Over the past decade, American politics have been uprooted, spun in a circle and turned on their head every four years. The first Trump Administration disrupted the norms of establishment politics, altered the historical direction of American foreign policy strategy by challenging NATO and consolidated American decision-making power within the upper ranks of the executive […]
Russian Regret: 2014 Invasion of Crimea
As the fourth anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine approaches, a conflict that has turned into a grueling war with tens of thousands of deaths, Russia’s successful invasion of Crimea in 2014 must be reevaluated. I will examine how the operation, which faced little resistance from the Ukrainian military, was ultimately a mistake by […]
Sparks Fly in High-Profile Senate Primary
The last time a Democrat won a U.S. Senate race in Texas was in 1988. That could very well change in 2026. The Democratic primary race between Texas State Representative James Talarico and Representative Jasmine Crockett has captured the attention of the masses, and for good reason. While we are still far out, polling data […]
Perceptions of Fascism Across Borders
On the morning of January 3rd, my day started off on my phone, as it does just about every day. It wasn’t long after I popped in my contacts that I saw a notification on Apple News that made me do a double-take. Overnight, the United States military had invaded another sovereign nation and kidnapped […]
What We Fear Reveals Us
I grew up in Jakarta, where fear had a specific shape. Traffic that could trap you for hours, flooding that came without warning and the casual violence of a city built on precarity. My mother’s anxieties were immediate and material:will the rain flood the streets; will the protest turn violent; will the rupiah collapse again? […]
Everything is Conspiracy
September 5th, 2025. Social media commentators latch onto a vintage clothing reseller’s attempt to sell infamous sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s own monogrammed quarter zip sweatshirt. For the price of eleven thousand dollars, Instagram account @restricted.lifestyle claimed to have found the item in a Miami-Dade County thrift store before purchasing it for resale in their social […]
The Soviet Paradox: Brilliance and Repression in Mathematics
Pure mathematics, more than any other discipline, is viewed as purely abstract thought, as far removed from our tangible world as possible. It emphasizes rigor, structure and order. This marriage of traits made it the perfect brainchild for one of the biggest communist regimes in history, the Soviet Union. While they may have failed in […]
If You Want to Do Good, Become a Prosecutor
America’s criminal justice system is broken. Mass incarceration and systemic racism define our courts and laws. The United States holds the largest incarcerated population in the world, and an ever-growing share is being funneled into for-profit prisons. Minorities are incarcerated at highly disproportionate rates, often for minor offenses. While the most wealthy and powerful, like […]
Life for Life: the Rhetoric of Political Vengeance in Dobbs V. Jackson
Vengeance: the blood you shed must be compensated with your own blood, or that of those you hold most dear. Traditionally, deaths were avenged in war to honor the fallen and punish their slayer. In the modern day, where polarization exists to such a degree that the neologism of “political warfare” turns debate into a […]
From Red Lines to Class Lines
In 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt created the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC) under his New Deal. The intention was to provide homeowners mortgage relief to prevent foreclosure, expanding opportunities to purchase homes. However, in practice, the HOLC and Federal Housing Administration (FHA) would work together to segregate cities across America, devastating urban communities to […]