and Christian Restorative Justice Study Guide)

Whose Justice? for Harvard Law School

Is a Good Friend Hard to Find? (and instructions and conversation tree)

What Can We Do About Evil? (and instructions and conversation tree) and smaller version and brochure version

Que Podemos Hacer Sobre La Maldad? for the Asociacion Dominicana de Estudiantes Evangelico, 2014

Does the Good Outweigh the Bad? (and instructions)

Race What's the Problem? (and instructions) and brochure version

Is God a Liberator or an Oppressor? (and instructions) 

Politics, the Church, and Jesus’ Restorative Justice

Slides of a presentation given to the 2022 Reconstruction class. The introduction features John Winthrop vs. Roger Williams to highlight the debate over freedom of religious Conscience vs. Christendom. The presentation highlights Christian accomplishments in health and hospitals, education and schools, land ownership and economic justice, and criminal justice reform.

A Long Repentance: Exploring Christian Mistakes about Race, Politics, and Justice in the United States

A series of blog posts where we explore how Christian (mostly Protestant) heresies started and continue to influence our modern political and racial challenges. This includes the very notion of race itself, and how our modern economics, housing, schooling, and policing systems have been shaped. Christians must take responsibility for these heresies in the framework of repentance.  We have designed a study guide to accompany the blog posts.  Please consider using it for personal reflection or discussion in your family, church, organization, etc.

Atonement, Justice, and Scapegoating

This blog post series relates to both the topic of atonement and the topic of desire because, like fallen Adam in the garden, we desire to deflect blame, and therefore we scapegoat others. On the political level, this builds group cohesion and creates a social outsider, who is blamed for the group’s woes, who the group must exile or kill or marginalize in order to maintain a hopeful lie. This series explores what political scapegoating has looked like in the U.S.

White American Evangelical Political Attitudes and Behavior: Explanation and Correctives

White American evangelical political attitudes can be characterized by the debate between John Winthrop and Roger Williams, and their respective attitudes towards Native Americans, slavery, fairness, and faith in civic space.  This is a presentation also explores Scripture and church history to argue that Roger Williams was correct.  Given to the staff of Emmanuel Gospel Center, Apr 18, 2018, as a follow-up to how Christian restorative justice impacts ministry; audio file here  

The Role of Jesus in Revolution and the Pursuit of Justice

This is an evangelistic message that highlights the Christian-led and Christian-influenced non-violent resistance movements throughout the world in the 20th century.  They show the connections and spiritual vitality of Christian faith under empire or empire-like oppression.

Top articles: Heather McGhee, The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together. One World | Amazon page, Feb 16, 2021.  See also Ezra Klein, Heather McGhee and The Cost All Americans Pay for Racis‪m. The Ezra Klein Show, Feb 2021.  “drained pool politics” can be seen in white opposition to Medicaid expansion. Public investment suffers because white people don’t want to include black people in the “public.” Casey Leins, States With the Highest Maternal Mortality Rates. US News & World Report, Jun 12, 2019.  “Some states’ maternal mortality rates match those of developing countries.” See also Mihei Andrei, Texas Has Highest Maternal Mortality Rate in Developed World, Study Finds. ZME Science, Aug 22, 2016.  “The US lags behind all the developed world, and the situation in Texas is unmatched.” Molly Redden, Texas Has Highest Maternal Mortality Rate in Developed World, Study Finds. The Guardian, Aug 20, 2016.  “As the Republican-led state legislature has slashed funding to reproductive healthcare clinics, the maternal mortality rate doubled over just a two-year period.” See also Andrew Mwaniki, US States With The Highest Infant Mortality Rates. World Atlas, Apr 2, 2018. Knowing Better, Welfare | The Complete Moderate's Guide. Knowing Better, Jan 6, 2019. This is a 30 minute video that discusses public housing, tax credits, education, TANF, SNAP/WIC, Medicaid/CHIP/ACA, unemployment insurance, social security, and universal basic income. There is an outstanding bibliography of links.

Donna Franklin, Ensuring Inequality: The Structural Transformation of the African-American Family. Oxford University Press | Amazon page, 1997.

Hamden Rice, Most of You Have No Idea What Martin Luther King Actually Did. Daily Kos, Aug 29, 2011.

Zack Beauchamp, How Racism Caused the Shutdown. Think Progress, Oct 9, 2013.  How the New Deal drove the racists to the Republican party.

Zack Beauchamp, Yes, the South Really Is Different - And It’s Because of Race. Think Progress, Oct 18, 2013.

Joshua Holland, Why Americans Hate Welfare. Bill Moyers & Company, Mar 6, 2014.  Notes shift in 1960's television coverage of welfare recipients from white to black; see also Martin Gilens, Why Americans Hate Welfare: Race, Media, and the Politics of Antipoverty Policy. Google book, Oct 1, 2000.

Jackson Lears, Teddy Roosevelt, Not-So-Great Reformer: What Washington Liberals Miss About Progressivism. The New Republic, Mar 14, 2014.  Reviews Doris Kearns Goodwin, The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism.  When Democrats were white, they were for welfare and public good programs.  Progressive Republicans wanted a government sector purged of business interests.

Daniel Jose Older, Gentrification’s Insidious Violence: The Truth About American Cities. Salon, Apr 8, 2014.

Adam Serwer, Lyndon Johnson Was a Civil Rights Hero, But Also a Racist. MSNBC News, Apr 11, 2014.

Max Ritvo, From One White Guy to Another: An Open Letter About Our Privileges. Huffington Post, May 7, 2014.

Joshua Holland, How Bill Clinton's Welfare "Reform" Created a System Rife With Racial Biases. Truthout, May 13, 2014.

Kiran Dhillon, Blue States Barack Obama Won In 2012 Are More Educated Than Red States. Time, May 15, 2014.

