The Man Behind National Conservatism
Last week, the Ritz-Carlton in Washington played host to a much-hyped conference devoted to “national conservatism.” Hosted by the newly-formed Edmund Burke Foundation, the conference sought to sketch...
View ArticleBrazil Is a Bigger Threat Than Either Iran or China
As the manufactured crisis rumbles along with Iran, now ensnaring the United Kingdom, Washington policymakers are increasingly focused on another long-term threat: China. Last week, The New York Times...
View ArticleJustin Amash and the Libertarian Future
Earlier this month, Justin Amash, the libertarian representative of Michigan’s Third congressional district, announced that he was leaving the Republican Party, his political home of the last ten...
View ArticleThe Woman Who Could Beat Boris Johnson
Boris Johnson was elected leader of Britain’s Conservative Party last Tuesday, became prime minister on Wednesday, then set about purging high-level leaders in his own party (one tabloid’s headline...
View ArticleThe Manson Girl Who Got Away
Editor’s Note: August 9 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the so-called Tate murders, when followers of Charles Manson massacred five people, including actress Sharon Tate, in a home north of Beverly...
View ArticleThe Voice of a Microgeneration
“I’m going insane! I literally am addicted to the web!” wrote Jia Tolentino, aged ten, on an Angelfire site she created in 1999. Two years later, she was publishing several thousand words a week on...
View ArticleTrump’s Cynical War on American Citizenship
Last week, a nine-year-old girl was walking to school with her brother and two friends in San Ysidro, San Diego, when she was stopped by immigration officials, according to reports. The girl was an...
View ArticleThe Opioid Crisis Is About More Than Corporate Greed
“Just like Doritos keep eating. We’ll make more.”“It’s like people are addicted to these things or something. Oh, wait, people are...”These lines are from emails sent between opioid manufacturers and...
View ArticleColson Whitehead, American Escape Artist
Ten years ago, an article in the Tampa Bay Times began telling a little-known story. Its first two lines are as searing as any in American contemporary literature: “The men remember the same things:...
View ArticleThis Is the Soul of the Democratic Party
Halfway through the Democratic presidential debate in Detroit on Tuesday night, there was an illuminating exchange between Senator Elizabeth Warren, who consistently polls in the double digits, and...
View ArticleThe Simple, Odious Reason Mitch McConnell Opposes Election Integrity
Mitch McConnell is a victim of a “modern-day McCarthyism,” he claimed on Monday, after people on Twitter called him “Moscow Mitch” simply because he has spent a week blocking legislation intended to...
View ArticleStatus Quo Joe
The first words spoken by a candidate on Wednesday’s debate stage came from Joe Biden. “Go easy on me, kid,” he joked to Kamala Harris as she walked out on stage for the candidate introductions. The...
View ArticleLet’s Get into a Fight About Foreign Policy
Pity the poor optimist who was hoping to see Joe Biden or Kamala Harris tested on a core component of the job they’re seeking. The president of the United States, as the country’s primary...
View ArticleThe Sparta Fetish Is a Cultural Cancer
Last spring, 28 Tory hardliners unleashed another round of havoc on British politics, refusing to vote for Prime Minister Theresa May’s compromise Brexit plan and paving the way for her replacement by...
View ArticleClimate Change Is Finally Getting the Attention It Deserved 20 Years Ago
In many respects, the second round of Democratic presidential debates represented a step forward in the fight against climate change. The issue was not directly mentioned at all during the 2012 and...
View ArticleThe Democratic Party Is Culling the Field Too Soon
More than a half-century ago, when law schools boasted a high flunk-out rate, unsmiling deans welcomed each incoming class by saying, “Look at the student on your left. Look at the student on your...
View ArticleQuentin Tarantino’s #MeToo Moment?
As the final act of Once Upon a Time ... In Hollywood begins, the Rolling Stones’s “Out of Time” starts to play. The chorus (“baaaby, baaaby, baaaby you’re out of time”) is like a mean Ronettes song....
View ArticleHow Prisons Inflate Rural Voters’ Power
The Trump administration suffered its worst legal defeat yet last month when the Supreme Court effectively forced it to keep a citizenship question off the 2020 census. Had the effort succeeded, fewer...
View ArticleToward an Electoral College-Free Future
“Abolish the Electoral College,” Bernie Sanders recently tweeted. The Senator’s statement was in response to an op-ed authored by The Cook Political Report’s Dave Wasserman, who posited that though...
View ArticleThe Second-Amendment Case for Gun Control
The past week’s string of horrific mass shootings already have triggered a predictable set of reactions from across the political spectrum—but especially among Republicans. GOP leaders typically frame...
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