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Paul Starr

Paul Starr is co-founder and co-editor of The American Prospect. and professor of sociology and public affairs at Princeton University. A winner of the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction and the Bancroft Prize in American history, he is the author of eight books, including Entrenchment: Wealth, Power, and the Constitution of Democratic Societies, which will be out next year.

Recent Articles

Trump’s Nomination Will Shake Confidence in American Democracy

We already had reasons to worry about democracy. Now we have one more.

Paul StarrMay 04, 2016
(Photo: Sipa USA via AP/Monica Jorge)
(Photo: Sipa USA via AP/Monica Jorge) Protesters gather in Hartford, Connecticut, during a rally for GOP presidential candidate Donald J. Trump on April 15. W ith his victory in Indiana yesterday, Donald Trump is now, as he claims, the “presumptive” Republican presidential nominee. Although the polls indicate he’ll likely lose to Hillary Clinton, the election is half a year away, and a lot can happen in between. The consequences of Trump’s becoming president would be momentous for both America and the world. It would change forever the way we think about democracy—and the way the world thinks about America. In fact, his nomination alone will have a deep impact even if he ultimately loses. A major-party nomination legitimizes a candidate’s views as worthy of fair consideration. As a “birther” doubting Barack Obama’s citizenship, Trump could be treated as a crank. In the early stages of the primary campaign, his statements about Mexicans and Muslims could be regarded as the wild...

The Strange Silence about Sanders’s Tax Proposals

Bernie Sanders has proposed tax increases that ought to give Democrats pause, but hardly anyone is talking about them.

Paul Starr | April 12, 2016

The Democrats as a Movement Party

What would it take to get the “broken engine of progressive politics” working again?

Paul StarrMar 29, 2016
Albin Lohr-Jones/Sipa/AP Images
Albin Lohr-Jones/Sipa/AP Images Following her victories in the Democratic primaries on "Super Tuesday," Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton spoke at a rally for her supporters, many representing local unionized labor, at the Jacob K. Javits Center in New York City. This article is a preview of the Spring 2016 issue of The American Prospect magazine . Subscribe here . P olitical parties in the United States are typically broad coalitions that bring disparate groups together to win elections. In a two-party system, those coalitions are usually the only way the different constituencies and their leaders can hope to gain a share of power. At times, however, parties become closely aligned with social movements that shift the base of party support, or the parties themselves take on the character of a movement. Much of American history is remembered this way—as a series of movements that inspired change in parties, won elections, and transformed the nation. But that historical...

What If Trump Had Run as a Democrat?

A Trump campaign in the Democratic Party could also have created havoc—except for one thing.

Paul StarrMar 17, 2016
AP Photo/John Minchillo
AP Photo/John Minchillo Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump works the rope line during a campaign stop at the Savannah Center, Sunday, March 13, 2016, in West Chester, Ohio. A number of observers have said Donald Trump’s march to the Republican presidential nomination is a case of chickens coming home to roost. And it’s true: The GOP has for years been playing to white resentment, and Trump has just exploited that potential more aggressively than anyone else. From this standpoint, the Republican Party’s leaders have no one to blame but themselves for the hijacking of their party. But let’s play a little “alt” history and imagine that several years ago, Trump began calculated moves to run as a Democrat. Let’s imagine also that Beau Biden had never developed brain cancer, and that his father, Joe, had decided to run for president, so the “mainstream” Democratic vote was more divided. Planning to run as a Democrat, Trump would have avoided backing the “birther” movement, but...

The Larger Problems of the Sanders Single Payer Plan

Putting our nation's health care under federal control would create more problems than it would solve. 

Paul StarrFeb 29, 2016
AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin
This is a contribution to Prospect Debate: The Cost of Sanders's Single-Payer Health Plan . prospect-debates-icon.jpg T hink about what a single-payer health plan means. The federal government pays for all health care for everyone. The pleasant thought is that all of your health expenses are being paid for. The unpleasant thought is that since all those expenses come out of the federal budget, your health care now depends on the decisions of Congress and the president. And an even more unpleasant thought—at least for progressives who may be inclined to support single-payer—is that people with progressive values will not always be in charge in Washington and therefore wouldn’t always be making those decisions. In “ The False Lure of the Sanders Single-Payer Plan,” I raised a series of objections to Sanders’s proposal. Responding from the Sanders camp, Gerald Friedman devotes all his attention to one aspect of my criticism: the cost estimates by Kenneth Thorpe that I cited. Joining in...

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