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Steve Hochstadt

Steve Hochstadt is a writer and an emeritus professor of history at Illinois College.

  • May 6, 2022

    Thoughts From the Zoo

    by Steve Hochstadt

    What does the term "pro-life" mean in the context of humanity's relationship to other living things and the planet? 

  • Feb 6, 2022

    Where Did the Masks Go?

    by Steve Hochstadt

    Television isn't real life. But watching a weekend of playoff football shows how many powerful businesses have jumped to declare the pandemic over and normal life back, 2,000 deaths a day notwithstanding.

  • Aug 27, 2021

    The Politics of Fear and Vaccination

    by Steve Hochstadt

    "Accepting the vaccine means rejecting their whole political orientation. It means realizing that the voices they have trusted, Republican leaders and conservative media heroes, have been lying about the disease since the beginning."

  • Feb 7, 2021

    Absurdity Theory

    by Steve Hochstadt

    Marjorie Taylor Greene's flights of conspiratorialism incorporate the same core of absurdity as all conspiracy theories: that vast numbers of people, whether Jews, Democrats, or the Deep State, are capable of enacting world-dominating schemes in complete secrecy.

  • Jan 28, 2021

    Charges of Hypocrisy are the Last Refuge of the Hypocrite

    by Steve Hochstadt

    The Republican response to the Capitol riots has been to invoke false equivalencies and what-abouts with BLM and "Antifa" and to desperately accuse the Democrats of hypocrisy, while ignoring their role in feeding the election fraud myth that underpinned the insurrection. 

  • Dec 13, 2020

    The Slippery Slope

    by Steve Hochstadt

    Republican politicians who have signed on to Trump's futile and desperate claims of a stolen election have calculated that they're unlikely to face consequences fom the voters. The future of democracy depends on them being wrong. 

  • Oct 28, 2020

    The Great Pretender

    by Steve Hochstadt

    Trump admits to no pretense. He can’t give up the role of the great man he is playing, the greatest man ever. Soon the pretense will be over.

  • Oct 9, 2020

    My Wish for Trump

    by Steve Hochstadt

    "I want Trump to get better, but I don’t wish him well."

  • Oct 2, 2020

    "Never Trump" is Just the Beginning

    by Steve Hochstadt

    Never Trumpers sorely lack the introspection to admit their role in bringing Trump to the White House and Trumpism into the Republican Party.

  • Sep 18, 2020

    The Religion of Patriotism

    by Steve Hochstadt

    "Patriotic rituals were designed to indoctrinate young and old with the belief that the racist, sexist, antisemitic America of the 20th century was already perfect, that criticisms of racial injustice or gender discrimination were illegitimate, that America was God’s country and corporate capitalism was God’s handiwork."

  • Aug 26, 2020

    The Post Office in Trump's Mind

    by Steve Hochstadt

    The Post Office plays only a supporting role in a variety of Trump actions, but the place of the Post Office in Trump’s mind reveals the fundamental dishonesty of his entire presidency. 

  • Aug 19, 2020

    The Evangelical Error

    by Steve Hochstadt

    Evangelical leaders have bent and twisted their proclaimed moral precepts so far to embrace Donald Trump that they risk forfeiting any claim to moral authority and becoming a mere reactionary identitarian group in a society leaving them behind. 

  • Aug 4, 2020

    Dumb, Lazy Americans

    by Steve Hochstadt

    "It took me less than five minutes to find out that Dr. Immanuel has announced that extraterrestrials run our government and their DNA is used in medical treatments, that the Illuminati are using witches to destroy the world through abortion, gay marriage, and Harry Potter, and that she is a Tea Party fan."