The American Prospect

Our Latest

What We Can Do about Gun Violence

Harold Pollack

Mar 16, 2016

Incremental changes to existing gun laws could help deter mass shootings and gun homicides.
Campaign Challenge: Fix the African American Student Loan Crisis

Mark Paul, Darrick Hamilton, William Darity Jr.

Mar 15, 2016

Both Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton have proposed plans to ease the crippling debt burdening African American students, but their plans diverge in predictable ways.
Election 2016: Nightmare or Daybreak?

Robert Kuttner

Mar 15, 2016

Despite Hillary's political skill and Bernie's momentum, neither candidate would be a sure thing in November.
Illinois Governor Pushes Anti-Labor Agenda Amid Budget Standoff

Isaac Park

Mar 14, 2016

Bruce Rauner's slate of labor-busting measures has touched off a lengthy budget impasse in Springfield.
The Trump Campaign's Nasty Turn

Paul Waldman

Mar 14, 2016

Trump gives his supporters permission to say and do what they want, no matter how ugly.
Losing Ohio Improves Trump’s Chances to Win the Nomination

Sam Wang

Mar 14, 2016

Keeping John Kasich in the race divides the anti-Trump vote.
When Your Enemy's Enemy is Your Enemy

Gershom Gorenberg

Mar 11, 2016

A defense of Hezbollah by two Israeli Arab parties is a lesson for progressives on the pitfalls of obsolete rhetoric.
The Siren Call of Streetcars

Gabrielle Gurley

Mar 11, 2016

How the real-estate industry foils cost-effective transit

Winter 2016

Shall We Be Released?

Dana Goldstein

The mass folly of mass incarceration and the road back to sane prison policy.
Winter 2016

It Didn't Start with Stonewall

Peter Montgomery

A new history deepens our understanding of the origins of the gay rights movement and the transformation it has brought about.
Winter 2016

The War on the Poor

Peter Edelman

The welfare reform of the 1990s left millions of Americans near destitution.
Winter 2016

The Other Tech Bubble

Margaret O’Mara

How tech companies became detached from urban life and its problems—even when the city is their home.

Latest issue

Must-Reads

Trump and the Klan: A New Controversy with Old Roots

Ben Railton

Mar 7, 2016

The Ku Klux Klan’s dominant role in the 1924 Democratic National Convention was a telling moment with 21st century echoes.
What Super Tuesday Means for Establishment Politics

Harold Meyerson

Mar 2, 2016

Trump and Clinton attack the 1 percent after decisive victories on Super Tuesday.
Prospect Debate: The Cost of Sanders’s Single-Payer Health Plan

The Editors

Feb 29, 2016

An exchange including Gerald Friedman, Kenneth Thorpe, and Paul Starr over the costs, resulting taxes, and political implications of Sanders's health plan
The War on the Poor

Peter Edelman

Dec 21, 2015

The welfare reform of the 1990s left millions of Americans near destitution.
That Sinking Feeling: The Politics of Sea Level Rise and Miami's Building Boom

Nathalie Baptiste

Feb 19, 2016

Why is Miami—America’s most vulnerable metropolis to sea-level rise—having yet another beachfront development boom?
Beyond Flint: How Local Governments Ignore Federal Water Standards

Sam Ross-Brown

Feb 24, 2016

Underfunded and under attack, the EPA has failed to enforce water testing and treatment rules.

The Magazine

Vol. 27 No. 1

Winter 2016
Columns

Accelerating the Fight Against ISIS

Paul Starr

Going into 2012, Obama had Osama. Going into 2016, the Democrats need the fall of Raqqa and Mosul.

What We Can Do about Gun Violence

Harold Pollack

Incremental changes to existing gun laws could help deter mass shootings and gun homicides.

Notebook

Going After the Big Bucks

Eliza Newlin Carney

Pumping big money into the national political parties, as many now propose, would weaken the parties in the long run and invite another round of soft-money abuses.

Progressive California: The Long Road Back

Peter Schrag

The Golden State is the nation’s most liberal—but it has yet to untie its fiscal knots.

Tickets Out of Poverty?

Jake Blumgart

Housing voucher recipients can move to better neighborhoods only if states and localities break down suburban barriers.

Culture

Perpetually Outraged, Perpetually Outrageous

Paul Waldman

Donald Trump, a candidate with all the subtlety of talk radio, is the perfect expression of both the politics and media of our time.

Leading from the Left

E.J. Dionne

For Ted Kennedy, political leadership meant moving public opinion—not chasing after an elusive center.

The Big Financial Divide

Lisa J. Servon

Why we have one banking system for the well-off and a “Wild West” fringe for everyone else.

The War on the Poor

Peter Edelman

The welfare reform of the 1990s left millions of Americans near destitution.

It Didn't Start with Stonewall

Peter Montgomery

A new history deepens our understanding of the origins of the gay rights movement and the transformation it has brought about.

Shall We Be Released?

Dana Goldstein

The mass folly of mass incarceration and the road back to sane prison policy.
Features

Grace Under Fire

Rachel M. Cohen

Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards is one of the nation’s premier political strategists and organizers—exactly what the cause of reproductive rights needs now more than ever.

The Uber Challenge

Steven Greenhouse

Uber drivers are getting creative in their fight for basic workplace rights.

Related: A Safety Net for On-Demand Workers? by Steven Greenhouse

Vultures Over Puerto Rico

David Dayen

Vulture investors have descended on the commonwealth, taking advantage of a debt crisis that has impoverished citizens and created massive unemployment.

Related: How Congress Scuttled a Plan to Save Puerto Rico From Default, by David Dayen

The New Inequality Debate

Robert Kuttner

More mainstream economists now find that the income mal-distribution reflects the political sway of elites, not economic imperatives.

The Likely Persistence of a White Majority

Richard Alba

How Census Bureau statistics have misled thinking about the American future.

Related: "Prospect Debate: The Illusion of a Minority Majority America"

The Budgetary Backdoor to Reduced Minority Representation

Gary D. Bass & Adrien Schless-Meier

The political and economic ramifications of a tightened Census budget.

Race and Representation in the Twilight of the Obama Era

Derrick Jackson

Will the eight years of America's first black president lead to more political voice for black citizens—or less?

Black Culture and History Matter

Kirsten Mullen

It took 150 years after America officially abolished slavery to get a national museum on the black experience.

That Sinking Feeling: The Politics of Sea Level Rise and Miami's Building Boom

Nathalie Baptiste

Why is Miami—America’s most vulnerable metropolis to sea-level rise—having yet another beachfront development boom?

The Other Tech Bubble

Margaret O’Mara

How tech companies became detached from urban life and its problems—even when the city is their home.

Can Democrats Channel America's Discontent?

Harold Meyerson

The party has moved left in response to hard times. That should help it at the polls—but will it?

Labor Goes South

Justin Miller

Can the movement rebuild itself below the Mason-Dixon line, and change Southern politics in the process?

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In the Magazine

The Politics of Terrorism Lead Desperate Hollande to Embrace Sarkozy

Karen Nussbaum

In an effort to marginalize his nation's large far-right party in the wake of attacks by Islamist radicals, the president of France teams up with an old foe.

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