The Willful Blindness of Reactionary Liberalism
It was always a given that 2020 would be a year to remember. Even so, it continues to surprise. It seems likely that June will go down as one of the pivotal months of our political era, a period when...
View ArticleHow Anti-Pipeline Protesters Made the Fossil Fuel Industry Face Economic Reality
Well-heeled climate and energy wonks have long sought elegant market solutions to lower greenhouse gas emissions—tax incentives for green energy, or carbon pricing to gently nudge companies toward a...
View ArticleThe People Killed the Pipelines
On Sunday, Duke Energy and Dominion announced the cancellation of their natural gas pipeline project, the Atlantic Coast Pipeline. Citing constant legal challenges and rising construction costs—the...
View ArticleMonopolies Make Their Own Rules
When Mitchell and Karen Krutchfield got into chicken farming, they were told that it wasn’t for everyone; it would take about 10 years for their investment to pay off. If they could wait that long,...
View ArticleThe Left’s Deafening Silence on China’s Ethnic Cleansing
In an Alaska-sized chunk of western China known as Xinjiang, the greatest human rights atrocities of this unfurling decade continue to sprint forward, tipping toward genocide. The region has long been...
View ArticleThe Wrong Way to Grapple With a Public Health Crisis
Over the July 4th weekend, The New York Times’ editorial board unveiled a series of policy proposals to “move America society closer to realizing its ideals,” ranging from directing the Federal Reserve...
View ArticleThe American Obsession With Conspiracy Theories, Explained
The residents of Olympia Springs, Kentucky, all agreed that Mrs. Crouch was an unimpeachable witness. One afternoon in 1876, she was making soap in her backyard when meat “which looked like beef” began...
View ArticleThe Impossible Math of the Pandemic
Back in March, right as the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus a global pandemic, Joe Biden, now essentially the nation’s only choice for replacing Trump this fall, reaffirmed his...
View ArticleThe Problem With Yascha Mounk’s Persuasion
In an essay published on June 30, Johns Hopkins University political scientist Yascha Mounk laid out the principles that would define Persuasion, his new newsletter–think tank hybrid. Persuasion, he...
View ArticleThe Obscure Treaty That Could Kill a Global Green Recovery
American climate campaigners may well envy the European Union right now. As member countries emerge from their coronavirus lockdowns, EU top brass is pushing for a renewables-heavy recovery from the...
View ArticleThe Republicans Take America on a Death March
Late last month, Carsyn Leigh Davis turned 17 in an intensive care unit bed in Naples, Florida. Two days later, at 1:06 p.m. on June 23, she died at a children’s hospital across the state, in Miami,...
View ArticleKill the Tipped Minimum Wage
Most people who live paycheck to paycheck can still usually plan in two-week increments, but Sarah May-Seward plans “shift to shift.” She earns $40 per shift at a bar in White Lake Township in...
View ArticleThe Electoral College Is an American Humiliation
At a time when the daily news cycle reliably delivers a fresh source of mortification for most Americans, some moments of shame are stinging and acute. The United States is now seeing a steady rise in...
View ArticleTrump’s Reopening Agenda Is Upending International Students’ Futures
In what has become an increasingly familiar pattern, the Trump administration set off a wave of confusion, anguish, and uncertainty on Monday as Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced changes to...
View ArticleReproductive Coercion Wins at the Supreme Court
The Supreme Court has affirmed the rights of certain employers to deny contraceptive coverage in their health plans in a case involving a private Catholic health service challenging a long-fought-over...
View ArticleThe Shallowness of the Self-Aware Novelist
It’s never a great time to publish a book in which all or nearly all the characters are white, but now would seem to be a particularly bad time to do so. If you were to do such a thing, the book in...
View ArticleReading the Literature of Grief During a Pandemic
In April, New York magazine’s Molly Young wrote that the ravages of the pandemic had fostered a taste for a milder kind of book. “Now is the time for books that go down like rice pudding,” she said....
View ArticleInside the VA’s Long-Standing Racism Problem
The last straw for many black employees at the Kansas City Veterans Affairs hospital was its Juneteenth celebration. To commemorate the date in 1865 when word of emancipation reached slaves in Texas, a...
View ArticleWhen Cops Kill White People, Black Lives Still Matter
On August 10, 2016, Tony Timpa, a 32-year-old white businessman, called the police, claiming he needed help. As Timpa told the dispatcher, he had recently stopped taking his medication for...
View ArticleFear of a Forever-Trump Administration
In the past few years, various writers have posed what should be an unthinkable question: If President Donald Trump is defeated in this November’s election, what happens if he refuses to leave office?...
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