The Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders campaigns are trying everything in their power to show that they’re friends of the African-American community. Beyond obvious cultural pandering like dabbing and Nae Nae-ing on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, the Democratic candidates have spoken about and offered more policies specifically targeted at the black community than almost any…

Barack Obama has been lying to us. Not about whether he’s a liberal or a conservative, or something trivial like his golf handicap. Obama has been lying to America about what kind of president he is. After the 2014 midterms, Obama finally acknowledged that the Republicans would rather see the entire country go to hell in…

As the race for the Democratic nomination gets tighter, the serious gaps between presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders and the black Democratic voters they seek become more and more apparent. The Clinton name in the black community has retroactively sunk faster than the names Tavis Smiley, Bill Cosby and Stacey Dash combined. Her…

The New Hampshire primary results Tuesday both complicated and simplified the Republican race. Donald Trump won with a resounding 35 percent, winning his first state, followed by Ohio Gov. John Kasich at a surprising 16 percent. Rounding out the rest of the ballot was an essential three-way tie for the third-best loser, with Texas Sen. Ted…

Super Bowl Sunday can bring up a whole slew of emotions for people across the sports and nonsports spectrum. Decades of marketing have turned it into a de facto American holiday that everyone is supposed to care about. So even if you don’t care about football, you feel pressured to attend, like when you go…

If you listen very, very quietly, you can almost hear it buzzing just below the surface of the post-Iowa caucus coverage. It’s not quite the howling of a newborn calf or the chirping of a baby bird cracking out of its eggshell, but the sound of a new political narrative being born has a distinct…

Editor’s note: All day Monday The Root will be publishing short dispatches from our politics editor, Jason Johnson, in Iowa, where he is following the action ahead of tonight’s caucus. Follow this story for updates. You can also follow his caucus reporting on Twitter. Des Moines, Iowa, Sun., Jan. 31: Different Faces, Different Views, Same Opponent…

Even when you know a show is about an ensemble cast, there are still those who stand out. And when they’re not there, the entire show suffers. When Simon left American Idol; when Nene Leakes left Real Housewives of Atlanta; even way back when Toni left Girlfriends, you just knew the show wouldn’t be the…