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We’re Not Polarized Enough
Many of our political forebears pined for more polarization. For much of the last century, America’s two parties were so ideologically diverse that social scientists, politicians, and pundits fretted...
View ArticleHow Democrats Can Win Coal Country—and the 2020 Election
It’s been a rough spring for the United States’ long-shrinking coal industry. The U.S. is down to just 43,800 coal jobs, and as the coronavirus shutdowns continue to eat into energy demand, coal...
View ArticleThe End of The Trip
Ten years ago, when the first installment of Michael Winterbottom’s The Trip was released, the “bromance” was near its peak. The bromance featured dysfunctional men floundering in their love lives and...
View ArticleRebuilding Retirement After the Pandemic
With more than 30 million people in the United States currently out of a job, it’s not terribly difficult to imagine not working. But the coronavirus-related economic shocks have lately made it hard to...
View ArticleRonan Farrow Is Not a “Resistance” Journalist
In his latest column in The New York Times, Ben Smith has made a bold allegation against perhaps the most famous investigative journalist in America. Ronan Farrow’s reporting on sexual violence and...
View ArticleWorkers Deserve to Be Owners, Too
On Sunday, The New York Times ran a story on the Democratic Party’s surging interest in big ideas to revive the economy in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. Democrats, The Times’ Alexander Burns...
View ArticleIs Baseball Safe?
Will the United States get a baseball season this year? Do we deserve one? What is at stake—economically, emotionally, mortally—in the effort to start up sports again? On Episode 8 of The Politics of...
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Robert Stone’s Bad Trips
For the late, great novelist Robert Stone, modern American life could only be understood as a state of endless war. Though his combat experience was brief—he was an 18-year-old radioman on a U.S. ship...
View ArticleHonky-Tonk Sonnet
Before cancer, I was a country. Now—, I’m a fucking country Song: job gone, house gone, Wife diagnosed w/ Post-Traumatic Stress— I’m missing more organs...
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The Wolf House Is a Stop-Motion Nightmare
Since the pandemic began, the flow of movie industry publicity—flashy premieres, packed-out festivals, drip-fed interview “exclusives”—has ground to a halt. There are no summer blockbusters, no lines...
View ArticleWhen Will We Grieve the Covid Dead?
In the United States, we measure weight in pounds, distance in miles, and catastrophic losses in 9/11s. At press time, Covid-19 had claimed 88,754 victims in the U.S., a number that will surely be...
View ArticleDonald Trump’s Never-Ending War on Numbers
At a public appearance in Pennsylvania last week, President Donald Trump offered some fresh insight into how he views coronavirus testing. The country is still struggling to test for the virus at...
View ArticleThe Rise of the 3D-Printed Gun
In 2013, a then-25-year-old gun rights activist named Cody Wilson opened a potential Pandora’s box when his open-source gun design collective, Defense Distributed, released plans for the Liberator. The...
View ArticleBlow Up the Restaurant Industry and Start Over
March 14 would be the last Saturday shift that Sarah worked, though she didn’t know it at the time. “We were so busy, and everyone that came in was like, ‘I can’t believe how busy y’all are! It’s good...
View ArticleAmerica’s Deadly Obsession With Intellectual Property
In the face of several global crises, world leaders have yet to agree on how to handle intellectual property during emergencies. This week, American officials rejected language in a World Health...
View ArticleThe Unmattering of Black Lives
On May 20, 2015—almost five years ago to the day—the African American Policy Forum hosted #SayHerName: A Vigil in Memory of Black Women and Girls Killed by the Police, so that families from across the...
View ArticleThe Provocations of Kent Monkman
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is on all fours, his shoulders grasped by a snarling woman in dark gray chinos, his ass cheeks being spread apart by a woman in a light blue tank top, her head...
View ArticleWhy the Pandemic Is Driving Conservative Intellectuals Mad
Last week, First Things editor R.R. Reno, a prominent Catholic intellectual who backed Donald Trump for president, let the world know he’d had enough of the effete conformists following public-health...
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Jonathan Schell’s Warning From the Brink
Of the neologisms coined by early nuclear strategists to plan for World War III, “overkill” is the great crossover success. As a metaphor, it ranges as far from its original context as a word can—“The...
View ArticleI Lost My Job Cleaning Houses and Don’t Know Where I Go From Here
Before this pandemic hit, life was still difficult. I had to work all the time to meet my debt and keep on paying for my home and everything. I was doing house cleaning during the week, and I worked as...
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