Kevin Short, Next Time Someone Says "White Privilege Isn't Real", Show Them This. Huffington Post, Oct 21, 2014.

Jason Furman, Smart Social Programs. NEW YORK Times, May 11, 2015.  about positive long-range outcomes of welfare programs like the Earned Income Tax Credit, early intervention, early education and educational equity initiatives, food stamps, etc.

Brittney Cooper, Segregationists Never Went Away: We Just Call Them "Small Government Conservatives" Now. Salon, May 27, 2015.  highlights racial attitudes around the resourcing of public schooling, and dog-whistles about welfare and the public sector

Emily Badger, Obama Administration to Unveil Major New Rules Targeting Segregation Across U.S. Washington Post, Jul 8, 2015.  about economic and racial integration.  See also Stanley Kurtz, Massive Government Overreach: Obama’s AFFH Rule Is Out. National Review, Jul 8, 2015.  criticizing it, without any acknowledgement of past discrimination by government policies.

Daniel Geary, The Moynihan Report: An Annotated Edition. The Atlantic, Sep 14, 2015.  “A historian unpacks The Negro Family: The Case for National Action on its 50th anniversary.”

Courtland Milloy, How American Oligarchs Created the Concept of Race to Divide and Conquer the Poor. Washington Post, Apr 19, 2016.

Victoria M. Massie, Lillie Harden Was Bill Clinton’s Welfare Reform Success Story. Welfare Reform Failed Her.  Vox, Aug 23, 2016.  “Honoring Harden's legacy includes recognizing the limits of welfare reform that doesn't reform what makes welfare necessary.”  “Lillie Harden’s story may have been a triumph for Clinton’s welfare reform agenda. But in the decade after, her life showcased its undeniable limitations.  Last year, for Alternet, journalist Zaid Jilani tried to seek Harden, and found that she had died 12 years after she suffered a stroke in 2002, which left her unable to qualify for Medicaid or afford her bill for monthly prescriptions.”

Gary Rivlin, White New Orleans Has Recovered from Hurricane Katrina. Black New Orleans Has Not.. Talk Poverty, Aug 29, 2016.

Jason De Parle, Why Do People Who Need Help From the Government Hate It So Much? New York Times, Sep 19, 2016.  racial politics

Catherine Rampell, Why the White Working Class Votes Against Itself. Washington Post, Dec 22, 2016.

Chris Ladd, Unspeakable Realities Block Universal Health Coverage In The US. Forbes, Mar 13, 2017.  On "white socialism."

Brian S. Feldman, The Decline of Black Business. Washington Monthly, Mar/Apr/May 2017.  "And what it means for American democracy" illuminates the relationship between economic independence and political liberty

Michael Linden, Kansas’ Experiment with Tax Cutting Failed Spectacularly — On Its Own Terms. Business Insider, Jun 14, 2017.  is a data point on how conservative-led states with low taxes have lower levels of education, maternal health and mortality, rural health care, even slower job growth, and other entirely preventable problems. See also William G. Gale, The Kansas Tax-Cut Experiment. Brookings, Jul 11, 2017.  and Heather Boushey, Failed Tax-Cut Experiment in Kansas Should Guide National Leaders. The Hill, Nov 29, 2018. .

Jamelle Bouie, Why Donald Trump Doesn't Care About Puerto Ricans. Slate, Oct 1, 2017.  he promised a government that would care for white Americans

Michael Lewis, Inside Trump’s Cruel Campaign Against the U.S.D.A.’s Scientists. Vanity Fair, Nov 2, 2017.  A long but worthwhile article about the Department’s management of natural resources, animal welfare, forests and grasslands, farming economics, food stamps and school nutrition.

Ryan Cooper, The Subtle Racism of Centrist Democrats. The Week, Mar 9, 2018.  and Michael Harriot, Doug Jones and the Democratic Party Just Screwed Black Voters ... Again. The Root, Mar 15, 2018.

Aaron Tolbert, The Trump Administration Is Waging War On The Poor. Huffington Post, Apr 18, 2018.  Good cross-cultural comparisons between American views of work and self-determination, and other countries' views of work.

Paul Heideman, Socialism and Black Oppression. Jacobin Magazine, Apr 2018.

Vann R. Newkirk II, What Black Voters Want. The Atlantic, May 8, 2018.

Eliza Griswold, Amity and Prosperity: One Family and the Fracturing of America. Farrar, Straus, and Giroux | Amazon page, Jun 12, 2018.  re: the Appalachian region, environmental issues, and political divide between urban and rural America; see also review by Isaac Chotiner, “What Is the Source of Disenfranchisement for Rural Americans?” Slate, Jun 14, 2018.

PBS News Hour, The Story of American Poverty, As Told By One Alabama County. PBS News Hour, Jul 7, 2018.  More than 18 million Americans live in “extreme poverty,” according to a report from the United Nations, which ranked poverty in the U.S. alongside some of the poorest areas in the world. The UN Special Rapporteur for Extreme Poverty paid a visit to the U.S. last year, drawing worldwide attention to his findings. This Alabama African American community lacks clean sewage water treatment because the State of Alabama has opposed extending public infrastructure there. This is a case study of how most Americans have benefited from massive public investment yet insist that American society is an “meritocracy of individual achievement,” and why “small government conservatism” is often a smokescreen for “prejudice and systemic racial injustice.”

Michael Kazin, America's Never-Ending Culture War. New York Times, Aug 24, 2018.  The issues that drove protesters to Chicago in 1968 are still motivating our partisan divide, 50 years later; a brief narrative of the New Deal old left, and the new left of the 1960's 

Oliver Eagleton, You Won't Evict Us. Jacobin Magazine, Aug 2018.  On renters via direct action resisting eviction by landlords in Ireland.

Daniel Yudkin, The Psychology of Political Polarization. New York Times, Nov 17, 2018.  Presents a more optimistic view, by focusing in on more basic questions about parenting styles, moral beliefs, views of personal responsibility, etc.

