In the early morning hours of July 10, 2016, a young staffer for the Democratic National Committee was murdered as he walked home from a bar. Without any real evidence, Seth Rich’s death became a focal point for efforts to debunk the story that Russia hacked the DNC to help Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign. Michael Isikoff, however, tells us that the conspiracy theories around Seth Rich’s murder have a remarkable origin: Russian intelligence.
If you are a regular viewer of “Story in the Public Square,” you know we define “story” and “story-teller” very broadly. Educators, artists, scholars—and more—all qualify in our eyes; but occasionally, we meet a talent that weaves all three skills together with a profound humanity that commends their work to us, as they inspire and even heal others. Patricia Nguyen is just such a person.
On an otherwise typical Friday night in 1994, 17-year-old Joseph Sakran, a high school student in Northern Virginia, was shot through his throat by an errant bullet from a fight at a high school football game. Trauma surgeons saved his life, launching him on a career as a trauma surgeon and as a leading voice against gun violence.
In 2015, the United States and Iran concluded years of difficult diplomacy that froze Iran’s nuclear weapons program for ten years. Less than two years later, Donald Trump was president and withdrew the United States from that agreement in May of 2018. IIan Goldenberg warns that while neither the United States nor Iran want a war, the potential for miscalculation and stumbling into war are quite high.
For generations, a liberal arts education was the gold standard of preparation for career and a well-rounded-life. For much of the last decade, however, voices—including those of prominent technology leaders—have warned that the jobs of today and tomorrow require education in so-called STEM fields: science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Not surprisingly, enrollments in liberal arts fields have declined. Scott Hartley argues that far more than a luxury—the skills and perspective cultivated by a liberal arts education are precisely the skills needed for the modern information economy.
The concept of justice is central to the American experience. We celebrate it in our monuments and in our history. But who gets justice, and who defines it are seldom considered questions. Christopher Brown is a practicing attorney and dystopian novelist who combines his talents in a new novel exploring these concepts in a different America.
When Barack Obama became the 44th President of the United States, pundits and leading news outlets heralded the arrival of a “post-racial America.” Some Americans, however, didn’t see it that way. Ian Reifowitz discusses the exploitation of race in the Obama years by one of America’s prominent conservative opinion makers, Rush Limbaugh, in his latest book, The Tribalization of Politics: How Rush Limbaugh’s Race-Baiting Rhetoric on the Obama Presidency Paved the Way for Trump.
The political debate over healthcare in the United States seems cyclical—it rises and falls with America’s political calendar. Dr. Michael Fine argues that for patients and caregivers, issues like cost, access, and outcomes are real, they are present, and they often have life-and-death consequences.
Identity politics are typically associated with marginalized groups—communities that have been defined as “other” by the dominant group in a political culture. Ashley Jardina argues that there is an emerging white-identity politics in American society today.