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Articles by Jason Riley
Plantation Slavery Made Planters Rich and the South Poor. That’s the Math the Reparations Pitch Ignores.
Slavery was neither central to America’s founding nor the primary source of the country’s subsequent prosperity. Yet both ideas have gained currency in recent years, making it likely that the nation’s slaveholding past will figure prominently in commemorations of the 250th anniversary of American independence.
The Truth About Slavery and America
Slavery was neither central to America’s founding nor the primary source of the country’s subsequent prosperity. Yet both ideas have gained currency in recent years, making it likely that the nation’s slaveholding past will figure prominently in commemorations of the 250th anniversary of American independence.
America Is Running Out of Patience with Republicans
Voters no longer blame Joe Biden for the state of the economy, and Trump’s policies haven’t delivered. Are Americans in a patient mood? The Trump administration certainly hopes so. Give us time, the White House pleads. We’ll tackle the elevated costs of food, energy, medicine and other necessities that gobble up middle-income wages. We’ll address those housing prices—up more than 50% since 2019—which have made owning a home so difficult for first-time buyers. Stop all the grousing already.
Who We Are: Race and Meritocracy
Jason L. Riley, senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and one of the most incisive voices in today’s debates over race and public policy, joins Rafael Mangual to discuss how the Left frames racial disparities to advance a victimhood mentality, rather than solutions rooted in responsibility, opportunity, and community empowerment. This site is protected by hCaptcha and its Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
The Minimum Wage Makes the Affordability Crisis Worse
Higher labor costs push prices up, while fewer jobs and hours mean less money in workers’ pockets. Increasing the cost of hiring an employee is an odd way of addressing the supposed affordability crisis. Yet some of the same people complaining about consumer prices are also celebrating the minimum-wage hikes set to take effect on Jan. 1.
Donald Trump’s Affordability Failures Will Cost Him
The economy has gone from one of the president’s best issues with American voters to one of his worst. Every election is about “affordability” in one way or another, but recent cycles have given us remarkably blunt messaging on the issue from both sides of the aisle. Republicans and Democrats are arguing over how to reduce the cost of living, not whether it’s necessary. Donald Trump was re-elected last year after promising to bring down prices that had risen to record levels under his predecessor.
Trump Is Remaking the Electorate. Will It Last?
In Steadfast Democrats, their insightful analysis of black political behavior published in 2020, political scientists Ismail White and Chryl Laird argued that black voting patterns are largely a function of peer pressure. In the post-civil rights era, supporting Democrats—regardless of their track record on housing, unemployment, schools, public safety—became not only the right thing to do but also the “black” thing to do.
Eric Adams Drops Out, but That Won’t Stop Mayor Mamdani
It’s unclear who’ll be hurt more by the socialist’s election—New York or the Democratic Party. New York Mayor Eric Adams’s decision to drop his re-election bid was the right call, but don’t expect it to stop the Zohran Mamdani juggernaut with only five weeks until Election Day. In announcing his exit from the race, Mr. Adams blamed negative media coverage and the decision by the city’s campaign finance board to deny him millions of dollars in matching funds.
The Myth of Victimization – Mark Pulliam
History will harshly judge the United States’ prolonged vacillation over whether to honor the Fourteenth Amendment’s command of color-blindness by government actors in the wake of Brown v. Board of Education, with the Supreme Court earning much of the blame. Brown vindicated Justice Harlan’s lonely dissent in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), which proclaimed that “our Constitution is color-blind.” Yet, it took the Justices 45 years, from Bakke in 1978 to SFFA v.
Blacks Don’t Need Political Saviors
When Barack Obama won the presidency in 2008, it marked the culmination of a civil rights strategy more than four decades in the making. Following passage of the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965, activist organizations like the NAACP ramped up efforts to elect more black officials, operating on the assumption that black political power would naturally lead to black upward mobility. In some respects, this focus on integrating political institutions produced remarkable results.
Trump’s Minority Shift
In his memoir, My Grandfather’s Son, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas recounted his days as head of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission under President Ronald Reagan in the early 1980s. “I offered my assistance to President Reagan’s reelection campaign, only to be met with near-total indifference,” he wrote.
The Affirmative Action Illusion
Be sure to receive our expert commentary on racial preferences and other issues. Sign up for the City Journal newsletter today. Read more of our affirmative action and preferences coverage here. One byproduct of a half-century of affirmative action is that it has given many Americans the impression that blacks can’t advance without special treatment.
Unpopular, Polarizing, and Ineffective
Last year, in anticipation of two Supreme Court cases challenging the use of race as a factor in college admissions, the New York Times ran a story on public opinion of affirmative action. The coauthors queried a dozen college students and were flabbergasted by the responses, though they shouldn’t have been.
Unpopular, Polarizing, and Ineffective
Be sure to receive our expert commentary when Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard is decided. Sign up for the City Journal newsletter today. Read more of our affirmative action and preferences coverage here. Last year, in anticipation of two Supreme Court cases challenging the use of race as a factor in college admissions, the New York Times ran a story on public opinion of affirmative action.
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