Knowing Better, Welfare | The Complete Moderate's Guide. Knowing Better, Jan 6, 2019. This is a 30 minute video that discusses public housing, tax credits, education, TANF, SNAP/WIC, Medicaid/CHIP/ACA, unemployment insurance, social security, and universal basic income. There is an outstanding bibliography of links.

Mark Joseph Stern, Judge Blocks Discrimination Against Puerto Ricans, Says Federal Government Is Engaging in “Citizenship Apartheid”. Slate, Feb 5, 2019.

Casey Leins, States With the Highest Maternal Mortality Rates. US News & World Report, Jun 12, 2019.  “Some states’ maternal mortality rates match those of developing countries.” See also Mihei Andrei, Texas Has Highest Maternal Mortality Rate in Developed World, Study Finds. ZME Science, Aug 22, 2016.  “The US lags behind all the developed world, and the situation in Texas is unmatched.” Molly Redden, Texas Has Highest Maternal Mortality Rate in Developed World, Study Finds. The Guardian, Aug 20, 2016.  “As the Republican-led state legislature has slashed funding to reproductive healthcare clinics, the maternal mortality rate doubled over just a two-year period.” See also Andrew Mwaniki, US States With The Highest Infant Mortality Rates. World Atlas, Apr 2, 2018.

Rachel Maddow, Legal Strategy Has Proven Record Against White Supremacist Groups. Rachel Maddow Show | MSNBC, Aug 6, 2019.  Civil trials and heavy fines placed on Klan groups for inciting violence, distinct from criminal trials and charges on individuals for violence.

Travis Gettys, Behar Exposes “Sad Truth” About Some Trump Voters: “They Don’t Want Health Care If You Get It Also”. Salon, Oct 21, 2019.

The Young Turks, Trump Steals Food From The Poor. The Young Turks, Dec 4, 2019.  up to 700,000 people will be kicked off of food stamps; when half of Americans are in low-wage jobs making a median income of $18k.

Charles Postel, Bloomberg or Bernie: 2020 Democrats Should Look to the Past for Lessons on Progressive Coalitions. NBC News, Dec 7, 2019.  includes mention of how women’s suffragists Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony stood against the 14th and 15th Amendments because they only enfranchised black men, how the Women’s Christian Temperance Union made an alliance with former Confederate white women at the expense of black women, and how the rural anti-monopolists included Southern farmers and demanded an end to Reconstruction efforts to empower freed blacks.

Michael Harriot, Can Coronavirus Cure White Supremacy? The Root, Apr 1, 2020.  a list of historical legislation, primarily New Deal, where urgent need made white Americans support progressive social programs

Yuvraj Joshi, Does Transitional Justice Belong in the United States?. Just Security, Jul 13, 2020.  “In the pre-Trump world, the Obama Administration endorsed economic reparations, truth commissions, and memorial building for countries transitioning out of repressive regimes. Promoting these processes was “a core moral responsibility of the United States,” it said. When a New York Times columnist asked whether the United States is such a country in transition, an Obama State Department spokesperson replied: “I won’t have anything further for you.” This uncomfortable silence reflects a broader trend within the field of transitional justice, which addresses how societies can deal with conflictual histories. For decades, U.S.-based discussions of transitional justice have gazed outward internationally, while overlooking the legacies of slavery, segregation, and white supremacy at home.” See also Colleen Murphy, Transitional Justice in the United States. Just Security, Jul 16, 2020.  “The United States shares with societies like South Africa three features that I argue in my book, “The Conceptual Foundations of Transitional Justice,” give rise to the need to pursue transitional justice. The first such feature is what I call pervasive structural inequality… In the United States today, the racial wealth gap is the same today as it was in 1968, and Black people are contracting the coronavirus and dying from COVID-19 at disproportionately high rates due to structural factors. The second is normalized political wrongdoing… Black Americans have been killed engaging in mundane activities such as jogging, going to a store, or even sleeping, underscore the constant threat of violence at the hands of white private citizens or the police. The third is serious existential uncertainty… We collectively do not know if the structural reform and accountability for perpetrators of violence against Black Americans being demanded will be achieved.”

Jason Lemon, North Carolina City Approves Reparations for Black Americans in Historic Unanimous Vote. Newsweek, Jul 15, 2020.

Emily Peck, Trump’s Crackdown On Diversity Training Is Fascist. And Terrifying.. Huffington Post, Oct 22, 2020.  “The White House ban on anti-racism training is an authoritarian attack on free speech and already doing serious damage.” “In an executive order and a series of administrative actions issued over the past month and a half, the Trump administration effectively banned diversity and inclusion training in the federal workforce and at any company or entity that contracts with the government or receives federal funding, a huge swath of American businesses and universities, covering millions of workers and students.  As part of the administration’s continued efforts to effectively ban anti-racism training, the Labor Department announced Wednesday it would begin collecting information on diversity training from contractors (Verizon, which owns HuffPost, is one such company) as a way of policing the way diversity is discussed within private companies.”

David Brooks, How the Democrats Won the War of Ideas. New York Times, Oct 24, 2020.  "The era of big government is here." See response by Jared Peterson, David Brooks Gets It Wrong. American Thinker, Oct 24, 2020.  Brooks faults immigration for admitting people who are much more open to expansive government.

Cody Johnston, Katy Stoll, and Will Gordh, Jim Crow, Neoliberalism, And The Current Fascist Backlash Against Civil Rights Movements. Some More News, Oct 25, 2020.  discuss voter suppression, attacks on social welfare programs, and the likelihood of structural change

David Doel, Andrew Yang Nails Why Democrats Lose Working Class Voters. The Rational National, Nov 7, 2020.  features progressive initiatives on direct democracy ballot measures that passed

Joel Shannon, The Dakotas Are 'As Bad As It Gets Anywhere in the World' for COVID-19. USA Today, Nov 14, 2020.  demonstrates the downsides of the conservative commitment to white American “personal freedom.” See also Dan Goodspeed, COVID Cases Since June. Dan Goodspeed.  which uses the bar chart race format to show red states taking the lead in COVID cases over time.

