In screenwriting’s three act structure, the second act is the darkest. It’s the moment when everything goes wrong, when all seems lost and there’s no way that the characters can snatch victory. Of course, the good guys end up winning anyway, since people’d feel cheated if Luke Skywalker just upped and died an hour into […]
Bernie Sanders
Why Bernie Sanders wouldn’t have won
As the dust settles after one of the most extraordinary elections in American history, the hot takes as to why things happened as they did have only just begun. Many will try and reduce the result to ‘economic anxiety’ motivating white working-class voters. Others will blame right-wing media outlets for consistently fanning the flames of […]
The hydra of populism rages on
They don’t have to love her. They just have to vote for her”, explains Matt Bennett to the Financial Times in an optimistic yet cynical tone. It remains to be seen if this maxim has been truly adopted by Hillary Clinton staffers and volunteers, who, for all their optimism, are hopelessly reliant on her new […]
An interview with Larry Sanders
(Note: This interview was conducted before Hillary Clinton secured enough delegates to win the Democratic nomination) While he may be better known as the elder brother of Bernie, Larry Sanders is no stranger to political activism himself. Growing up in Brooklyn with parents who were, in his words, archetypal of the post-war, New York Jewish […]
Disillusionment and Democracy: the 2016 Presidential elections
If you asked me after the first Republican debate in August whether I thought Donald Trump or Bernie Sanders stood a chance at being nominated for the 2016 presidential elections, I would have laughed. Not out of amusement, but because of how the American political system works. Outsiders never make it in, revolutionaries are bought out, and the establishment […]
Feeling the Bern?
My first sighting of Bernie Sanders was in Safeco Field, Seattle. From the back of the stands I could make out the crown of silver hair, hunched shoulders and crumpled face. He looked a tired man. He stood bernt-out, but the 20,000 strong audience wanted to #feelthebern. Then his voice boomed. The crowd chanted back. […]
An unorthodox endorsement of Hillary Clinton
Bernie Sanders is the educated version of his lesser leftist twin that the UK has been laden with. He is a very impressive man. In the 1960s he was an active campaigner for civil rights and, since then, he has gone on to prove himself across different public positions, from the Mayor of Burlington to a Senator […]
Is America Berning?
A few months ago I wrote an article stating that Hillary Clinton would lose the Democratic primary race and that Bernie Sanders would emerge the nominee. Since that time, unfortunately for me, there had been no new piece of evidence to support that theory: the polls were static, the debates proved a damp squib, and […]
The Foreign Perspective: Gun control in the USA
Two weeks ago, gun control was thrust back into the limelight in America after yet another college shooting, this time at Umpqua Community College, where 9 people were killed. As Obama said in his national broadcast, these shootings are becoming all too familiar. So why does the self-proclaimed “greatest nation on earth” not do something […]
Why Bernie Sanders will beat Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination
Everyone knows that Hilary Clinton will be the next Democratic nominee, don’t they? Barrack Obama was just an exception, right? No one could possibly repeat his success in 2008, could they? Welcome to the fray Bernie Sanders. Even people who follow American politics would be forgiven if they hadn’t heard of the 74 year-old Vermont […]