New York, NY (May 17, 2018) — The New Republic today published its June issue, which features a timely cover story that investigates why Orange County, California is a critical region for the Democratic Party as we approach the 2018 midterms in November.
“There is no better place to witness the Democratic Party’s strategies play out—and no place where the stakes are higher—than Orange County, California,” argues contributing writer Vauhini Vara in “California Dreaming.” “At a time when the Democratic Party seems lacking in direction, its approach in Orange County, and whether it is successful, could provide more precise answers about the party’s future than its leaders have been willing or able to provide.”
Additional information about the June 2018 issue is included below.
[FEATURES]
In “Nothing in All Creation is Hidden,” Kevin Baker makes a case for a truth and reconciliation commission in the post-Trump era. “To escape from any dire situation requires that you accept two truths: the truth of how you got there and the truth of how you can get out,” argues Baker. “And the sad truth is that, in less than a year and a half in office, Donald J. Trump and the squalling far-right movement he has dragged into the White House like a mischievous dog have already changed the parameters of the American presidency and the nation’s politics beyond recognition.”
Sean Patrick Cooper evaluates U.S. cities’ readiness to combat climate change in “Is America Ready for the Next Superstorm?” arguing that Americans must begin to think differently about the permanence of their homes and the way the country builds its cities. “The idea of retreat is not something U.S. officials want to acknowledge,” writes Cooper. “But the reality of climate change is forcing cities to rethink how and where they build.”
[U.S. & THE WORLD]
Jill Filipovic analyzes how female candidates are turning gender and motherhood into political assets in the midterms in “A Woman’s Place”. With a record number of women running for office this year, feminism and outsiderness have come to the forefront of the cultural and political conversation. Filipovic acknowledges that “Democratic candidates finally seem to have realized that their party’s most loyal supporters are female and college educated.” Therefore, Filipovic claims, “[if] you want to run as the anti-Trump, there may be no better way to do it than by being female.”
In “Banking Black,” author Kia Gregory questions if divesting from America’s big financial institutions can help fix the racial inequality that the banking system has been perpetuating for decades. More and more African Americans are moving their money from the global chains to black-owned banks to encourage the strengthening of black institutions. “The boycott was about more than just taking your money and moving it elsewhere; it was about political change,” states Gregory.
“Power of the Prosecutor” explains how reformer district attorneys are more influential in changing criminal justice than legislatures. Author Maya Wiley looks into several examples of how prosecutors are working to change the legal system from within and divert focus away from battling powerful constituencies that tend to slow the process of reform.
William Galston uses the example of Hungary in “Backsliding in Budapest” to explain Europe’s retreat from democracy. Galston says, “throughout Europe, immigration is at the core of the populist critique of the liberal democratic order.” Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s outright anti-Semitic and anti-immigrant sentiments encourage the new generation of anti-migrant populists in Europe.
Micah L. Sifry tackles the issues that arise when politicians rely on Facebook to reach their constituents in “Escape From Facebookistan.” What was once a public good serving as a political forum has now transformed into a commercialized space that requires citizens to provide personal information in order to reach their government officials. Sifry suggests the best way to solve this issue is for “government agencies and elected officials [to] take the lead by shutting down their Facebook presence, at least until the company radically changes how it handles user data.”
In “When Democracy Isn’t Enough,” author Ioan Grillo explores the real problems in Latin America. The elections and free markets were intended to level decades of financial and social inequality and bring an end to violence, and yet in many regions, violence has actually increased since the implementation of democracy. As Grillo explains, “the shortcomings of democracy are allowing a new generation of authoritarian leaders to rise in Latin America.”
[BOOKS & THE ARTS]
Through the use of books being published in 2018, during the 50th anniversary year, author Alan Wolfe examines how the world that 1968 ushered in is a far cry from the one activists of those years had imagined in “A Most Violent Year.”
In “Rough Justice,” Mychal Denzel Smith explains how America became over-policed, as described in The End of Policing by Alex Vitale and Fortress America: How We Embraced Fear and Abandoned Democracy by Elaine Tyler May. Smith writes, “unless Americans can reconceptualize safety, taking away its racist connotations and recognizing that we are safer not with more guns and violence but with adequate food, clothing, housing, education, health care, jobs, and income for all, we are doomed to continue calling the police for rescue from every conceivable threat, real or imagined.”
Rachel Syme explores whether a new six-part TV series adaptation of Picnic at Hanging Rock, can capture the mystery of the novel written by Joan Lindsay in the early 1970s. Syme writes that the series, adapted by Australia television producers Beatrix Christian and Alice Addison, “immediately feels different from the film version,” a 1975 film by director Peter Weir.
“Here and Now” from Josephine Livingstone examines the bold, vivid worlds of Rachel Kushner’s novels and notes how her most recent novel, The Mars Room, marks a shift from the author’s usual focus on broad currents, cultural and national umwelts.
Gabriel Winant reviews Natural Causes: An Epidemic of Wellness, The Certainty of Dying, And Killing Ourselves to Live Longer in “Mind Control,” proving how Barbara Ehrenreich’s new book is a radical critique of wellness and self-improvement.
Jillian Steinhauer looks at how Adrian Piper’s art plays with identity and confronts defensiveness in “Outside the Comfort Zone.” Steinhauer explains how a new retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art, Adrian Piper: A Synthesis of Intuitions, 1965–2016, “demonstrates how expertly she’s deconstructed the categories we use to classify ourselves and is instructive at a time of intense debate over how ideas of identity shape American politics.”
Featured this month is a poem by Kaveh Akbar. For Res Publica, Editor-in-Chief Win McCormack explains how Bobby Kennedy’s presidency could have changed American political life in “RFK, Civic Republican.”
The entire June 2018 issue of The New Republic is available on newsstands and via digital subscription now.
For additional information, please contact newrepublic@high10media.com.
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