Heather McGhee, The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together. One World | Amazon page, Feb 16, 2021.  See also Ezra Klein, Heather McGhee and The Cost All Americans Pay for Racis‪m. The Ezra Klein Show, Feb 2021.  “drained pool politics” can be seen in white opposition to Medicaid expansion. Public investment suffers because white people don’t want to include black people in the “public.”

Jeremy Schwartz, Kiah Collier, and Vianna Davila, Power Companies Get Exactly What They Want: How Texas Repeatedly Failed to Protect Its Power Grid Against Extreme Weather. The Texas Tribune and ProPublica, Feb 22, 2021.

Dorothy Brown, The Whiteness of Wealth: How the Tax System Impoverishes Black Americans--and How We Can Fix It. Crown | Amazon page, Mar 2021.  examines many aspects of the tax code, as well as tax code history, to show that the tax code privileged life situations of white Americans. See also Ryan Grim, Race and Taxes. The Intercept, Jun 4, 2021.  “If Joe Biden is serious about tackling the racial wealth gap, Emory law professor Dorothy Brown says he should start with the tax code.” Excellent highlights of Dorothy Brown’s book.

Ben Steverman, A Tax Code Optimized for White Wealth Leaves Black Americans Behind. Business Insider, Mar 10, 2021.  “With The Whiteness of Wealth, Brown has turned a notoriously boring topic into a surprisingly accessible and lively 288-page book, relying on examples from real families, including her own, to guide readers through the intricacies of a tax code provisioned for just about every milestone in a person’s life—education, marriage, homeownership, childbearing, death and inheritance. Generations of lawmakers have optimized the system for White people, she argues, with the result that in the U.S.’s supposedly progressive and race-neutral tax code, Black people end up paying more than White people with the same incomes.”

Dareh Gregorian, States with Republican Governors Had Highest Covid Incidence and Death Rates, Study Finds. NBC, Mar 11, 2021.  “States with Democratic governors had the highest incidence and death rates from Covid-19 in the first months of the coronavirus pandemic, but states with Republican governors surpassed those rates as the crisis dragged on, a study released Tuesday found. From March to early June, Republican-led states had lower Covid-19 incidence rates compared with Democratic-led states. On June 3, the association reversed, and Republican-led states had higher incidence," the study by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the Medical University of South Carolina showed.”

Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti, Zaid Jilani: Why UK Labour Party Is Losing Working Class Voters. Rising | The Hill, May 10, 2021.  discuss the difference between the US Republican Party and the UK Conservative Party. After WWII, the UK built the UK National Health Service and even Margaret Thatcher maintained it because it is so popular. The US, by contrast, maintains a much more libertarian tradition.

Daniel Marans, New York Raises Taxes On The Rich As State Shifts Leftward. Huffington Post, Apr 11, 2021.  “New York’s overwhelmingly Democratic state legislature passed a budget for the 2022 fiscal year that will raise $4.5 billion in taxes on millionaires and corporations to fund economic relief for undocumented immigrants, schools and housing assistance.”

Erica Werner, Andrew Van Dam, and Yeganeh Torbati, Biden’s Aid Programs Help Buttress McCarthy’s District Despite GOP Leader’s Complaints About ‘Socialist’ Spending. Washington Post, May 18, 2021.  Bakersfield is one of the poorest districts in the state, yet McCarthy votes against their economic interests.

Ronald Brownstein, Watch What’s Happening in Red States. The Atlantic, Jun 3, 2021.  on gun rights, abortion bans, transgender rights rollbacks, voting restrictions, protest crackdowns, bans on “critical race theory” in schools, penalties for defunding police departments, limits on mask mandates.

Maggie Fox, Unvaccinated People Are ‘Variant Factories,’ Infectious Diseases Expert Says. CNN, Jul 3, 2021.  “Just 18 states have fully vaccinated more than half their residents, according to data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "Currently, approximately 1,000 counties in the United States have vaccination coverage of less than 30%. These communities, primarily in the Southeast and Midwest, are our most vulnerable. In some of these areas, we are already seeing increasing rates of disease," CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky told a White House briefing Thursday.” Shows that racial prejudice manifests itself in lack of public investment and infrastructure, of which public health is one aspect. Suspicion of public health efforts is related to COVID vaccine skepticism. Thus, white supremacy is self-harming.

Chris Hayes, GOP Stoking Vaccine Culture War At The Cost Of American Lives. All In | MSNBC, Jul 7, 2021.  Chip Roy, Marjorie Taylor Greene

Cody Johnston, The Racist History of Austerity Politics In America. Some More News, Jul 19, 2021.  also called “Racism and Capitalism - A Love Story” starting with Reconstruction and the Southern resistance to taxes and black empowerment; the argument was “fiscal responsibility” based on the interests of “the taxpayer.”

Rashawn Ray and Alexandra Gibbons, Why Are States Banning Critical Race Theory? Brookings Institute, Aug 2021.  “The approach of some Republican-led state legislatures is a method for continuing to roll back racial progress regarding everything from voting rights to police reform.”

Hari Sreenivasan, Alarming Study Finds Cognitive Deficits in Those Who Had Even Mild COVID Cases. Amanpour and Company, Aug 6, 2021.  interviews Dr. Adam Hampshire, neuroscientist at Imperial College London, finding that cognitive test assessments showing that COVID produces decreases in reasoning and problem solving. This will have major long-term political, economic, and social consequences.

Ari Melber, Florida's 'Mini-Trump' Loses Teacher Clash: 'I Don't Have That Power'. The Beat | MSNBC, Aug 13, 2021.  Florida’s COVID cases skyrocket while Gov. De Santis tried to ban schools’ ability to require masks, and withhold school officials’ salaries who disagreed as financial retaliation.

