Katrina vanden Heuvel: What Obama Got Right at the State of the Union

Katrina vanden Heuvel: What Obama Got Right at the State of the Union

Katrina vanden Heuvel: What Obama Got Right at the State of the Union

The Nation's editor appeared on All in With Chris Hayes to discuss conservative rebuttals to President Obama's annual address. 

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Nation editor Katrina vanden Heuvel joined Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz on MSNBC's All in With Chris Hayes to examine the Republican response to President Obama’s State of the Union address. Vanden Heuvel praised Obama’s decision to use executive orders to bypass an immobile Congres, insisting that the defensive response of the GOP was out of line with the limited economic reforms the president proposed. “The Nation is not for extreme manifestations of executive power," she said, "but executive power in support of the jobless, in support of the planet, in support of the homeless…in my mind this is not about left and right, it’s about right and wrong.”
Allegra Kirkland

We cannot back down

We now confront a second Trump presidency.

There’s not a moment to lose. We must harness our fears, our grief, and yes, our anger, to resist the dangerous policies Donald Trump will unleash on our country. We rededicate ourselves to our role as journalists and writers of principle and conscience.

Today, we also steel ourselves for the fight ahead. It will demand a fearless spirit, an informed mind, wise analysis, and humane resistance. We face the enactment of Project 2025, a far-right supreme court, political authoritarianism, increasing inequality and record homelessness, a looming climate crisis, and conflicts abroad. The Nation will expose and propose, nurture investigative reporting, and stand together as a community to keep hope and possibility alive. The Nation’s work will continue—as it has in good and not-so-good times—to develop alternative ideas and visions, to deepen our mission of truth-telling and deep reporting, and to further solidarity in a nation divided.

Armed with a remarkable 160 years of bold, independent journalism, our mandate today remains the same as when abolitionists first founded The Nation—to uphold the principles of democracy and freedom, serve as a beacon through the darkest days of resistance, and to envision and struggle for a brighter future.

The day is dark, the forces arrayed are tenacious, but as the late Nation editorial board member Toni Morrison wrote “No! This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.”

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Onwards,

Katrina vanden Heuvel
Editorial Director and Publisher, The Nation

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