Since 1776, the American commitment to free speech has always been remarkable. The First Amendment does not only protect popular ideas–it protects offensiveness, anonymity, and dissent. It reaffirms that the best response to bad speech is more speech, not enforced silence. Today, we are facing a technological shift. As AI lowers the cost of producing […]
The Aesthetics of the Trump White House
From red hats to spray tans, Donald Trump has made his look unavoidable. More nefariously, the imagery of the Trump administration has been central to projecting its distinct flavor of white Christian nationalism. Interpreting the ongoing White House renovations through an art historical lens offers one way to grasp Trump’s unfolding authoritarian project. Art and […]
The Erosion of the Federal Reserve as a Regionally Representative Institution
The Federal Reserve of the United States (the Fed) was established in 1913 by the Federal Reserve Act with the aim of stabilizing prices and promoting maximum employment through monetary policy. This act was passed in hopes of reducing the frequency of financial panics following the Panic of 1873, the Panic of 1893, and the […]
You’re Going to Burn in Hell
“Anyone who harms these good men is going to burn. God Bless our Agents. Glad to see brave young men defending Christian values!” Those are the words of my religious education teacher, whom we shall call Mrs. X. Her strongly worded sentiment was in reaction to a Facebook post of protestors in Minneapolis resisting U.S. […]
Effingham Cross
Paul Bunyan’s in the market for an ox that’s new;Ol’ Babe the Blue is done & through—Killed over in Illinois just last June. So Paul built a cross 200 feet tallAnd dragged it from Springfield on an 88 mile haul. And Pontius Pilate Pritzker gave him 40 lickswith the aid of the State House Majority […]
Binding Success to Home Through Siva Afi
We have been taught, quietly and relentlessly, that success takes a singular form. In the West, especially in spaces of prestigious academia such as our own, after all, the capitalist program does not announce itself as ideology. It presents itself as inevitability. It trains students to believe that worth is measured by mobility, that greater […]
How the CCP Has Planned its Way to its 100th Anniversary
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 […]