Mika Brzinsnky, Dallas County Judge Sounds Alarm For Children Due To Coronavirus. MSNBC, Aug 16, 2021.  Dallas, TX county judge Clay Jenkins says that pediatric beds are filled with children with COVID-19

Gene Slater, Freedom to Discriminate: How Realtors Conspired to Segregate Housing and Divide America. Heyday | Amazon page, Sep 21, 2021.  explains how CA realtors responded to MLK’s definition of freedom as civil rights and economic well-being, by redefining “freedom” in CA Proposition 14 as “freedom from state interference with the housing market.” See Gene Slater, The Inventors of America’s Most Dangerous Idea. The Atlantic, Nov 29, 2021.  

Emma Pierson, Jaline Gerardin and Nathaniel Lash, The Lives Lost to Undervaccination, in Charts. Washington Post, Sep 14, 2021.  23,900 deaths in red states; 11,900 deaths in blue states.

David Leonhardt, Red Covid. New York Times, Sep 27, 2021.  state level and county level data correlating partisan lean and COVID deaths. References Charles Gaba, Time To Check In On The COVID Red/Blue Divide Again. ACA Signups, Sep 17, 2021.  See discussion by Ryan Grim, COVID Deaths Are Wiping People Out In Trump Country. Rising | The Hill, Sep 28, 2021.  and David Doel, New Data Shows Trump Voters Getting Ravaged By Delta Variant. The Rational National, Sep 28, 2021.  who compares US data to Canadian data, where conservative areas where people prioritize libertarian individualism and freedom from authority also demonstrate higher COVID rates.

Stephen Vogel, Cristina Miller, and Katherine Ralston, Impact of USDA's Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) on Rural and Urban Economies in the Aftermath of the Great Recession. U.S. Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service, Oct 2021.  See summary by Candice Clark, USDA: SNAP Benefits Help Rural Communities by Saving Jobs, Local Economy. Rural Health Quarterly, Oct 20, 2021.

Amber Ruffin, Why Rich People Are The Reason America Is Broke. The Amber Ruffin Show, Oct 15, 2021.  catching rich tax evaders could fund the government, but the IRS audits lower-income people, in the poorest counties, instead. People who claim the Earned Income Tax Credit — the working poor — are more likely to get audited than people making 20x as much. Cites Paul Kiel and Hannah Fresques, Where in The U.S. Are You Most Likely to Be Audited by the IRS? ProPublica, Apr 1, 2019.  to show the overwhelming correlation between counties the IRS audits and counties that are more non-white. Also cites Michael Harriot, Racism by the Numbers: How the Internal Revenue Service Targets Poor Black Taxpayers. The Root, Apr 11, 2019.

David Pepper, Laboratories of Autocracy: A Wake-Up Call from Behind the Lines. St. Helena Press | Amazon page, Oct 2021.  Explores the GOP attempt to take over state legislatures. See interview by Thom Hartmann, The Wealthy Are Creating Labs of Autocracy - Conversations With Great Minds - David Pepper. Thom Hartmann Program, Nov 30, 2021.

Johnny Harris and Binyamin Applebaum, Liberal Hypocrisy is Fueling American Inequality. Here’s How. New York Times Opinion, Nov 9, 2021.  look at blue states (CA, WA, NY, IL) and the failure to act on housing, taxes, and education. Use Palo Alto, CA as an example of NIMBYism and rezoning for lower density neighborhoods.

Ryan Grim, Was The 20th C. Political Realignment a Mirage? Rising | The Hill, Nov 18, 2021.  Grim argues from a historical perspective that the two party system made the Build Back Better Act difficult because it neutralizes working class interests. See also Ryan Grim, The Two-Party System Was Designed To Crush Social Uprisings, And It's (Mostly) Working. Rising | The Hill, Nov 23, 2021.  argues from a historical perspective that the two party political system was designed by Martin Van Buren etc. to obstruct abolition, which echoes the entrenchment of big business today.

Priya Fielding-Singh, How the Other Half Eats: The Untold Story of Food and Inequality in America. Little, Brown Spark | Amazon page, Nov 2021.  See interview by Dr. Priya Fielding-Singh, How The Other Half Eats. Thom Hartmann Program, Nov 18, 2021.  SNAP benefits run out typically half-way through the month. Poverty influences whether a parent says no to junk food.

Amanda Marcotte, With New Omicron Variant Looming, Republicans Are Now Paying People to Avoid Vaccination. Salon, Nov 29, 2021.  “Republicans understand that if death rates remain high, the economic recovery remains stagnant, and unpleasant mitigation measures like mask mandates and school shutdowns continue into 2022, a pandemic-weary public is going to start blaming the guy in charge for not doing more to fix the situation.”

James Ross Gardner, A Willfully Misunderstood Earmark Can Help Reduce Climate-Change Heat Deaths. The New Yorker, Nov 29, 2021.  “The tree-equity portion of the Build Back Better Act aims to redress some of those decades-old policies. In its current form, the bill, passed by the House earlier this month, earmarks three billion dollars to expand and protect urban tree canopies, with priority toward neighborhoods where thirty per cent or more residents live below the poverty line and in areas “with lower tree canopy and higher maximum daytime summer temperatures compared to surrounding neighborhoods.” Grants would go to nonprofits and state and local governments to achieve equity goals. According to one estimate, that will require five hundred and twenty-two million new trees in urban neighborhoods.”

Second Thought, How Moderates Serve the Right. Second Thought, Dec 17, 2021.  explains how the terms “left” and “right” originate from the French Revolution as generally egalitarian vs. traditional hierarchy. Critiques the Biden administration for continuing aspects of Trump’s immigration policy under Title 42. Demonstrates how “moderate” in the overall US population means very high support for key provisions of the Build Back Better bill, but “moderate” among political leadership skews to the right of that. Largely because of the outsized influence of corporations and corporate donors on politicians.

