The Far Right’s Secret Weapon: Fascist Fashion
At first glance, there doesn’t seem to be much out of the ordinary about them. A t-shirt showing a mountain and deer and the slogan “Respect Nature.” A black polo shirt with black, white, and red...
View ArticleThe Overdue Death of Democratic “Pragmatism”
It’s an unwritten rule in political journalism today that Amy Klobuchar, the Minnesota senator and Democratic candidate for president, must be described as “pragmatic.” There isn’t much mystery as to...
View ArticleWhat This Massive Cross Really Stands For
What exactly does the cross stand for, and who gets to decide? The Supreme Court will wrestle with the question on Wednesday morning when it hears oral arguments in American Legion v. American Humanity...
View ArticleHow Robert Mueller Changed Washington
Even before special counsel Robert Mueller hands in the findings of his investigation, his inquiry has already left its mark on the nation’s capital.Washington is a different town today than it was...
View ArticleNorth Korea Is Not Vietnam
Nine years ago, when I lived in Ho Chi Minh City in southern Vietnam, I overheard three North Korean men having beers by a hotel pool. I tried to strike up a conversation with them in my elementary...
View ArticleThe Art of the Deal You Can’t Refuse
Donald Trump’s former personal attorney had a simple message for Congress on Wednesday: The president is a crook. “I am ashamed because I know what Mr. Trump is,” Michael Cohen, a fixer for Trump for...
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Can Jeremy Corbyn Save Britain From Brexit?
For most of his career, Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour MP for Islington North since 1983, has been well respected in activist circles and parodied in parliamentary ones. Between 1997 and 2010, under the...
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The Weight of Experience
Early in his memoir Heavy, Kiese Laymon writes, “My body knew things my mouth and my mind couldn’t, maybe wouldn’t, express.” It knew that blue cheese dressing made him feel better after awkward...
View ArticleWhat Nancy Pelosi Gets Right About the Green New Deal
Last week, Senator Dianne Feinstein was caught on video condescending to a group of school-age climate activists, telling them “there’s no way to pay for” the Green New Deal. “I’ve been in the Senate...
View ArticleRefusing to Repatriate “ISIS Brides” Is a Terrible Idea From Any Perspective
Hoda Muthana, who grew up in Alabama, and Shamima Begum from London are both in Kurdish-run refugee camps in northern Syria. Both have infant children. And both have been told that, because they left...
View ArticleDo Venezuelans Actually Want U.S. Help?
Three trucks loaded with food and medicine for the Venezuelan people went up in flames last week on the Colombia-Venezuela border, as the country’s military engaged with opposition forces in a burst...
View ArticleThe Sensible Politics of Soaking the Rich
Everybody hates taxes. That’s one of the unalienable truths in U.S. politics, and it’s been proven again as the April 15 filing deadline approaches. A drop in tax refunds earlier this year, potentially...
View ArticleThe Anguish of the “Old Millennial”
In the never-ending semantic struggle that is generational terminology (if one thing remains consistent from generation to generation, it is that a giant block of people never know what to call...
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He Said, She Said
When Afternoon of a Faun, the new novel by James Lasdun, landed on my desk, I knew only two things: that this was a #MeToo novel about rape allegations written by a man, and that this man had already...
View ArticleIndia Adopts Bush’s “Hot Pursuit” Principle
It is a page from the American playbook. On February 26, 2019, twelve days after a suicide bomber with a truck laden with explosives rammed into a bus carrying Indian paramilitary soldiers, Indian...
View ArticleHow to Save Americans From the Hell of Work
Elite workers are in existential crisis: Their stable, well-paying jobs are making them “miserable.” That’s the takeaway from several recent articles in the (elite) press. In the New York Times...
View ArticleConservatives’ Coming War on the Warren Court
Two years after Clarence Thomas’s bruising confirmation hearing in 1991, The New York Times reported that the Supreme Court justice told two of his law clerks that he planned to serve until 2034. That...
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A Single Life Full of People
To love is no easy task. An abundance of literature and pop culture warns us of its trickiness, and often, personal experience emphasizes the point. We love, when people are disagreeable and obnoxious;...
View ArticleThe Potency of Republicans’ Hamburger Lie
Conservatives are starting beef with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez again. Earlier this month, on Showtime’s Desus & Mero talk show, the freshman congresswoman said her plan to fight climate change—the...
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Rescue a Refugee: Get Charged With Trafficking?
The case was sensational. Two young volunteers stood accused of masterminding a massive smuggling operation on the Greek island of Lesvos, innocently disguised as a search-and-rescue NGO. One, Sarah...
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