Nancy L. Cohen

Americans "have a constitutional right to be gay." So said Barry Goldwater, the 1964 right-wing Republican presidential candidate, in 1994. How the Republican Party has changed. Indeed, how the GOP changed goes a long way toward explaining America's national political delirium.

We've grown so accustomed to a Republican Party...

The most entertaining sideshow in the GOP circus is likely about to close. But save your laughs. Before Rick Perry exits, let's remember why he was here in the first place.

That Rick Perry was once a serious contender for the presidency exposes the cynical alliance of...

Was the GOP circus just an amusing diversion for political junkies and a spectacle-hungry media? We would laugh off the last nine months of the Republican presidential race at our peril. Here are five reasons why it has mattered, and what it means for 2012 and perhaps the future of...

Pundits tell Occupy Wall Street: give us your list of demands or you'll fail. Occupy Wall Street is obviously doing just fine without following that script. But why exactly? What is Occupy Wall Street doing right? Here then, some lessons from the history and theory of social movements.

1. Framing:...

Legalizing gay marriage has always been right. Now, according to Gallup, it is popular. For the first time in 15 years of Gallup polling on the issue, a solid majority of Americans support same-sex marriage.

This week will go down in history as the tipping point on gay...

The Republican party has an uncanny ability to dupe the American public and rise from the dead on the votes of the Christian Right. Let's look at the record:

• The conservative revolution was declared dead when Clinton won in '92. Two years later, Republicans took over Congress on a Christian...

If you liked Rovian anti-gay marriage referendums, the Terry Schiavo saga, anti-abortion litmus tests for diplomatic service in a war zone, and creationism in the Grand Canyon bookstore, you'll love this season's Tea Party candidates.

Why are we just getting the bulletin about "social conservatives" in the Tea Party movement?...

Would you like to strike a blow, nonviolently of course, at the Party of Palin, the Tea Party, and Thomas Jefferson deniers? Then send in your Census Form on April 1. It's the most important political action you can take this year.

Monochromatic Tea Partiers and their demagogic leaders can...

The party of Lincoln has spoken. Secession-threatening Governor Rick Perry will get another shot at leading the nation's second largest state. If Democrats play this right, Perry's primary victory could prove to be a pivot point in the 2010 midterm elections.

To turn this year's punishing electoral...

Once upon a time in America, men lorded over women, screwed any woman they could, and women and children paid the price. That quaint world lives on in the Family's C Street house, home to Sen. John Ensign, former home to Gov. Mark Sanford, and home to the...

How fitting that Professor Skip's last name is Gates. Thanks to Gates-gate and Birthers, we've taken our eyes off the prize of health care reform, just as lobbyists, their "centrist" shills and desperate GOP pols get into position to administer the fatal poison. Just as it was in 1993-1994, when...

Health care reform is wildly popular. Three separate polls show over 70% of Americans favor a public insurance plan. Remarkably, the majority of us are even willing to pay higher taxes to provide health insurance for our uninsured compatriots. (see here, here, and here).

But elder...

Last week, the nonpartisan Pew Center released its 2009 survey on American political values. Its headline could have read "Left Wins Culture War." As the Right ramps up for a Supreme Court showdown over abortion and gay marriage, this report couldn't be more timely. It's a clarion call...

Who will win the battle for the soul of the GOP? There's little need to follow the unfolding drama, because the verdict is already in. Look to the daughters. Meghan McCain has been excommunicated from the party by Father Rush, and Mother Bristol Palin is back on...

A young Barack Obama spent a few years as a community organizer. The community organizers I know and love have been at it for decades, and they don't have time to cook a meal, much less run a country. President Obama needs to delegate. Mr. President, set the Obamaniacs free....

Sound investment advisors and the wisdom of the ages give the same counsel. Diversify, or in other words, don't put all your eggs in one basket. Why didn't Bernard Madoff's investors heed this truism? Enough of their crocodile tears; they wanted their crocodile shoes and bags.

Any mentally competent adult...

If we shift the angle of vision from the habits we formed during the campaign, Hillary Clinton emerges into view as an inspired choice for secretary of state and a potential agent of transformational change -- exactly what President-elect Barack Obama is seeking.

Obama has a distinctly 21st century view...

In 1763, during the siege of Fort Dix by the Delaware, Mingo, and Shawnee nations, American colonists bestowed a parting gift of two winter blankets and one handkerchief on the Delaware's diplomatic delegation. Small-pox infected blankets and handkerchief. The Bush men, elder and Shrub, seem to have a similar sense...

With early voting ended, election monitors deployed in all the dodgy states, and polls giving Barack Obama a significant lead, a stolen election seems highly unlikely. But it's not quite time to relax our anxious vigilance. Markers have already been laid down to steal Obama's mandate.

What narrative might...

John McCain, the reborn populist, wants to divert your attention from the architects of our economic crisis: the Republican Party and its free market ideologues. It is an unconvincing posture, based on a distorted reading of American history.

Today's financial crisis is the predictable historical outcome of the policies...