Willian Saletan, Sickening Decisions. Slate, Dec 20, 2021.  “Republicans are attacking the White House with a new talking point: More Americans have died of COVID-19 under Joe Biden’s presidency, they point out, than under Donald Trump’s. Mathematically, that’s true. When Trump left office, the U.S. death toll was around 400,000 people; now it’s above 800,000. The comparison is misleading for many reasons, however. One is that Biden has been dealt two new variants, Delta and Omicron, that spread more aggressively than the original Wuhan virus did. Furthermore, while Biden has begged Americans to get vaccinated, Republican politicians have constantly undermined him by banning or blocking vaccine mandates. But there’s another crucial difference between the two administrations, and it’s outlined in a new report from the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis. Trump’s administration, unlike Biden’s, deliberately sabotaged the nation’s response to the pandemic.”

Claire McInerny, Texas Schools Ask Parents to Fill In as Substitute Teachers.  NPR, Jan 12, 2022.  Texas had poor COVID safety policies.  

Gravel Institute, How America's Best State Fell Apart.  Gravel Institute, Jan 27, 2022.  This features Wisconsin, originally very community-oriented and labor-union oriented because of the Scandinavian, not Anglo-Saxon, immigrants who settled there.  But deindustrialization and Republican neoliberal ideology from Ronald Reagan to Scott Walker dismantled the unions, gerrymandered the state, and made Democratic traditional politics very hard to reinvigorate.  Wisconsin serves as a template for what the GOP wants to accomplish.

Walker Bragman and Alex Kotch, How Dark Money Shaped The School Safety Debate.  The Daily Poster, Mar 8, 2022.  “To get America back to work and boost profits, the Koch network and other right-wing money groups have long pushed to return to pre-pandemic schooling.”

Ari Melber, 'Mask Slips': Legal Expert On GOP Senator’s 'Outlandish' Interracial Marriage Comments.  The Beat | MSNBC, Mar 23, 2022.  Mike Braun (R-IL) said that he believes “states rights” should effectively dismantle the 14th Amendment.

Jonathan Capehart, Study: States With High Murder Rates More Likely To Be Republican.  MSNBC, Mar 27, 2022.  “Republicans love to blame crime on Democrats and liberal policies. Last week during the confirmation hearing, multiple senators questioned Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson views branding her as "soft on crime". However, a new report shows among the 10 states with the highest murder rates in 2020 ... eight of them voted for Trump.”

Ezra Klein, America Has Turned Its Back on Its Poorest Families.  New York Times, Apr 17, 2022.  An in-depth examination of the child tax credit.

Brian Tyler Cohen, Gavin Newsom Joined Truth Social. His First Post is Brilliant. Brian Tyler Cohen, Jun 17, 2022. Governor Newsom asked why red states are responsible for 8 of the top 10 states with the highest murder rates by gun. Cohen does a quick glance at gun death stats by state and by city.

Simar Bajaj, Voting Is Significant Determinant of Health, US Medical Association Declares. The Guardian UK, Jul 14, 2022. “women’s suffrage decreased child mortality rates by 8-15% while the Voting Rights Act reduced economic inequality and increased health spending. One recent study found that an increase in voter restriction barriers was correlated with a 25% higher probability of not having health insurance. In another, researchers linked a higher voter turnout rate with significantly reduced risk of cancer death. And finally, after following adolescents for 14 years, voting was found to be associated with improved mental health, as well as greater socioeconomic status. “Voting can influence many different health outcomes,” Eatman said, “whether it be through access to resources in one’s community, whether it be through insurance.” The sickest patients are the least likely to vote but most in need of good health policy.”

Lydia Densworth, People in Republican Counties Have Higher Death Rates Than Those in Democratic Counties. Scientific American, Jul 18, 2022. A growing mortality gap between Republican and Democratic areas may largely stem from policy choices. “In a study published in June in The BMJ, Warraich and his colleagues showed that over the two decades prior to the pandemic, there was a growing gap in mortality rates for residents of Republican and Democratic counties across the U.S. In 2001, the study’s starting point, the risk of death among red and blue counties (as defined by the results of presidential elections) was similar. Overall, the U.S. mortality rate has decreased in the nearly two decades since then (albeit not as much as in most other high-income countries). But the improvement for those living in Republican counties by 2019 was half that of those in Democratic counties—11 percent lower versus 22 percent lower.”

Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti, GOP Hypocrites Block Insulin Cap They Claim to Support.  Breaking Points, Aug 9, 2022.  Red states have higher rates of diabetes.  Meanwhile Americans spend more than four times what people in other OECD countries pay for insulin.

Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez, "Freedom Dreams": Historian Robin D. G. Kelley on 20th Anniversary of His Book & Movements Mattering.  Democracy Now, Aug 31, 2022.  Discusses how many aspects of racial justice politics have been co-opted.  Argues that we can’t just fight for the poor, but we need radical change, because of the climate crisis.

Jason de Parle, Expanded Safety Net Drives Sharp Drop in Child Poverty.  New York Times, Sep 11, 2022.  “With little public notice and accelerating speed, child poverty fell by 59 percent from 1993 to 2019, according to a comprehensive new analysis that shows the critical role of increased government aid”

Ryan Zickgraf, The Jackson Water Crisis Is a Disaster Created by Austerity. Jacobin Magazine, Sep 6, 2022. Old cities require maintenance and repairs. White flight was not just racism, but greed for newer homes with lower taxes.

CNBC, Why Cities Are Banning Cars Around The World.  CNBC, Sep 7, 2022.  Making cities more walkable and bikeable leads to a modest (9%) increase in business and economic activity.

Lauren Sforza, Misinformation Contributing to Lower Life Expectancy in US, FDA Chief Says.  The Hill, Apr 11, 2023. 

