E. J. Dionne

Eugene Joseph Dionne Jr. (/diˈɒn/) is an American journalist, political commentator, and long-time op-ed columnist for The Washington Post. He is also a senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution, a professor in the Foundations of Democracy and Culture at the McCourt School of Public Policy of Georgetown University, and an NPR, MSNBC, and PBS commentator.

E. J. Dionne
Dionne in 2008
Born	Eugene Joseph Dionne Jr. Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.
Occupation	Author, columnist
Education	Harvard University (BA) Balliol College, Oxford (DPhil)
Subject	Religion, history, politics, left-wing politics
Spouse	Mary Boyle
Children	3

Early life and education

Dionne was born in Boston, Massachusetts and raised in Fall River, Massachusetts. He is the son of the late Lucienne (née Galipeau), a librarian and teacher, and Eugène J. Dionne, a dentist.^[1][2] He is of French-Canadian descent.^[3] He attended Portsmouth Abbey School (then known as Portsmouth Priory), a Benedictine college preparatory school in Portsmouth, Rhode Island.

Dionne graduated in 1973 with a B.A., summa cum laude, in social studies from Harvard University, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and was affiliated with Adams House. He also earned a DPhil in sociology in 1982 from Balliol College, Oxford, where he was a Rhodes Scholar.

Career

External videos
Booknotes interview with Dionne on Why Americans Hate Politics, August 25, 1991, C-SPAN

Dionne's published works include the influential 1991 bestseller Why Americans Hate Politics, which argued that several decades of political polarization was alienating a silent centrist majority. It was characterized as radical centrist by Time.^[4] Later books include They Only Look Dead: Why Progressives Will Dominate the Next Political Era (1996), Stand up Fight Back: Republican Toughs, Democratic Wimps, and Politics of Revenge (2004), Souled Out: Reclaiming Faith and Politics After the Religious Right (2008), Our Divided Political Heart: The Battle for the American Idea in an Age of Discontent (2012), and One Nation After Trump: A Guide for the Perplexed, the Disillusioned, the Desperate and the Not-Yet Deported (2017), coauthored with Norman J. Ornstein and Thomas E. Mann. His most recent book is Code Red: How Progressives and Moderates Can Unite to Save Our Country (2020).

Dionne is a columnist for Commonweal, a liberal Catholic publication. Before becoming a columnist for the Post in 1993, he worked as a reporter for that paper as well as The New York Times. He has joined the left-liberal The National Memo news-politics website.

Personal life

Dionne lives in Bethesda, Maryland, with his wife, Mary Boyle; they have three children: James, Julia, and Margot.^[5]

Writings

• Why Americans Hate Politics. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991. ISBN 978-0671682552.
• They Only Look Dead: Why Progressives Will Dominate the Next Political Era. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996. ISBN 978-0684807683.
• Community Works: The Revival of Civil Society in America (editor). Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1998 ISBN 0815718675.
• Stand Up, Fight Back: Republican Toughs, Democratic Wimps, and the Politics of Revenge. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004. ISBN 978-0743258586.
• Souled Out: Reclaiming Faith and Politics After the Religious Right. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008. ISBN 0691134588.
• Our Divided Political Heart: The Battle for the American Idea in an Age of Discontent. New York: Bloomsbury, 2012. ISBN 1608192016.
• Why the Right Went Wrong: Conservatism from Goldwater to the Tea Party and Beyond. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2016. ISBN 978-1476763798.
• One Nation After Trump: A Guide for the Perplexed, the Disillusioned, the Desperate, and the Not-Yet Deported. With Norman J. Ornstein and Thomas E. Mann. New York: St. Martin's Press, 2017. ISBN 9781250164056.
• Code Red: How Progressives and Moderates Can Unite to Save Our Country. New York: St. Martin's Press, 2020. ISBN 9781250256478.

References

1. Fletcher, Paul (May 5, 1988). "Fall River native E.J. Dionne returns as New York Times political reporter". The Providence Journal. Archived from the original on June 30, 2018. Retrieved July 21, 2012.
2. McCarthy, Sean (March 22, 2012). "Columnist E.J. Dionne has fond memories of Fall River". SouthCoastToday.com. Retrieved July 21, 2012.
3. "Q&A With Bob Levey". The Washington Post. March 7, 2000. Retrieved July 21, 2012.
4. Duffy, Michael (May 20, 1991). "Looking for The Radical Middle". Time magazine. Retrieved February 21, 2013.
5. "E.J. Dionne: W. Averell Harriman Chair and Senior Fellow - Governance Studies". The Brookings Institution. July 2016. Retrieved May 26, 2017.

External links

• Washington Post page
• Brookings Institution page
• Georgetown Faculty web page
• Interviewed by David Axelrod, "The Axe Files"
• NPR page
• Truthdig page
• Biography from the Washington Post Writers Group
• "Conversation with History" interview
• Appearances on C-SPAN