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 My dad was a pharmacist. He had an old-fashioned store (including an actual soda fountain and stools) and some of the old-fashioned tools of the trade: scales and eye-droppers, spatulas and ointment bases, graded flasks and beakers, amphorae, and his mortar and pestle. Pharmacy was a bit more of an art in…
by Michael Liss He flew so fast and so close to the sun that it took an entire lifetime to fall back to Earth. William Jennings Bryan was just 36 years old when, on July 9, 1896, he seized the Democratic Party’s Presidential nomination on the back of a single, electrifying speech, “Cross of Gold.”…
by Michael Liss Will you know what to do when the atomic bomb drops? This question, and others like it, are vividly on display in the 4K restoration of Jayne Loader, Kevin Rafferty, and Pierce Rafferty’s 1982 documentary, The Atomic Café. Having seen the movie when it was first released (my kids’ reaction to this information was…
by Michael Liss The other shoe dropped. Anthony Kennedy’s idiosyncratic role as a Justice of the United State Supreme Court will come to an end a mere week from now. A lot of things are going to change. Let’s start with the politics. Kennedy’s leaving cinches the conservative revolution (or counter-revolution) for at least a…
by Michael Liss Let’s talk about bullets and ballots. First, a thought experiment. Your son is about to become a father for the first time, and you want to get him something special. You have great memories of taking him hunting when he was a boy. So you go to a local gun show,…
by Michael Liss Celebrate with me. May is graduation month, and my children are among the graduates. My son marched two weeks ago for his Masters, and, if you are reading this on Memorial Day, it might be at the very same time I watch my daughter receive her Bachelor of Music. Go get ‘em,…
by Michael Liss “You should look into this, perhaps write a little something about it.” When Ed suggested something to you, it always emerged gently from his mouth as if on a cloud, and somehow morphed into a command by the time it reached your ears. He beckoned, I came, and now we were sitting together…
by Michael Liss History is fractal. Zoom out, and you see grand themes, mass movements, stirring oratory, and profound ideas. Zoom in, and it is countless individual acts and choices, smaller moments that often seem to be just footnotes, but are, on closer inspection, immensely revealing. On May 22, 1856, South Carolina Congressman Preston Brooks…
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…