Chris Hayes, DeSantis Pushes Child Health Care Bans, Fights with Disney in His ‘MAGA Kingdom’. All In | MSNBC, May 18, 2023. Hayes argues that DeSantis’ policies involve a heavy-handed state that overrules free speech, parental rights, abortion rights, etc. in an appeal to Christian nationalism. Heather Cox Richardson, Letters from an American May 18, 2023. Letters from an American | Substack, May 18, 2023. Richardson notes, “No longer committed to keeping the government weak to stay out of the way of business development, the party is now committed to creating a strong government that enforces Christian nationalism. This is a major and crucially important political shift. From the earliest days of the Reagan Revolution, those leaders who wanted to slash the federal government to end business regulation and cut the social safety net recognized that they did not have the votes to put their program in place. To find those votes, they courted racists and traditionalists who hated the federal government’s protection of civil rights. Over time, that base became more and more powerful until Trump openly embraced it in August 2017, when he said there were “very fine people on both sides.””

Chris Hayes, What the Republican Debt Ceiling Threat Is Really About. All In | MSNBC, May 23, 2023. Hayes points out that Republicans do not want to “spend less,” because they have never spent less. Hayes argues that the GOP simply wants to tank the economy so Biden gets the blame. Another example of how words cannot be believed on their face.

Leeja Miller, How Reagan Ruined Everything.  Leeja Miller, May 24, 2023.  Reagan’s union-busting, dismantling of the New Deal welfare state, War on Drugs, and stance towards AIDS

Julia Rock and Andrew Perez, Dark Money’s Behind The Debt Ceiling Plan To Punish The Poor. The Lever, May 24, 2023. “Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy borrowed his punishing work requirement proposal [and other cuts to Medicaid, food stamps, and cash assistance] from the conservative think tank pushing to loosen child labor laws,” the Foundation for Government Accountability.

Thom Hartmann, These Corporations Force Workers Onto Welfare…Then Lobby To Cut the Safety Net… Thom Hartmann, May 25, 2023.  

Yves Smith, Origins of Debt: Michael Hudson Reveals How Financial Oligarchies in Greece and Rome Shaped Our World. Naked Capitalism, May 27, 2023. An illuminating overview of history, including Jewish law and Jubilee.

Emily Kenway, Who Cares? The Hidden Crisis of Caregiving and How We Solve It. Seal Press | Amazon page, May 2023.  See interview by Michel Martin, The Silent Suffering of Caregivers.  Amanpour and Company, Jun 5, 2023.

The Black Forest Family, Driving Culture Clash: Why Do Our Cars Look so Radically Different?  The Black Forest Family, Jul 30, 2023.  Very helpful stats, consideration of law and regulation, and personal narrative.  In the US, vehicle crash tests are done to minimize damage to vehicle occupants.  In Germany, they are done to minimize damage to pedestrians and cyclists, too, which is a big reason for why their cars are smaller and lower.

Keerti Goal, Millionaire Tax Feeds Hungry Kids. The Lever, Aug 9, 2023.

Stephen Semler, Bidenomics Isn’t Working For Working People.  The Lever, Aug 15, 2023.  Important data on food insecurity, financial hardship, and government spending outlays on social welfare programs.

Symone Sanders Townsend, How Houston’s Mayor is Fighting Back Against Republicans’ Preemption Power Play to Attack Democracy.  Symone | MSNBC, Sep 2, 2023.  GOP state legislators preempt Democratic mayors on public education, labor rights, and investigations of judges and public officials.

Chris Hayes, Republicans Threaten to Impeach Wisconsin Justice Before She Has Ruled on Any Case.  All In | MSNBC, Sep 1, 2023. 

Colin Woodward, America’s Surprising Partisan Divide on Life Expectancy.  Politico, Sep 1, 2023. “Centuries-old settlement patterns — and the attitudes they spawned about government — are to blame for differences in longevity between red southern states and bluer parts of the country.”

Symone Sanders Townsend, How Houston’s Mayor is Fighting Back Against Republicans’ Preemption Power Play to Attack Democracy.  Symone | MSNBC, Sep 2, 2023.  GOP state legislators preempt Democratic mayors on public education, labor rights, and investigations of judges and public officials.

Max B. Sawicky, It’s Time to Reclaim the Promise of Economic Rights in the U.S.  In These Times, Sep 12, 2023.  “In his new book The Ends of Freedom: Reclaiming America’s Lost Promise of Economic Rights, Rutgers Professor Mark Paul provides a full-spectrum picture of what we could think of as a version of the Sanders program, located historically in the history of U.S. social democracy. Paul’s objective is to propose a framework for understanding the full gamut of economic and social policy in the 21st century. One of the book’s central claims is that the idea of rights as a political concept is immediately tangible and appealing to the general public. Policy can be endlessly detailed and arcane, including in the implementation of rights. But on the surface, the idea of, say, a right to a job, is readily grasped. Paul sets up a menu of rights in seven categories: employment, housing, healthcare, nutrition, income, education and the environment. Before introducing the definition and political viability of each category, he lays down the retrograde history of liberty in the United States.

Jill Filipovic, A Big New Report on American Children Is Out. It’s Horrific.  Slate, Sep 12, 2023.  “Protect the children” is a popular modern rallying cry. If only.  A new Human Rights Watch report paints a damning portrait of children’s rights in the United States. That is, children here have remarkably few rights and are particularly ill-treated in the conservative states that claim the mantle of “family values.” According to HRW, “Children in the US can be legally married in 41 states, physically punished by school administrators in 47 states, sentenced to life without parole in 22 states, and work in hazardous agriculture conditions in all 50 states.” Over and over again, the worst states for children are clustered around the “pro-life” Bible Belt, and the map of the states that are the worst for children looks a lot like a map of red-state America. (Liberal states, too, have a long ways to go when it comes to protecting kids, but they generally do a bit better.)

