Barack Obama is a tinkerer and a poet in whose hands the concept of “American exceptionalism” is being reshaped for the 21st century and weaponized against Trumpism. First used with respect to the United States by Alexis de Tocqueville, the concept of American exceptionalism is that this country differs qualitatively from other developed nations because of its national credo, ethnic diversity, and

The United States is coming to resemble two countries, one rural and one urban. What happens when they go to war? The United States now has its most metropolitan president in recent memory: a Queens-bred, skyscraper-building, apartment-dwelling Manhattanite. Yet it was rural America that carried Donald Trump to victory; the president got trounced in cities. Republican reliance on suburbs and the c

New research suggests that the American dream isn’t alive in Scandinavia—but generous redistribution of wealth isn’t a terrible consolation prize. Danophilia is alive and well in America. Bernie Sanders and other liberals have lauded Denmark’s social democratic dream state, with its free college tuition, nearly universal pre-K, and plentiful child care. While Republicans and Democrats both praise

For the first thirteen decades of its existence, the Senate allowed unlimited debate. This meant that a single senator, or just a few, could hold up passage of legislation by talking interminably (filibustering). This tactic was rarely used at first, but over the years it began to be employed often enough that in 1917 the Senate adopted a Cloture Rule; debate could be ended by a two-thirds vote. T

Your income, how long you dated, and how many people attend your wedding affect the odds you'll stay together. A diamond is forever, but an expensive engagement ring means the marriage might not last that long. According to a new study, spending between $2,000 and $4,000 on an engagement ring is significantly associated with an increase in the risk of divorce. The data scientist Randal Olson recen

There has been much discussion of late, both inside and outside the Islamic world, about those elements in the Islamic past and those factors in the Muslim present that are favorable and unfavorable to the development of liberal democracy. From a historical perspective it would seem that of all the non-Western civilizations in the world, Islam offers the best prospects for Western-style democracy.

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia weighed in on the debate surrounding the Senate torture report on Wednesday. "I don't know what article of the Constitution that would contravene," the AP quoted him telling a Swiss university audience in reference to torture. It's a surprising statement for a justice to make. After all, the Supreme Court has held torture to be unconstitutional since its ruling

I’ve heard it said that, if you take a walk around Waikiki, it’s only a matter of time until someone hands you a flyer of scantily clad women clutching handguns, overlaid with English and maybe Japanese text advertising one of the many local shooting ranges. The city’s largest, the Royal Hawaiian Shooting Club, advertises instructors fluent in Japanese, which is also the default language of its we

Anyone who’s ever relied on public transportation knows that waiting can be the worst part. Even with apps that provide arrival estimates, riders can still find themselves at a loss—straining their eyes in hopes of seeing train lights in the distance, or furiously checking phones while wondering what on earth is holding up a delayed bus. But a new study suggests that the feelings of frustration as

JILL STEINWho is she? A Massachusetts resident and physician, she is a candidate of nearly Stassen-like frequency, having run for president  in 2012 and a slew of other offices before that. Is she running? Yes. Stein announced in June 2015 that she would again seek the nomination of the Green Party, which she won in 2012. The Green Party will formally select its candidate in Houston, this year at

Who should I hang out with if I want to look the most attractive? And how many of said people must I acquire? The basic idea of research published this week in the journal Psychological Science is that our asymmetries and disproportionalities tend to "average out" amid a group of faces, and our weird little faces are perceived as slightly less weird. Drew Walker and Edward Vul of the University of

Have you ever tried grooving with your cat to some song, only to have your feline friend shake you off? Perhaps your pet is apathetic about music. Typical. But new research shows that cats do enjoy music; just not the stuff humans tend to pick. A team of psychologists at the University of Wisconsin created custom music designed to appeal to cats by mixing beats that fall into the same frequency ra