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Adele M. Stan

Adele M. Stan is a columnist for The American Prospect. She is research director of People for the American Way, and a winner of the Hillman Prize for Opinion & Analysis Journalism.

Recent Articles

The Constitution Is on the Ballot

Adele M. StanNov 02, 2018
(AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
(AP Photo/Evan Vucci) Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at Columbia Regional Airport, in Missouri on November 1, 2018. P resident Donald J. Trump wants you to believe that this election is all about him. And in a sense, it is. If Democrats take back either or both chambers of Congress, they can thwart the president’s agenda. It’s an agenda that requires thwarting if the republic is to be preserved. This week, the president made clear his willingness to disregard the Constitution of the United States, claiming he can override any provisions he doesn’t care for with a simple stroke of the pen. At present issue is the 14th Amendment, which confers citizenship on all who are born in the United States. Pundits have labeled this latest Trumpian gambit as a campaign “stunt”—the kind of promise that will evaporate, as if it were never made, after Tuesday’s midterm elections. They note the requirement of yet another constitutional amendment—a rightfully heavy procedural lift—to...

The Hate at the Heart of Power

Adele M. StanOct 29, 2018
(AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
(AP Photo/Andrew Harnik) Trump departs a rally at Southern Illinois Airport in Murphysboro, Illinois, on October 27, 2018. T hings are very bad. They’re very bad in America, and even worse in much of the world , thanks to the global rise of hate-fueled politics. Yet nearly two years after the election that delivered a proud bigot and pathological liar to the Oval Office, supporters of the lying bigot defend their man, acting as if there’s a debate to be had over whether the liar-in-chief’s behavior had anything to do with a week soaked in the blood of bigotry, beginning with the murder of an African American Kentucky couple by an apparent white supremacist (after he failed to gain entry to a black church), and ending with the massacre of 11 Jews in their place of worship by an anti-Semite. In between, another act of domestic terrorism against the United States of America—the attempted pipe-bombing of a former president and top members of his administration, among others—failed only...

Trump Continues His War on Journalists

Even as Jamal Khashoggi’s likely murder commands headlines, the president is dehumanizing journalists on the campaign trail and priming his base for more assaults on the First Amendment.

Adele M. StanOct 19, 2018
(AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
(AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster) Trump speaks to media before boarding Air Force One on October 18, 2018, at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland, on his way to Montana. O n Thursday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo went to the White House, where he briefed President Donald J. Trump on his meetings with Saudi and Turkish officials about the likely murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. Khashoggi, a critic of both Trump and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, was reportedly tortured, dismembered, and killed by a 15-man team at the direction of Saudi officials. After the secretary of state departed the White House, where he said he urged the president to give the Saudis a little more time to conduct their own investigation of the “incident surrounding Mr. Khashoggi,” as Pompeo called it, Trump boarded his plane for a campaign rally in Montana, where he lauded U.S. Representative Greg Gianforte for having assaulted a reporter during the 2016...

Trump Signals Journalists Are Fair Game

Adele M. StanOct 12, 2018
(AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)
(AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais) President Trump and Jared Kushner on October 1, 2018 I t should come as little surprise, I suppose, that a president who routinely demeans the press and has contempt for First Amendment demonstrations should have nothing bad to say about a regime that allegedly tortured and executed, inside its own consulate, a journalist living in exile. Never mind that the agents of that regime who are believed to have murdered the journalist also reportedly dismembered his body, and spirited it out of the diplomatic compound. If you think the case of Jamal Khashoggi is simply a Saudi thing, think again. His suspected murder, which allegedly took place in the Saudi embassy in Istanbul, could not have been carried out without the approval of the crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman—the very same crown prince who pals around with Jared Kushner, President Donald J. Trump’s son-in-law, and who rules a country whose investments in the Trump and Kushner businesses have...

Trump and McConnell Take Gaslighting to New Level in Kavanaugh Confirmation Fight

Adele M. StanOct 05, 2018
(AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
(AP Photo/Evan Vucci) President Trump arrives for a campaign rally in Rochester, Minnesota, on October 4, 2018. T he confirmation process for President Donald J. Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Judge Brett Kavanaugh, continues to be a significant test of the U.S. form of government, and a display of high drama. Washington, D.C., was only on its third cup of coffee when the presidential tweet hit: “The very rude elevator screamers are paid professionals only looking to make Senators look bad,” wrote Trump. “Don’t fall for it! Also, look at all of the professionally made identical signs. Paid for by Soros and others. These are not signs made in the basement from love! #Troublemakers .” He was speaking, of course, of the sexual assault survivors—mostly women—who have been following the example set by Ana Maria Archila and Maria Gallagher when they famously confronted Republican Senator Jeff Flake by holding his elevator door open and imploring him to consider the experiences of those who...

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