Human Rights Watch, How Do US States Measure Up on Child Rights?  Human Rights Watch, Sep 13, 2022.  Per state analysis on various metrics.

Kyle Kulinsky, Dem Governor Does Automatic Voter Registration! | The Kyle Kulinski Show, Sep 22, 2023.  Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, with a one seat majority, passed many progressive laws.  Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers passed new public school funding for 400 years.  Pennsylvania Josh Shapiro passed automatic voter registration via motor vehicles.  Contrast with red state legislation making child labor more acceptable, etc. 

Robert Weissman, The Corporate Sabotage of America’s Future.  Public Citizen, Sep 2023.  Free PDF book.  See interview by Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti, Corruption Expert: How Pharma Stole Half a Trillion From Taxpayers.  Breaking Points, Sep 26, 2023.  

Washington Post Staff, The Post Spent the Past Year Examining U.S. Life Expectancy. Here’s What We Found. Washington Post, Oct 3, 2023. Factors highlighted: chronic diseases; poverty’s impact on health; childhood. Lauren Weber, Dan Diamond, and Dan Keating, How Red State Policies Are Shaving Years Off American Lives. Washington Post, Oct 3, 2023.

Justin King, Let's Talk About the GOP Majority of the Majority.  Beau of the Fifth, Oct 4, 2023.  On the protocol that the Speaker of the House can choose to not bring forward legislation for a vote, based on the minority opposition of the GOP majority.  This means that a minority of the governing party can stop bills from being voted upon.

Thom Hartmann, Did GOP Policies Cause the Grossest Disease Outbreak in Recent Memory?  The Thom Hartmann Program, Oct 18, 2023.  “Red States that banned women’s healthcare are seeing skyrocketing rates of congenital syphilis as well as other STDs. Is this the result of GOP policies limiting education & access to reproductive healthcare?”  Possibly the GOP defunding of Planned Parenthood, which serves lower-income communities.

Ana Kasparian and Cenk Uygur, Nikki Haley: Sure, I'll Cut Social Security Because It's What My Billionaire Friends Want.  The Young Turks, Nov 17, 2023. 

Manuel Funke, Moritz Schularick, Christoph Trebesch, Populist Leaders and the Economy.  American Economic Review, Dec 2023.  “Populism at the country level is at an all-time high, with more than 25 percent of nations currently governed by populists. How do economies perform under populist leaders? We build a new long-run cross-country database to study the macroeconomic history of populism. We identify 51 populist presidents and prime ministers from 1900 to 2020 and show that the economic cost of populism is high. After 15 years, GDP per capita is 10 percent lower compared to a plausible nonpopulist counterfactual. Economic disintegration, decreasing macroeconomic stability, and the erosion of institutions typically go hand in hand with populist rule.” This should be standard rebuttal material for “Project 2025,” the right-wing and Christian dominionist plan which Trump is embracing.

National Urban League, 2024 State of Black America: The Civil Rights Act of 1964, 60 Years Later. National Urban League, Jan 2024.

GBH News, What is Owed? Reparations in Boston and Beyond. GBH News, Feb 16, 2024.

More Perfect Union, Rural Post Offices Are Disappearing. We Found Out Why. More Perfect Union, May 1, 2024. Louis DeJoy, a Trump appointee, is stripping down the Post Office, a Constitutional right.

Chelsea Brasted, New Wealthy, White City in Louisiana Just Became One of State's Largest Towns. Axios, May 2, 2024.

Thom Hartmann, New Law Makes It Illegal To Say Climate Change Is Real. Thom Hartmann, May 16, 2024. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis angles to get billionaire oil money. The ramifications on Florida will be massive.

Thom Hartmann, Why Republicans Want and Need a Permanent Economic Underclass. The New Republic, May 24, 2024. Ever heard of the “mudsill theory”? Well, it goes back to the slaveholding South. And it explains a lot.

“So far, three blue states (and two red ones) have made it harder for employers to exploit child labor, while eight red states have made it easier for children to get trapped in a cycle of work that often ends their educational progress and consigns them to a lifetime of manual labor. Eight other Republican-controlled states are currently considering legislation to weaken child labor laws, while 13 mostly Democratic-controlled states are in the process of tightening their restrictions.

Meanwhile, Republican-controlled states are waging war against universal quality public education for their children. The first shots were fired in efforts to strip schools of books and curricula referencing America’s history of slavery, Jim Crow, Native American genocide, and brutality against the queer community. Those were followed by often violent, threat-filled appearances at school board meetings by militia members and other white supremacists, “calling out” teachers and school administrators for “woke indoctrination.”

Most recently, multiple red states moved to kneecap public schools by removing their funding and reallocating it to families who can afford private academies, religious schools, and home schooling. Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Utah, and West Virginia have all instituted universal or near-universal school voucher programs in the past few years.

Roland Martin, Trump's Extreme Anti-Blackness And Hate Exposed In New Ad: A Racist With Racist Policies. Roland Martin, Sep 8, 2024. Brave New Films has released one of the most hard hitting and truth telling campaign ads about Donald Trump.

Kyle Kulinski, Robber Baron Lays Out MAGA’s Evil Plan For America. The Kyle Kulinski Show, Dec 18, 2024. Marc Andreessen says he wants to dismantle FDR’s New Deal society and social programs, like Medicare, Social Security, unemployment insurance, worker protections, financial regulations, etc. This is what tech libertarians like Elon Musk want.

Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti, Elon Nukes GOP Spending Bill in Key Test for Trump 2.0. Breaking Points, Dec 19, 2024. Elon Musk leverages his wealth to threaten to primary GOP leaders in Congress who do not agree with his demands. Musk is ideologically more libertarian, admiring of Javier Milei in Argentina, is willing to inflict austerity on the American people, and is willing to lie about slashing Social Security and Medicare.