Andrew Delbanco, Columbia’s favorite English professor and just about everybody’s favorite social critic, has put down his more customary meditations on Melville, Lincoln and the like and instead pens his reflections on this year’s election in the current issue of The New York Review of Books

Although he focuses on what he calls the “race card,” Delbanco touches on everything from the Dixiecrats and de Tocqueville to both his daughter’s and his own career in education.  If you’re in one of his classes you’re probably familiar with Delbanco’s political credo already.  If not, this piece offers insight from one of Alma’s finest.