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What's the matter with Democrats?
It is a widespread belief among liberals that if only Democrats can continue to dominate national elections, if only those awful Republicans are beaten into submission, the country will be on the right course. But this is to fundamentally misunderstand the modern Democratic Party. Drawing on years of research and first-hand reporting, Thomas Frank points out that the Democrats have done little to advance traditional liberal goals: expanding opportunity, fighting for social justice, and ensuring that workers get a fair deal. Indeed, they have scarcely dented the free-market consensus at all. This is not for lack of opportunity: Democrats have occupied the White House for sixteen of the last twenty-four years, and yet the decline of the middle class has only accelerated. Wall Street gets its bailouts, wages keep falling, and the free-trade deals keep coming.Partner:The Baffler -
The Idealist: Aaron Swartz and the Rise of Free Culture on the Internet
_Slate_ correspondent **Justin Peters** talks with editor-in-chief of [_The Baffler_](http://thebaffler.com/ "") **John Summers** about Peters' book, _The Idealist: Aaron Swartz and the Rise of Free Culture on the Internet_. Peters looks at the lively history of the Internet, its free culture movement and its larger effects on society, in particular how it was part of the life and shocking suicide of Aaron Swartz, a founding developer of [Reddit](https://www.reddit.com "Reddit Homepage") and [Creative Commons](http://creativecommons.org "Homepage for Creative Commons"). Co-Hosted with [Harvard Bookstore](http://www.harvard.com/event/justin_peters/ "co-hosting") Referenced in the talk: [The Internet's Own Boy](http://www.takepart.com/internets-own-boy "") (2014) [The Boy Who Could Change the World](http://thenewpress.com/books/boy-who-could-change-world ""), (Newpress, 2015) (Photo: [Reddit](https://www.reddit.com/r/GetMotivated/comments/2cfwxg/image_aaron_swartz_quote/ "Reddit: Aaron Schwartz page"))Partner:The Baffler -
The Tsarnaev Trial and the Rest of Us, with Noam Chomsky
Just as Dzhokhar Tsarnaev faces the beginning of his trial for the bombing of the Boston Marathon, Paris shakes from the assassination of French magazine satirists. “A New Era of Terrorism” has commenced, according to *The New York Times*. Governments emit loose talk of “fundamental values.” Patriotic slogans such as “Boston Strong” paper over global anxiety, as everyone prepares for further massacres and retributions. Welcome to the new world order. In this light, *The Baffler* magazine sponsored a neighborhood forum on the war on terror and the rule of law. **Noam Chomsky**, author of 9/11, and **Kade Crockford**, director of the [ACLU of Massachusetts’ Technology for Liberty Project](https://www.aclu.org/technology-and-liberty/aclu-massachusetts-announces-technology-liberty-justice-all-initiative "ACLU-Liberty"), for a discussion moderated by Baffler editor **John Summers** in the heart of Inman Square—the very neighborhood in which Dzhokhar and his alleged co-conspirator and older brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, lived, worked, shopped, and worshipped among us. (Image: Jane Flavell Collins / AP)Partner:The Baffler
