The Ignoble Afterlife of the Trump Staffer
Is there life after President Donald Trump? Former members of his administration are struggling to find out. The president is burning through subordinates at a far greater clip than any other recent...
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The Price of Meat
When Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other Democrats launched the Green New Deal in February, its enemies had a cow. The policies proposed would not just regulate beef production, Donald Trump complained...
View ArticleThe Unintended Consequences of Trump’s Trade War
The Trump administration’s year-long quest to reform China’s economic policy has seemed to be motivated by an America First mentality. “Tariffs are working far better than anyone ever anticipated,” the...
View ArticleDemocrats Need an Anti-Austerity Message
It’s a simple truth: Republicans explode the deficit when they’re in power. But, as soon as they’re out of power, they demand austerity—while painting Democrats as wasteful socialists who trade...
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The Inevitable Emptiness of the 2019 Met Gala
The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s annual fundraising gala this year was themed “Camp: Notes on Fashion.” It occasioned much exhausting handwringing among the commentariat, who couldn’t help but note...
View ArticleThe Fox & Friends Pardon for War Crimes
When President Donald Trump exercises his power to pardon federal crimes, it’s usually to send a message. Last March, in an implicit jab at Hillary Clinton’s handling of classified information, he...
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Going Under at the Playboy Club
Almost exactly 56 years ago, Gloria Steinem published an investigative tell-all in Show magazine titled “A Bunny’s Tale.” She had applied for a job as a Playboy Bunny under the name Marie Catherine...
View ArticleThe Republicans Are Dead to Planet Earth
When the Green New Deal started to gain steam with voters across the political spectrum last year, the Republicans faced a choice. They could counter Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s plan with...
View ArticleUber Drivers Strike Before Owners’ Big Payday
By the time the New York Stock Exchange closes on Thursday, Uber—which will float its initial public offering that day—could raise $10 billion from investors across the world. Uber drivers—who,...
View ArticleThe Worst Businessman in America
Any dwindling belief that Donald Trump’s business career represented anything other than “The Art of the Scam” died Tuesday night when The New York Times reconstructed the president’s federal tax...
View ArticlePete Buttigieg’s Honeymoon Is Over
It appears that the media’s long (in news-cycle terms) honeymoon with Pete Buttigieg is over. Gone are the days of flattering coverage from, well, pretty much everywhere—stories about Buttigieg’s love...
View ArticleWaynesville Diarist
Mr. and Mrs. Gudger sat down next to my desk. Their faces were gaunt, bleak, and pale. Four days earlier their only son had shot himself dead at 24. “You’re the man who put that in the paper ain’t...
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Vigilante Men
In late February, the self-proclaimed commander of a rightwing militia group based in northern New Mexico issued an urgent proclamation to listeners of the group’s YouTube radio show.“We have 2,500...
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How To Think Freely
In September of 1959, Nikita Khrushchev made his Hollywood debut. The Soviet premier had arrived in the United States for a twelve-day tour at the invitation of President Eisenhower. During his stay,...
View ArticleArguing in Bad Faith
The alt-right has always had an awkward relationship with traditional conservatives. Its love of conspiracy theories, its penchant for violence, and its need for enemies make it hard to build a...
View ArticleHomelessness Is Not a Crime
Denver received national attention this week after voters there passed Initiative 301 to decriminalize hallucinogenic mushrooms. The result of Initiative 300, which would have repealed the city’s ban...
View ArticleThe Gross Inequality of Death in America
One of the most disquieting facts about life in the United States today is that the richest American men live 15 years longer than the poorest men, while for women it’s 10 years. Put a different way,...
View ArticleRed Herrings
This spring, conservative media took the message the president had soberly delivered in his State of the Union address—that “America will never be a socialist country”—and transformed it into a berserk...
View ArticleBig Pharma Is Pushing a Big Lie
In June of 2017, 26-year-old Alec Raeshawn Smith died on the floor of his apartment from diabetic ketoacidosis, a condition where, without insulin, the blood turns acidic and causes organ failure. His...
View ArticleTrump Declares War—on Accountability
The Trump administration has spent the past week refusing to give an inch, wielding executive privilege as a shield against every subpoena and request from Democrats. On Wednesday, the House Judiciary...
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