Voter suppression works, but President Donald Trump’s new election integrity commission is unlikely to do anything about the problem…especially because it is chaired by a prominent architect of voter suppression laws. But we have some ideas that would help. By Donkeyhotey and Klaus Marre.

Computer experts have no confidence in Georgia’s election results. By Lulu Friesdat.

Some voters in rural Oregon are seeing what happens when taxpayers force government into retreat. Libraries are blinking out. Jails might be next. By Kirk Johnson.

The case of a German lieutenant suspected of planning a right-wing terror attack has unsettled both political and army leaders. The question of whether the Bundeswehr is a right-wing haven is as old as the army itself. By Volker Wagener.

How does a citizen respond when a democracy that prides itself on being exceptional betrays its highest principles? Plato despaired, but he also pointed the way to renewal. By Rebecca Newberger Goldstein.

Legendary New York City newspaper columnist Jimmy Breslin died on Sunday at the age of 88. This profile originally appeared in the November, 1987 issue of GQ and appears here with permission from the author. By Ambrose Clancy.

The Walden author isn’t a misanthrope—just misunderstood. By M. Allen Cunningham.

Defending the liberal project is a Sisyphean task in part because successfully inculcating liberal norms leads to habits that weaken the ability to sustain them. By Conor Friedersdorf.

How Cornel West went from liberal media darling to pariah. By Connor Kilpatrick.

The Germans, 1933-45 by Milton Mayer, an excerpt.

Wouldn’t it be great to have a viable female presidential candidate who wasn’t a former first lady? By Christina Cauterucci.

As read to the crowd at Aaron Swartz Day, at the Internet Archive, San Francisco, November 5, 2016.

Should I send a letter or make a phone call? By Emily Ellsworth.

Martin Luther King Jr. (Final Sermon, Feb. 4, 1968)

Historic debate between James Baldwin v. William F. Buckley Jr. at Cambridge University on the question: "Is the American Dream at the expense of the American Negro?"

A librarian in Kansas City, Missouri, was recently arrested simply for standing up for a library patron’s free speech rights at a public event featuring a former US diplomat. Both the librarian and the patron face criminal charges. One hopes that the case—only the most recent of many attacks on our libraries' defense of free speech and privacy—will be resolved without further cost, trouble and damage. By Francine Prose.

Conventional wisdom sees Socrates as a martyr for free speech, but he accepted his death sentence for a different cause. By Josiah Ober.

In the aftermath of the Civil War, devotees of the Lost Cause wanted to take back America, and proceeded to slaughter African Americans. By Calvin Schermerhorn.

He knew how to protect democracy – not by rote and rules but by growing independent-minded kids. Let us not forget it. By Nicholas Tampio.

Against viewing the library as a mere engine of social mobility. By Clare Coffey.