Portside

• Trump’s Savage Capitalism – Enzo Traverso (World Policy Journal)
• Telling Trump Fans He’s Betraying Them Won’t Work – Ed Kilgore (New York)
• GOP Representatives Take a Verbal Beating at Town Halls Across America – Laurel Raymond (ThinkProgress)
• North Carolina’s “Monster” Voter-Suppression Law is Dead – Mark Joseph Stern (Slate)
• Open Love Letter to Bethune-Cookman 2017 Graduates From Black Faculty – Team Cassius (Cassius)
• A Series of Flying Pigs Will Block Trump's Chicago Tower – Karen Brill (Architectural Digest)

Trump’s Savage Capitalism

By Enzo Traverso
Spring 2017
World Policy Journal

In his racism, misogyny, and xenophobia, Donald Trump resembles a 20th-century fascist-but historian Enzo Traverso argues the likeness is superficial. Trumpism is the product of recent transformations of capitalism, and thus he embodies something new, dangerous, and not yet fully realized.

Telling Trump Fans He’s Betraying Them Won’t Work

By Ed Kilgore
May 9, 2017
New York

Trump’s hard-core white working class base isn’t weighing the evidence for and against his record in office and making a decision as to whether he still deserves their support. They literally are not listening to criticism of the president, and to the extent they are, it simply reinforces their affection for him.

GOP Representatives Take a Verbal Beating at Town Halls Across America

By Laurel Raymond
May 12, 2017
ThinkProgress

On May 4th, 2017 House Republicans voted to pass the Affordable Health Care Act, popularly known as Trumpcare. Then, they went on a week-long recess—traditionally when lawmakers return to their home districts and meet with constituents.
Of the 217 lawmakers, however, fewer than 20 held town halls. Those who did were confronted with constituents outraged by the health care vote.
 

North Carolina’s “Monster” Voter-Suppression Law Is Dead

By Mark Joseph Stern
May 15, 2017
Slate

With no noted dissents, the Supreme Court refused to review a lower court decision striking down North Carolina’s HB 589, the “monster law” that would have disenfranchised thousands of citizens. The justices’ inaction ensures that HB 589 will stay dead—and that the most emphatic ruling against the Republican assault on minority suffrage will remain on the books.
But the court’s decision looks like a tactical punt, with the court’s liberals and conservatives joining forces to push away the case for entirely different reasons.

Open Love Letter to Bethune-Cookman 2017 Graduates From Black Faculty

By Team Cassius
May 11, 2017
Cassius

More than 200 Black professors penned the beautiful open letter below to the courageous 2017 graduates of Bethune-Cookman College. The students defied the presence and rhetoric of 45’s Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, as she attempted to complete her speech.
In response to their conviction, Dr. Yaba Blay (‎Dan Blue Endowed Chair in Political Science at North Carolina Central University) organized the collective effort, and Drs. Camika Royal (Assistant Professor of Urban Education at Loyola University Maryland) and Treva B. Lindsey (Associate Professor of Women’s Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Ohio State University) penned this powerful sendoff below.

A Series of Flying Pigs Will Block Trump's Chicago Tower

By Karen Brill
May 4, 2017
Architectural Digest

It's nearly impossible to miss the logo on any of Donald Trump's reliably gaudy buildings, but soon Chicago will be spared from the sight of the president's bold-faced name thanks to one cunningly creative architect.