Adam Gurri

We Can Organize

The methods of the Civil Rights Movement are still available to us today.

He Will Try

Only one candidate is guaranteed to try to undermine our democracy and our way of life.

Contributing to the Liberal Project as a Writer: A Primer

How writing from the very abstract to the very particular can help to advance a liberal agenda.

Taking Inclusion Seriously: Kevin Elliott's Democracy for Busy People

“How is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?” This question, asked by English writer Samuel Johnson in 1775, still touches a nerve today. Americans on the one hand carry the pride of one of the oldest sets of representative institutions in the

Let's Wreck Some Norms and Take the Court Down a Peg

It may be difficult to believe today, but Congress was once a force to be reckoned with. The pinnacle of this, of course, was Reconstruction, during which Congress regularly overrode the president’s veto and even impeached one for the first time. Most significantly, the Reconstruction Congress regularly put the

The Case Against Dictatorship

The problem with democracies is that they are sclerotic, indecisive, and dithering; by contrast, states ruled by strong and capable dictators are capable of rapid policy change–or so it is argued.  As one prominent critic puts it, democracies “are inherently reactionary and absolutist” compared with dictatorships, which “accept the

Inventing Invention: Brad DeLong's Slouching Towards Utopia

In the 19th century, some of the world—the “global north”—began to grow rich. It began at a jog but, by the end of the century, it had become a sprint. As scientific, technical, and productive capabilities expanded beyond anyone’s wildest imaginings, some contemporaries did begin to imagine

America's Unusual Legal Politics

For the past month, the public debate has been roiled with those who believe it too dangerous to prosecute a former president under current political conditions, and those who believe it too dangerous to let presidents break laws with impunity without facing consequences. There’s a striking contrast with the

A Realist Defense of Legislative Supremacy

The triumph of modern representative democracy was, in part, the culmination of a moral revolution. The heralds of this revolution were those great documents of the 18th century, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Declaration of the Rights of Man. Today it is a commonplace that the people

The Case for Expanding the Court Before November

For years, a diverse group of liberals and left-of-center commentators have called on Congress to expand the size of the Supreme Court. This argument moved from the background to the forefront after a Republican Senate stonewalled Obama’s final nomination entirely, allowing his Republican successor to fill the vacant seat

Lawful and Unconstitutional: Rule of Law in America Today

Is America built on a foundation of broken promises? Many constitutional fundamentalists in the legal academy today believe this is without question the case. Joining this conviction is the fear that the promises broken to date will pale in comparison to those broken in the future; that to deviate from

Playing for Keeps: Practical Politics After Roe

I can’t change Texas’s law, but you can. You can and everyone else who may or may not like it can go out there and be lobbying forces in changing laws that you don’t like. Justice Sonia Sotomayor There is a great deal to dislike about the