Media

A year ago this week, a white man named Garry from North Carolina called C-SPAN to talk to a black guest about his racial prejudices. He confessed that he feared black people and wondered aloud how he might change. The guest, Heather McGhee, the president of Demos, a progressive public policy organization that advocates for equality, listened thoughtfully, nodding slowly.

New York, NY – In response to Donald Trump’s pardon of former Sheriff Joe Arpaio, Demos Vice President of External Affairs Tori O'Neal-McElrath released the following statement:

"Tonight Donald Trump has doubled down on his bigoted and hateful rhetoric with his pardon of Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who has been found guilty of racial profiling of Latinos. Trump has again sided with white supremacists who seek to divide our nation with racism. 

Trump has again sided with white supremacists who seek to divide our nation with racism.

New York, NY – Today, in response to Donald Trump’s visit to Phoenix, Arizona, Demos Vice President of External Affairs Tori O'Neal-McElrath released the following statement:

“At Donald Trump’s disastrous rally in Phoenix tonight, we saw more of the same bigoted, hateful rhetoric from President Trump that continues to tear our nation apart. With every speech, and every action, we see more of who Donald Trump truly is: our divider-in-chief.

After 9/11, George W. Bush turned immigration into a national security issue. He created the ICE and U.S. Customs and Border Protection, folding them both into the Department of Homeland Security. It was based “on the myth that our country would be more safe if we cracked down on immigration,” Katherine Culliton-González, a senior counsel for the left-leaning think tank Demos, told the New Republic. “ICE became part of this national security agency.”

The share of student loan borrowers who entered repayment owing $20,000 or more doubled — from 20% to 40% — between 2002 and 2014, according to a report published Wednesday by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. What’s more, the share of borrowers entering repayment with $50,000 or more in debt tripled during the same period, the CFPB report found, jumping from 5% to 16%.

“Class has always been racially determined in this country,” Heather McGhee, president of the left-leaning public policy group Demos, told me. “In a country where you can have a credo of equality and social mobility and the ability of any man to rise as far as his talents and drive can take him, that has always had to be put in relative terms.” [...]

The groups have stepped up their game, and more recently have targeted counties and states known to play crucial roles in elections. They also began attracting the attention of major voting rights groups like Demos and the League of Women Voters, which sought to intervene in the lawsuits and help the elections officials put up more of a fight.

If Americans truly want the soul of our democracy back, we must dismantle systems that support the violence we saw in Charlottesville.

Two years ago, 54 percent of Republicans told Pew colleges had a positive impact on the direction of the country, according to that survey. That fell to 43 percent last year and 36 percent this year. Democrats, meanwhile, have gradually become more positive about higher education, with 72 percent this year viewing higher ed as having a positive effect, up from 65 percent in 2010.

Even so, observers on both the left and the right said the Education Next findings are interesting but not necessarily surprising.