The Imperial Presidency Meets the Family Business America once worried about an imperial presidency. Now we have an imperial presidency merged with a family business. And somehow, too many Americans are shrugging. Perhaps that shrug is less agreement than exhaustion. Americans are tired — tired of the scandals, the outrage cycles, the endless circus where every day produces another ethical breach, another fundraising scheme, another spectacle competing for attention. People a

Seventy-one years ago, the Supreme Court issued its ruling in Brown v. Board of Education, declaring that separate educational facilities are inherently unequal. For generations of Black families, Brown represented more than a legal decision. It represented aspiration, validation, and possibility. It affirmed a simple but transformative principle: Black children deserved access to the full promise of American education. That promise remains unfinished. This year, Brown Day ar

The May 12 inflation report confirmed what many Americans already know in their bones: while economists debate indicators and politicians boast about growth, ordinary people increasingly feel as though they are running on fumes. Prices rise, stabilize briefly, and then rise again, while wages lag behind the escalating costs of housing, healthcare, childcare, insurance, groceries, and transportation. For millions of people, especially those who once considered themselves secur

How Federal Reserve policy lands hardest on those at the margins By May 15, the Federal Reserve will likely have a new chair. That transition is more than routine; it reflects a deeper tension about what the Fed is supposed to do and whom it is supposed to serve. For years, the president has publicly criticized current chair Jerome Powell, arguing that interest rates should have been lowered more aggressively to stimulate economic growth. Powell has resisted, warning that low

I was raised Catholic. Not casually Catholic. My mother was the kind of Catholic who went to Mass every day. Faith was not something she talked about; it was something she did. In our aqua-blue kitchen, she had the lyrics, in white paint, “Holy Mary, dressed in blue, teach me how to pray.” She prayed without ceasing, and her prayers were deep and strong. I went to a Jesuit college, Boston College, where faith was woven into the intellectual life—questions of justice, responsi

People keep talking about the future of work as if it is something waiting just around the corner—robots taking jobs, artificial intelligence transforming industries, entire occupations disappearing overnight. I’m speaking soon at a conference on this very topic, and the more I think about it, the more convinced I am that we are asking the wrong question. The future of work is not something waiting decades in the distance. For millions of Americans, it has already arrived—and

Congress may be on recess. But the waitress covering a double shift, the nurse working overnight, the warehouse worker racing a delivery clock, and the rideshare driver chasing fares didn’t get the memo. America is still working. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries recently urged Speaker Mike Johnson to reconvene the House, arguing that lawmakers should be back in Washington doing the work they were elected to do. Whether Speaker Johnson agrees or not, the moment raises a b

Last Saturday, millions of Americans took to the streets under a simple banner: “No Kings.” More than 3,000 protests were organized across the country. Demonstrations filled not only the expected places—Washington, New York, Chicago—but also towns that rarely see political marches: Midland, Michigan; Casper, Wyoming; McMinnville and Tillamook, Oregon. In communities like these, residents gathered in parks and town squares carrying handmade signs and a message that sits at the

Washington is talking about spending $200 billion on war. That number rolls off the tongue easily in Washington, where policymakers casually toss around figures—millions, billions, trillions. But numbers that large lose their meaning unless we slow down long enough to put them in context. We throw numbers around—millions, billions, trillions—but they don’t mean much unless we put them in context. Two hundred billion dollars — that’s 200,000 million. What could we do with 200

In the more than two-century history of the United States Senate, Black women have been almost entirely absent. Today, for the first time, two are serving simultaneously. Angela Alsobrooks (MD) and Lisa Blunt Rochester (DE) now occupy seats in a chamber that, for most of its existence, excluded both women and people of color. The Senate began operating in 1789. In more than two centuries roughly 2,000 people have served in that chamber. Only about 60 have been women—barely th

I attended the memorial services this week honoring Jesse Jackson, joining thousands who gathered to celebrate the life of a man whose voice shaped the modern civil rights movement. As speaker after speaker reflected on Rev. Jackson’s extraordinary life — his preaching, his presidential campaigns, his global advocacy for justice — I found myself watching another figure whose presence told an equally important story about the movement itself. Jacqueline Jackson sat quietly thr

Every March, Women’s History Month brings a familiar rhythm of celebration—panels, proclamations, and tributes to pioneers who shattered glass ceilings. Those stories matter. But if we are honest, the story of women in America cannot be told without confronting another truth: this nation has been built, quite literally, on the backs of Black women. From the earliest days of the republic, Black women’s labor has been both indispensable and invisible. Enslaved women worked fiel

America has rituals for the dead. We lower flags. We dim lights. We ask for moments of silence. In rare cases — former presidents, Rosa Parks — we place bodies beneath the Capitol dome and call it honor. So when congressional leaders declined to extend that honor to Rev. Jesse Louis Jackson, they cited precedent. Precedent is tidy. Procedural. It is also how exclusion dresses itself in neutrality. But here is the truth: the Capitol Rotunda is too small for Rev. Jesse Jackson.

Frederick Douglass did not know the day he was born. Like many enslaved people, he was denied even the dignity of documentation. Birth dates were approximations. Family lines were severed. Identity existed in property ledgers, not in public record. His mother, Harriet Bailey, called him her “little Valentine,” and Douglass later chose February 14 as his birthday — an act of self-definition in a country that refused to define him as fully human. That act matters. Douglass unde

Labor economists like me mark our calendars for the first Friday of each month, when the Bureau of Labor Statistics releases The Employment Situation. In February, that report did not arrive on schedule. According to BLS, a partial government shutdown temporarily suspended data processing and dissemination, delaying the January jobs report. Many economists have built careers around these numbers, and we are right to rely on them. But moments like this also remind us that labo

Don Lemon knew he was going to be arrested. On January 18, he flew from Minneapolis to Chicago to emcee the MLK Breakfast for PUSH Excel the next morning. He was expert and gracious, as always—but he also dropped a couple of quiet bombs. Lemon all but said he was under siege. He didn’t list every case or name every colleague. He didn’t have to. The message was clear: his arrest was coming. Lemon understands power. He understands pretext. And he understands that when Black jou

Black America is often told that foreign policy is distant—something for diplomats, generals, and elites in places most of us will never see. We are told to focus on schools, housing, policing, wages. As if global power has nothing to do with any of that. That separation is a lie. Decisions made in elite global spaces—whether at World Economic Forum in Davos, in NATO councils, or in negotiations over strategic territories like Greenland—shape budgets, priorities, and power at

The United States insists it cannot afford housing, jobs, or care. Yet it can always afford cages. Immigration enforcement is not a response to crisis; it is a budgetary preference. Billions are reliably available to detain, transport, and deport people, even as Black communities are told to be patient, resilient, and fiscally realistic. Immigration and Customs Enforcement—ICE—embodies that choice. Its budget has ballooned over two decades, underwriting detention centers, sur

We are living in a time of deep and dangerous instability. Wars are threatened or underway, democratic norms are eroding, and economic inequality is no longer episodic—it is structural. Historian Margaret MacMillan calls moments like this ones of radical uncertainty: periods when old assumptions no longer hold, power is shifting, and leaders respond less with wisdom than with force. As we mark the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr., it is worth remembering that King did not a

The United States Postal Service is under attack again—and this time, the damage threatens both Black livelihoods and Black votes. The Postal Service is not just how we send letters. It is democratic infrastructure. It is also one of the largest employers of Black workers in the nation. Roughly 29 percent of postal workers are Black, more than double Black representation in the overall labor force. For generations shut out of private-sector opportunity, the post office offere