Applause for new voters is the best part of my time as a poll watcher. Whenever the call goes out – “First time voter” – the election workers in the room break out in smiles and cheers and clapping while the (usually) young person who just cast their vote smiles back bashfully.
In 2012, Bill Adair, founder of Politifact, the Pulitzer-Prize-winning journalism fact-checking website, lied on a C-SPAN call-in show about whether Republicans lied more than Democrats.
All two+ million public servants in the federal government take an oath to support and defend the US Constitution and to faithfully carry out the duties of their office. During my twenty years as a diplomat with the US Agency for International Development (USAID), I and the public servants around me took our oath quite seriously. Nonetheless, the Trump administration has been dramatically disrupting and dismantling the public service, starting with USAID.
Joe Biden's deer-in-the-headlights moment during his debate with Donald Trump certainly was newsworthy and rightly raised questions about his fitness to serve. The real question, though, is why in the media’s coverage of the event did his poor performance at the beginning of the debate overshadow Trump’s flood of lies, vagueness on policy, refusal to unequivocally support the results of the election, and occasional incoherence?
The country’s soaring national debt is not just a testament to our lack of fiscal responsibility but also a reflection of our loss of national identity. Fixing the debt problem so that it no [...]
Some people don't think that politics and religion mix. Public figures like Bill Maher can be incredibly disrespectful and dismissive on this topic, and the nation’s founders were divided on the issue. But it’s [...]
The takeover of the Republican Party by anti-democracy extremists and the intra-party friction it generated, on full display in the House of Representatives’ battles over the House speakership this year, has been the big [...]
Intern Rachel Roncka discusses the co-existence of extreme wealth and poverty and the lack of political will to change the status quo. As a summer intern with The American Leader, I set [...]
Public historian Adina Langer explains why she supports The American Leader, first as a member of the board and now as an editorial advisor. I became a public historian because I find [...]
Although difficult to sustain, democracy builds its foundations on diversity and on the contest of ideas in the political space. Today, this very idea of diversity within a democracy has become a ubiquitous wedge [...]
but it’s often lost in the 24/7 news stream or distorted or obscured,
often intentionally so, by the people who make the news.
The American Leader offers historical storylines and problem briefs to
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but it’s often lost in the 24/7 news stream or distorted or obscured, often intentionally so, by the people who make the news. The American Leader offers historical storylines and problem briefs to home in on what’s really happening beneath the surface of today’s headlines. We sift through the infostream for you, consulting and processing hundreds of sources to connect the dots and clarify the problems we face and showcase the efforts being made to solve them. It’s time-consuming work that needs your support.
We have to expect more to get more. We can make this a better country but only if we believe improving on the status quo is possible. A lot of people do believe and are hard at work to solve our systemic problems. We bring you their stories.
