Author: Norman Solomon

  • Why an “Apology Tour” Is Needed: An Open Letter to Joe Biden

    By Norman Solomon Dear Mr. Biden: News outlets are reporting that you’re determined to prevent your campaign from turning into an “apology tour” this summer. But your only other option is a campaign of denial — sinking deeper into a quagmire of unsustainable pretense. After your flip-flop late last week that finally renounced your 40…

  • Why Joe Biden Was Afraid to Face California’s Democratic Party

    By Norman Solomon Joe Biden’s glaring absence from the California Democratic Party convention has thrown a national spotlight on his eagerness to detour around the party’s progressive base. While dodging an overt clash for now, Biden is on a collision course with grassroots Democrats across the country who are learning more about his actual record…

  • Will Biden’s Dog Whistles for Racism Catch Up with Him?

    By Norman Solomon In a party that officially condemns dog-whistle appeals to racism, Joe Biden is running on Orwellian eggshells. Whether he can win the Democratic presidential nomination may largely depend on the extent of “doublethink” that George Orwell described in 1984 as the willingness “to forget any fact that has become inconvenient.” It is an inconvenient…

  • Joe Biden Likes Republicans So Much Because He’s So Much Like Them

    By Norman Solomon Recent criticism of Joe Biden for praising Dick Cheney as “a decent man” and Mike Pence as “a decent guy” merely scratches the surface of what’s wrong with the current frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination. His compulsion to vouch for the decency of Republican leaders — while calling Donald Trump an…

  • Why So Many Journalists Are Clueless About the Bernie 2020 Campaign

    By Norman Solomon They don’t get it. Mainstream journalists routinely ignore the essential core of the Bernie 2020 campaign. As far as they’re concerned, when Bernie Sanders talks about the crucial importance of grassroots organizing, he might as well be speaking in tongues. Frequently using the word “unprecedented” — in phrases like “our unprecedented grassroots…