All posts tagged: Liberalism

Democrats Hope to Increase Liberal Control of Battleground Wisconsin’s Supreme Court

Democrats Hope to Increase Liberal Control of Battleground Wisconsin’s Supreme Court

Published by Sam Flores

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Democrats hoped to increase liberal control of the state Supreme Court in Wisconsin on Tuesday in an election that has focused largely on abortion rights as cases affecting congressional redistricting, union rights and other hot button issues also await in the perennial battleground state. This year’s Supreme Court election stands in stark contrast to the swing state’s previous two, where national spending records were set in battles over majority control. Spending and national attention is down dramatically this year without control of the court at stake. In Tuesday’s Supreme Court race, Democratic-backed Chris Taylor, a former state lawmaker who also worked for Planned Parenthood, faces Republican-supported Maria Lazar. Both Taylor and Lazar are state Appeals Court judges. Liberals would increase their majority on the court to 5-2 from 4-3 with a Taylor win. That would lock in the liberal majority until at least 2030. Liberals took control of the state’s top court in 2023, ending 15 years under a conservative majority. They held onto their majority with last year’s victory in …

Katie Miller Thinks Classical Liberalism Is Woke

Katie Miller Thinks Classical Liberalism Is Woke

Published by Daniella Wilson

Katie Miller, the conservative podcaster, former DOGE aide, and wife to Stephen Miller, thinks the Constitution and the philosophical tradition upon which it is based are “woke” nonsense. Or possibly she doesn’t understand what they are. It’s hard to say which explanation is worse. For several days, analysts have debated which of these discouraging explanations pertains. The relevant text is a pair of angry posts on X (most of her posts are angry) this week. The first came at 8:20 Monday morning. She highlighted, with evident alarm, a post from the day before by Caitlin Kalinowski, a hardware engineer best known for her work on virtual reality. Miller’s alarmed message read, “OPEN AI EXEC,” followed by three down arrows, a social-media way of saying, Look at the crazy thing this person just wrote! Read: The wrath of Stephen Miller Kalinowski’s nutty message consisted, in its entirety, of the following: 1st Amendment—freedom of speech, assembly, and protest 2nd Amendment—right to bear arms 4th Amendment—protection against unreasonable searches and seizures 5th Amendment—due process of law 14th Amendment—equal …

In the Midst of a Crisis: Relational Liberalism and the Contemporary Challenges to Democratic Legitimacy

In the Midst of a Crisis: Relational Liberalism and the Contemporary Challenges to Democratic Legitimacy

Published by Jenni Sidey

Contemporary democratic societies are in the midst of a legitimacy crisis. This crisis relates to different dimensions of democracy: a breakdown in meaningful representation of citizens’ interests; a spreading tendency to resort to an unrestrained use of power that calls into question the liberal-democratic promise to protect individual rights and to cater to a stable system of checks and balances; and extreme and widening asymmetries in the distribution of power, status, and wealth among citizens. It is therefore not surprising that political theorists are called to investigate and possibly propose a way out from the so-called phenomenon of democratic backsliding, that is, a spreading perception that democratic ideals and practices are losing ground in the face of contemporary authoritarian and illiberal challenges and populist waves. As a general diagnosis, we can posit that these phenomena, although different in quality and relating to different aspects of democracy, are fostered by a general and widespread erosion of trust. This erosion of trust concerns both the horizontal relationships between fellow citizens as members of the same polity and …