About Benj Demott

We’re honored to reprint Amiri Baraka’s reflections on Jesse Jackson, Dukakis and the 1988 Democratic Convention in Atlanta, which he composed in 1988-1989 (and which we originally posted at First near the start of the Obama era). This is an essay for the Ages but the history Baraka witnessed in 1988 has a special resonance … Read more

I had studied social movements most of my academic life, so when some kind of rhythmic popular mobilization put in an appearance in American presidential politics in 2008, I paid attention. By February, when it arrived in my neck of the woods, the Research Triangle of North Carolina, the pundits were calling it “the Obama … Read more

At election’s denouement, to the Right the outraged, self-loathing of the loser & the losers, including one dude standing mutely in Michigan, a Republican delegate, in a Klan suit, describing Obama as an “Islamic communist.” To the Left, the self important drears who had urged us to throw our votes away, as they objectively, in … Read more

President-elect Barack Obama’s selection of Reverend Rick Warren to deliver the inaugural invocation is an adroit move, that could be sincere, cynical or both. It could be a genuine attempt to reach out to evangelicals. While evangelicals will never become for the Democrats the dependable voting block they have been for Republicans, this could be … Read more

First writers and readers comment on the election. America Alcoholica By Donna Gaines Remember, O Lord, what has happened to us; look, and see our disgrace. Our inheritance has been turned over to aliens, our homes to foreigners. We have become orphans and fatherless, our mothers like widows. We must buy the water we drink; … Read more

Robin Morgan is justly celebrated by liberty lovers around the world for her pioneering writing and cultural activism on behalf of women’s freedom. Her bold statements paved the way for women like me to pursue a professional and personal life free from the fetters binding my own mom, grandmother, and aunts. When I first read … Read more

Hillary Clinton’s shot and a beer in Scranton reminded me of that old X song “The Have-Nots” — “How does it feel to have your own bottle of booze behind the bar, how does it feel?” Hillary, the $109 million dollar woman, is very different sort of insider yet she’s once again fabulating a felt … Read more