The tragic shooting in Buffalo, NY was committed by a man fighting “the great replacement”, a conspiracy theory that has been floating around right wing spaces for the last decade. This conspiracy theory is a modern reskin of “white genocide” conspiracy theories in which a cabal of Jews in some way or another is responsible…

Last quarter, I wrote a research paper on the political establishment. The political establishment is a murky concept and there is a lot to think about. However, surprisingly, the most difficult decisions during the project were on how to consider what data I should use to measure my variables. The problem put simply, is that…

Over the years I have grown far more appreciative of the political establishment. According to its supporters, the establishment acts as a lid on politics ideally preventing it from getting out of hand, and ensuring the legislative process works. At least, when the establishment is properly functioning. Many, myself included, see the rise of Donald…

The 1965 Voting Rights Act was good, actually Recently, I got into a debate with another student about the 1965 Voting Rights Act (VRA). They tried to convince me that this bill was actually designed to suppress voters of color. Now on the face of it, this is a ridiculous statement. This bill was the…

Recently, like everyone else, I have been frustrated by congress. The Democrats won a trifecta! We should pass stuff! It would be really nice to get a big infrastructure package through and yet there seems to be some gum in the works. And when I say gum, I really mean two senators. Kyrsten Sinema and…

Around January of 2020 I did an interview with The Daily, a student newspaper at Northwestern. I was interviewed about my thoughts on COVID-19. At the time I was pretty confident it wouldn’t be a big deal. Every couple years there is a news cycle about the next pandemic and they generally amount to very…

I just finished reading “Justice” a book on philosophy by Harvard professor Michael J. Sandel. It was quite good! Sandel ran through many of the most common schools of ethical thought from Jeremy Bentham’s utilitarianism, to Aristotle’s virtue ethics and provided examples where they succeeded and failed, before eventually providing his own explanation for how…

They work harder than you think A lot of people outside of the political space tell about members of Congress (moC) are all corrupt, lazy, and disinterested in the common folk. I don’t necessarily think all of that is always untrue, but it occurs to me that most people don’t know how hard being a…