Suzanne Fields

Diploma divide shapes women’s votes

When the term Gender Gap was coined several decades ago it sounded like something from a playful movie satire set in the Old West. Gender Gap gained prominence in the language of politics when Ronald Reagan was elected president in 1980 with 55 percent of male voters and just 47 percent of the women.

November 16, 2016

The reveal of the long and brutal election of ‘16

If Tuesday were a novel, or even a dream, we could finish the last page and put the book down, to wake up to realize the book included no literal truth, that neither Donald Trump nor Hillary Clinton had been elected president of the United States.

November 9, 2016

The corruption of the public conversation

The political conversation had been deteriorating long before Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump opened their remarkable slanging match, but in the past few weeks the campaign has hit rock bottom in both style and content.

November 2, 2016

Boys falling behind in reading

Reading is not for sissies, as the front page of the newspaper demonstrates every morning in the homestretch of a raucous presidential campaign. But there's a deeper problem that civility and good manners won't cure.

October 26, 2016

Character is the quality that makes or breaks a president

"Reputation is the shadow," Abraham Lincoln said, "and character is the tree."

October 19, 2016

Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump the candidates we deserve

Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are only an accurate reflection of our culture of vulgarity and hypocrisy. Both of them. They're the candidates we asked for. The country may not deserve them, but we the people do.

October 12, 2016

Presidential campaign harsh and mean, but it’s business as usual

Every four years we get not only a presidential election, but a ferocious debate over how we elect the president. Is this really the best way to elect the leader of the United States and, by default, the leader of the free world? Must we be satisfied with campaigns that become carnivals of trash and trivia?

October 5, 2016

Inconclusive debate exposes Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump

So much anticipation, so little satisfaction. So much hype, so little substance. The first debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump was advertised as a championship fight between two eager brawlers. Each was expected to find the other's weak spot, hammer away, punch, counterpunch and finally land a knockout.

September 28, 2016

Campaign for presidency becomes rich elites vs. working class

Every presidential campaign draws on familiar pop culture references to bring the candidates down to earth. Critics use the references to illuminate the differences between voters of different generations.

September 21, 2016

Donald Trump showing sensitivity, Hillary Clinton gets cruel

What an opportunity Hillary Clinton missed with her talk about "basket cases." She blew a chance to broaden empathy for the unhappy, dissatisfied, disenchanted voters who find Donald Trump's message of strength, making America great again, important and crucial.

September 14, 2016

Waiting for November election

T.S. Eliot only thought April is the cruelest month. He didn't live long enough to sample the 2016 presidential campaign. Besides, he skipped the country to take up citizenship in England.

September 7, 2016

Charles Sykes, a voice against retreat of reason, learning in higher education

The University of Chicago is an intellectually elite school that can make fun of its seriousness. The slogans on undergraduate T-shirts immortalize it as the school "Where fun comes to die," or "The level of hell Dante forgot." They're only half-joking.

August 31, 2016

Sexual politics is still a dangerous game

Sexual politics is always a slippery game. Democrats are salivating at the possibility of winning the White House with Hillary Clinton. They're enamored of the wide female gender gap in her favor. (Nobody says very much about the male gender gap running the other way.)

August 24, 2016

Summer of ‘16 shows political hot air

The crickets, whose melancholy chirping is always the knell of the sunniest season, sound particularly mournful this summer of '16.

August 17, 2016

When identity politics trump everything

Identity politics, which threatens to suffocate the body politic as the nation stumbles toward an election, takes a slice of a person's background, magnifies it as a perception of personality as if it lends significance to the whole person. Hyphenating Americans didn't start with blacks; there's an ancient tradition of Irish-Americans, Italian-Americans and Anglo-Americans and others separated by that persistent hyphen.

August 10, 2016

Patricia Smith, mother of Sean Smith, vilified after RNC speech

"Greater love hath no man than this," the Bible tells us, "that a man lay down his life for his friends." Surely none hath a greater sacrifice than the woman who lays down the life of her son for his country. On that, even in these parlous and precarious times riven by strife, anger and irreconcilable conflict, we can all surely agree, and pay honor and tribute to such a woman.

August 3, 2016

Sexual politics changing at the speed of light

Sexual politics continues to change at the speed of light. Some men get it, others don't. Among those who don't is Roger Ailes, who thought he could continue to star in an episode of "Mad Men" long after the sitcom and the era it represented passed its sell-by date.

July 27, 2016

Presidential campaigns bring out best, worst of partisans

Presidential campaigns bring out the best and the worst in the American partisan. The nominating conventions evoke exuberance and awe, excessive indulgence and sometimes even quiet dignity. Some speakers express humility and others parade a supercilious arrogance.

July 20, 2016

Robots join police forces

The surreal fact in the human tragedy in Dallas is that the evil sniper who slew five police officers was not finally killed by a fellow officer, but by a mechanical robot. This conjures science fiction images of killer robots deployed against man. It's not altogether reassuring.

July 13, 2016

Mourning with a message

We weep for Eli Wiesel in his life. We mourn the loss of a man who lived the future in his past, fate and fame fused and burned permanently into the memory of a civilization that inflicted great suffering.

July 6, 2016