The Stance of Political Magazine, The Nation :: Media

The Stance of Political Magazine, The Nation The Nation magazine has been in operation since 1865 as the independent voice of America’s people. It is one of the oldest, if not the oldest, weekly political magazine in America and is one of the most popular opinion journals. According to The Nation’s original prospectus, The Nation will not be the organ of any party, sect, or body. It will, on the contrary, make an earnest effort to bring to the discussion of political and social questions a really critical spirit, and to wage war upon the vices of violence, exaggeration, and misrepresentation by which so much of the political writing of the day is marred.(Original Prospectus) It is easy to seen from the articles in the magazine that it is a voice for liberal opinions. Contributors to the magazine consist of such liberalists as Katha Pollitt, Eric Alterman, Alexander Cockburn, Christopher Hitchens, and Patricia J. Williams. Some past contributors include T. S. Elliot, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Martin Luther King, Jr., Albert Einstein, Eleanor Roosevelt, H.L. Mencken, Hannah Arendt, W.E.B. Du Bois and Jean-Paul Sartre. Even though the founders intended the magazine to be non-partisan, it is evident that The Nation is democratic. You can really tell that the magazine is democratic from the cover of their November 13, 2000 issue. On the cover is a picture making fun of recently elected President George W. Bush by picturing him as some kind of idiot who accidentally became president. More evidence of The Nation’s political stance is evident in the article â€Å"Nader and the Politics of Fear† by William Greider. In the article, Greider talks about how Ralph Nader and the Greens could be both harmful and helpful to the Democratic Party. Greider first addresses that Nader received 2.7% of the vote in the last Presidential Election that could have ensured Al Gore a clean victory. This has caused a lot of democrats in the party to despise Nader and the Greens. Portraying Nader in this fashion shows that The Nation is not extremely left winged. Later on in the article, Greider talks about how the Democrat Party has â€Å"fallen† in the House and the Senate. He describes how the Democrat Party is now a minority party for the first time since 1950s, and that the party must get used to this fact in order to survive.