Jeff Taylor

Jeff Taylor
36 POSTS93 COMMENTS
Jeff Taylor was born and raised in Spencer, Iowa. He is Professor of Political Science at Dordt College. He is author of three books: Where Did the Party Go?: William Jennings Bryan, Hubert Humphrey, and the Jeffersonian Legacy (University of Missouri Press), Politics on a Human Scale: The American Tradition of Decentralism (Lexington), and The Political World of Bob Dylan: Freedom and Justice, Power and Sin (Palgrave Macmillan).  He has written for Green Horizon Quarterly, Modern Age, Chronicles, The American Conservative, FirstPrinciplesJournal.com, HuffingtonPost.com, LewRockwell.com, AntiWarLeague.com, and CounterPunch.org. He is roughly half German, a quarter English, and the rest is Irish, Scotch-Irish, and French. Jeff spent his entire life in the Midwest until moving to Alabama in 2008. He returned to his home state three years later. He has degrees from Northwestern College, University of Iowa, and University of Missouri. His research emphases are American politics, political theory, political history, and international relations. Jeff can be reached via email at wherego (at) aol.com.

Recent Essays

Trump in Context

Sioux Center, Iowa. In what he represents, Donald Trump is not as unique as either his admirers or his despisers think. How do we explain...

Clinton, Kissinger, and the Democratic Tradition

Why would a self-proclaimed progressive Democrat pay honor to a Republican who exemplifies both dollar diplomacy and gunboat diplomacy?

Bob Dylan and Christian Zionism

CounterPunch has published my article on one aspect of Dylan’s foreign policy: his view of the modern state of Israel.  It touches on the...

ISIS and Paris

The “Barack Obama/John McCain Brigade” strikes again—horribly.  The U.S. federal government has sown creative destruction in the Middle East, and the world is reaping...

Iowa Conference on Presidential Politics

Dr. Jeff Taylor, Professor of Political Science at Dordt College, invites you to attend the Iowa Conference on Presidential Politics. It will be held...

The Letter to Iran and Bipartisan Hype

Sioux Center, Iowa.   Most Republican members of the U.S. Senate have signed a public letter to the Iranian government warning that any agreement with...

Common Good Politics: A Review of Nader’s Book

In his new book, Ralph Nader argues that the Left and the Right should unite against the economic and political establishment in the Center.

Elite vs. Popular

This week, in Strasbourg, there was a fine and frank denunciation of the European Union by Nigel Farage, British member of the European Parliament. ...

Not Even on the Radar

In a small attempt to connect political theory to actual power, last week I sent messages to some GOP members of the U.S. Senate...

Politics on a Human Scale: Historiography

The language of “human scale” politics originated, at least in modern America, among the New Left and the Counterculture. More recently it has been adopted by traditional conservatives (appropriately enough).

What You Need to Know About Dwight Macdonald

Dwight Macdonald was one of the twentieth century’s great public intellectuals. American culture was Macdonald’s specialty, including government. A journalist by trade, Macdonald’s first professional...

Truth on the Losing Side

Justice Scalia’s dissents in the two same-sex “marriage” cases are worth reading. The first opinion addresses the idea of judicial supremacy within the federal...