The Word of the Summer Is “Victoriotic”

Donald Trump Is the Epitome of Constant Bragging About Inflated Success, But We’re All Guilty, Especially in California

It’s the word of the summer: Victoriotic.

You won’t find it in the Oxford English Dictionary or Merriam-Webster, at least not yet.

It began its life as an epithet, hurled by my oldest son, age 7, at me.

“Don’t be victoriotic!”

I was guilty as charged. I had a long losing streak against him in the board game, “Sequence.” Finally, I had broken that streak, and I celebrated like a Super Bowl-winning quarterback, sticking my finger in the air and doing an elaborate dance in our living room. I also may have …

Obama’s Unsung Legacy in the War on Income Inequality

As Clinton and Trump Try to Out-Populist Each Other, the Obama Administration Gets No Credit for Its Impressive Efforts to Boost Economic Equality

You’d never know, from this year’s presidential campaign rhetoric, that anyone in Washington has been paying any attention to economic inequality. Donald Trump has hijacked the Republican Party with his …

In Attacking Immigrants, Republicans Repeat a Century-Old Mistake

The GOP's Nativist Politics in the 1910s and ‘20s Made the Democratic Party Great Again

Much like today, the 1910s and 1920s were a time when the fear of immigrants convulsed American society.

At the time, the world was reeling from geopolitical instability and economic …

Ancient Greek Demagogues Might Sound Familiar in 2016

At “How Does Democracy Survive Demagoguery?”, a Zócalo/Getty Villa “Open Art” event at the Getty Villa in Malibu, Eric Robinson, an Indiana University historian of ancient Greece and Rome, describes …

Almost Any Politician in a Democracy Is a Bit of a Demagogue

A Classicist, a Historian, and a Rhetorician Talk Trump, Clinton, and Cleon

There’s plenty of nastiness in our democracy. But is there anything new?

For all the fear and consternation about the lies, insults, conspiracy theories, and rhetorical excesses of the 2016 presidential …