Politics Archives - Hal Phillips https://www.halphillips.net/category/politics Small-Batch Journalism & Comment Mon, 20 Apr 2026 16:16:00 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://www.halphillips.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/cropped-BNyb0KwmkKGrHgoH-C8EjlLlhlGBJrZchZqHQ_35-32x32.jpg Politics Archives - Hal Phillips https://www.halphillips.net/category/politics 32 32 Adventures in Historiography: Why New Takes on U.S. History Rise or Fall https://www.halphillips.net/adventures-in-historiography-why-new-takes-on-u-s-history-rise-and-fall?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=adventures-in-historiography-why-new-takes-on-u-s-history-rise-and-fall https://www.halphillips.net/adventures-in-historiography-why-new-takes-on-u-s-history-rise-and-fall#respond Thu, 23 Dec 2021 16:22:11 +0000 https://www.halphillips.net/?p=4699 AUBURN, Maine (Dec. 23, 2021) — Let’s get to know Charles Beard, whose intellectual connection to the “controversial” 1619 Project may tar him in some quarters, but whose broader reputation has much to teach us. Born in 1874, Beard was perhaps the most influential American historian of the first half of the 20th century. We segment […]

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]]> https://www.halphillips.net/adventures-in-historiography-why-new-takes-on-u-s-history-rise-and-fall/feed 0 Trump Verse: “Coup-by-Con” — an Alternative Fragment https://www.halphillips.net/trump-verse-coup-by-con-an-alternative-fragment?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=trump-verse-coup-by-con-an-alternative-fragment https://www.halphillips.net/trump-verse-coup-by-con-an-alternative-fragment#respond Tue, 02 Feb 2021 16:43:55 +0000 https://www.halphillips.net/?p=4371 “What’s unfolding now is an attempted coup by a con.”—  Tim Egan, The New York Times, Nov. 20, 2020 In Xanadu did Coup-by-Con Via stately news bubble decree Where Rudy, the sacred river troll, ran Amok through caverns baseless and inscrutable to man       Down to the Four Seasons — no, not that one. Twice the popular […]

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]]> https://www.halphillips.net/trump-verse-coup-by-con-an-alternative-fragment/feed 0 The Catholic Disconnect: The Perils of Exerting a Moral Authority the Church Doesn’t Have https://www.halphillips.net/catholic-disconnect-the-perils-of-exerting-a-moral-authority-the-church-doesnt-have?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=catholic-disconnect-the-perils-of-exerting-a-moral-authority-the-church-doesnt-have https://www.halphillips.net/catholic-disconnect-the-perils-of-exerting-a-moral-authority-the-church-doesnt-have#respond Tue, 15 Dec 2020 16:35:05 +0000 https://www.halphillips.net/?p=4268 WASHINGTON, D.C. (Dec. 15, 2020) — To understand the Catholic disconnect in our public square, let’s suppose, as a sort of thought experiment, that the Senate Judiciary Committee was presented with a Federal Circuit Court nominee who happened to be active in the Boys Scouts of America the last 20 years. Let’s further suppose this […]

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]]> https://www.halphillips.net/catholic-disconnect-the-perils-of-exerting-a-moral-authority-the-church-doesnt-have/feed 0 Barrett and Trump, an Association that Will Never Fade. We Should See to That https://www.halphillips.net/barretts-association-with-trumpism-will-never-fade-we-should-see-to-it?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=barretts-association-with-trumpism-will-never-fade-we-should-see-to-it https://www.halphillips.net/barretts-association-with-trumpism-will-never-fade-we-should-see-to-it#respond Thu, 22 Oct 2020 11:08:42 +0000 https://www.halphillips.net/?p=4222 WASHINGTON, D.C. (Oct. 21, 2020) — I’ve got a question that Democratic senators might have considered posing to Amy Coney Barrett on the occasion of last week’s hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee: What’s a nice woman like you doing keeping company with a bunch of fascists like this? That’s perhaps a bit flip, but […]

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]]> https://www.halphillips.net/barretts-association-with-trumpism-will-never-fade-we-should-see-to-it/feed 0 Breonna Taylor Takeaway: We Can’t Have Law and Order with Apples this Bad https://www.halphillips.net/we-cant-have-law-order-with-policing-this-bad?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=we-cant-have-law-order-with-policing-this-bad https://www.halphillips.net/we-cant-have-law-order-with-policing-this-bad#respond Tue, 06 Oct 2020 02:03:10 +0000 https://www.halphillips.net/?p=4197 LOUISVILLE, Ken. (Aug. 4, 2022) — Breonna Taylor’s March 2020 killing, the result of a no-knock warrant gone calamitously awry, took place in a Louisville apartment building full of witnesses. Who, if anyone, should be charged in her death boils down to this nugget from the grand jury testimony made public by the District Attorney […]

