Michael is an attorney in New York, and the creator of Syncopated Politics, a blog focusing on the intersection of history and politics (with occasional side-trips to Supreme Court rulings, economic conferences, films, and opera). He is a graduate of Johns Hopkins University (Political Science) and Fordham University Law School. He is fortunate enough to have married brilliantly and has two endlessly fascinating children, about whom he talks far too much. Email: mlissnyc [at] gmail.com
by Michael Liss We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearthstone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus…
by Michael Liss My father hated the Richard Strauss opera Ariadne Auf Naxos. Dad obviously had his preferences, and they had a certain strongly expressed idiosyncratic logic to them: He liked “good tunes,” so thumbs up to Verdi, Puccini, Rossini, Offenbach and Bizet. He didn’t like too much recit or harpsichord, which meant Mozart often…
by Michael Liss What moves the American soul? We love arguments, contests, and elections. Love the drama, the passion, the polarizing candidates, the fake piety, the rank partisanship, the heart-felt and often appallingly disingenuous editorials, and the heavy dose of moral relativism. It’s that time again. Baseball Hall of Fame ballots for the class of…
by Michael Liss I have a problem. Each December I write a political New Year’s ditty to send to friends and family. I’ve had a good time with them, even when the news (at least from my perspective) is less than cheery. I get to crib shamelessly from great authors of the past, ruin perfectly…
by Michael Liss I was born one mornin’ when the sun didn’t shine I picked up my shovel and I walked to the mine I loaded sixteen tons of number 9 coal And the straw boss said “Well, a-bless my soul” (“16 Tons” Merle Travis) Who in his right mind would want to be a…
by Michael Liss What happens when you get a bunch of lawyers together to discuss the possibility of a coup d’état? A Constitutional coup d’état? Don’t faint. To the obvious disappointment of a journalist who attended, this wasn’t some Trotskyite meeting in a small room with nicotine-stained walls, but a conference at the Fordham University…
by Michael Liss What are you reading? A friend asked me that question recently, and I almost found myself stumped. Reading isn't skimming. It's not staring at a screen, spasmodically flipping back and forth between the New York Times, Washington Post, Politico, Barron's, electoral-vote.com, Foreign Policy, NRO and anything else to which Twitter would lead.…
by Michael Liss I don't want to talk about affirmative action. It's a messy, horrible topic. I just don't want to talk about it. But earlier this month, the New York Times reported on a new Jeff Sessions initiative to hire political appointees for the DOJ's Civil Rights Division for "investigations and possible litigation related…
by Michael Liss Is American Democracy dying? For months, as I have watched the bizarre spectacle of the new Marshal in town and his posse, there's been a phrase rattling around in my head—the historian Allan Nevins' observation that "Democracy must be reborn in every generation." For Nevins, the man who met the moment was…
by Michael Liss The Founders are having a collective posthumous fit—and it's not because of Donald Trump. Yes, it's true, Trump is not ever going to be one of the guys on Mount Rushmore—unless he buys the place and converts it to a luxury spa and personal shrine. He's just not a Rushmore type. We…
by Michael Liss We all have our "desert island" videos. Send me with a couple of John Ford Westerns, perhaps Fort Apache and My Darling Clementine. Download to my notebook the first Godfather and the first Star Wars, and add something serious like The Sorrow and the Pity, Z, or the original Tinker Tailor Soldier…
by Michael Liss "What do you expect from a Republican?" Being the child of FDR Democrats, I can't tell you how many times I heard that. What does one expect from a Republican? Always siding with business and the wealthy over the interests of the common people. Loving wars; making them, spending big for the…
by Michael Liss That was quite close. But for a handful of votes, and some hubristic miscalculations, virtually all of the ACA would have gone down in a whirlpool of tax cuts and denials of coverage. And yet, the monster lives. The temptation is to fill volumes with the how and the why, all the…
by Michael Liss My 40th college reunion is coming up. Yes, it's a jolt to the system to realize that I've gone from a skinny young nerd to a skinny vintage nerd in what seems roughly the amount of time it takes to play an Orioles-Yankees game. I'm making the calls and sending the emails…
by Michael Liss I was in a 7-Eleven last Sunday morning for a restorative post-jog donut, when a big, late-middle-aged man with a MAGA hat and a matching red face came in. He grabbed a few tall-boys and a bag of ice, and made his way to the check-out line. To my reasonably educated eye…
by Michael Liss The news of the day is that Russian President Vladimir Putin will be a guest of honor at Donald Trump's Inauguration. He will be seated between Speaker Ryan and Senate Majority Leader McConnell, and there are indications from inside the Trump transition team that the President Elect has asked Putin to give…
by Michael Liss Are opera singers dumb? As a child, dragged to the Metropolitan by opera-obsessive parents in order to practice sitting absolutely still for three hours, I sometimes wondered about this. Certainly, on stage, there was a lot of dumb going on. What intelligent person could possibly trust evil Baron Scarpia to keep his…
by Michael Liss We got our butts kicked, and kicked very hard. Adlai Stevenson, ruminating about the results of the 1952 Election, recalled Abraham Lincoln's reaction to an electoral loss: We are like the boy who stubbed his toe—it hurts too much to laugh, and we are too old to cry. It's a few days…
by Michael Liss Sixteen. That was the percentage of respondents in a snap CNN post-second debate poll who said that they had heard about Donald Trump's “sex tape” and that it made them more likely to vote for him. 16 Percent. One in six voters surveyed, likely one in three (or more) of Trump supporters.…
by Michael Liss “Our commitment to academic freedom means that we do not support so-called ‘trigger warnings,' we do not cancel invited speakers because their topics might prove controversial, and we do not condone the creation of intellectual ‘safe spaces' where individuals can retreat from ideas and perspectives at odds with their own.”—John Ellison, Dean…