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]]> https://www.halphillips.net/we-cant-have-law-order-with-policing-this-bad/feed 0 Trump’s subconscious is desperately trying to tell us something https://www.halphillips.net/trumps-subconscious-is-desperately-trying-to-tell-us-something?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=trumps-subconscious-is-desperately-trying-to-tell-us-something https://www.halphillips.net/trumps-subconscious-is-desperately-trying-to-tell-us-something#comments Wed, 12 Aug 2020 17:13:16 +0000 https://www.halphillips.net/?p=4041 WASHINGTON, D.C. (Aug. 12, 2020) — I’m starting to wonder whether Donald Trump’s subconcious is trying to tell us something important. To be specific, I’m worried he might have killed some young woman early in this century. Not sexually assaulted her. That’s something he’s apparently been doing, repeatedly, since the early 1980s. I mean killed […]

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]]> https://www.halphillips.net/trumps-subconscious-is-desperately-trying-to-tell-us-something/feed 1 Politics Trump Piety? Yes. Now and Always, Because They’re Baked Right In https://www.halphillips.net/why-do-politics-trump-piety-because-the-politics-are-baked-right-in?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=why-do-politics-trump-piety-because-the-politics-are-baked-right-in https://www.halphillips.net/why-do-politics-trump-piety-because-the-politics-are-baked-right-in#respond Wed, 24 Jun 2020 20:22:34 +0000 https://www.halphillips.net/?p=3989 WASHINGTON, D.C. (June 24, 2020) — Confused by stalwart evangelical Christian support for Donald Trump? Don’t be. Organized religious movements, especially those of the Christian variety, are only nominally “religious” or faith-directed. They are, in fact, political movements. Always have been. When it comes to Christianity, and other monotheistic religious projects, politics trump piety today […]

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]]> https://www.halphillips.net/why-do-politics-trump-piety-because-the-politics-are-baked-right-in/feed 0 White Power Grab: a Modern GOP founded in the 1980s but rooted in the 1880s https://www.halphillips.net/unprecedented-nope-modern-gop-still-harking-back-to-the-80s-the-1880s?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=unprecedented-nope-modern-gop-still-harking-back-to-the-80s-the-1880s https://www.halphillips.net/unprecedented-nope-modern-gop-still-harking-back-to-the-80s-the-1880s#respond Fri, 12 Jun 2020 17:27:33 +0000 https://www.halphillips.net/?p=3977 TULSA, Okla. (June 12, 2020) — With word that President Donald Trump planned to resume his in-person political rallies in Oklahoma next — on Juneteenth, a commemoration of slavery’s end and black America’s biggest secular holiday — the 40-year strategy of Republican dog-whistling finally came to a close. The event will take place here Tulsa, […]

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]]> https://www.halphillips.net/unprecedented-nope-modern-gop-still-harking-back-to-the-80s-the-1880s/feed 0 Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden & DNC ennui all obscure the point: Get out the vote https://www.halphillips.net/bernie-biden-dnc-ennui-obscure-the-point-get-out-the-vote?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=bernie-biden-dnc-ennui-obscure-the-point-get-out-the-vote https://www.halphillips.net/bernie-biden-dnc-ennui-obscure-the-point-get-out-the-vote#respond Sat, 07 Mar 2020 19:00:44 +0000 https://www.halphillips.net/?p=3915 MARCH 7, 2020 — Now that Bernie Sanders has been rebuffed and a credible centrist path forward has been laid for Democratic voters, I want to say three things. First, don’t think for a minute there is anything inevitable about Joe Biden’s nomination, now that he prevailed in the South Carolina party primary on Feb. […]

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]]> https://www.halphillips.net/bernie-biden-dnc-ennui-obscure-the-point-get-out-the-vote/feed 0 50+ months into NFL Abstention, Another Tragic On-Field Moment Pierces the Bubble https://www.halphillips.net/fifteen-months-into-nfl-boycott-life-continues-remarkably-unchanged?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=fifteen-months-into-nfl-boycott-life-continues-remarkably-unchanged https://www.halphillips.net/fifteen-months-into-nfl-boycott-life-continues-remarkably-unchanged#respond Thu, 14 Nov 2019 16:38:45 +0000 https://www.halphillips.net/?p=3805 It’s difficult for me to profess that I ever came to dislike the National Football League or football in general. Indeed, that’s part of the problem. I quite like it, as exhibited by 40-plus years of fandom — starting with the Sam Bam/Mike Haynes/John Hannah Patriots — and three decades as a working sportswriter, a […]

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