Glenn Beck, the Nutty Professor
Today, Glenn Beck looks almost nothing like the clean-shaven pundit who became famous delivering tearful Fox News monologues and emceeing Tea Party rallies. He has traded his signature dress shirts for...
View ArticleMeet Trumpworld’s Next Top Ukrainian Grifter
Ever since Rudy Giuliani decided to torch his legacy by gallivanting across Europe in search of potential “dirt” on former Vice President Joe Biden, the repercussions have been as swift as they’ve been...
View ArticleDoes Amy Klobuchar Have a Path to the Nomination?
In every stump speech, Amy Klobuchar uses a joke sequence that invariably gets chuckles and knowing nods from Iowa Democrats. She begins by saying that many caucus-goers believe that the best thing a...
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Patrick Modiano Explains Himself
Whenever I catch myself proselytizing about the work of Patrick Modiano—which happens, it turns out, quite often—I realize I sound, like every evangelist, a little crazy. I’ll say, “His books are...
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Science Fiction’s Wonderful Mistakes
From the mid-1920s, when Hugo Gernsback coined the term “science fiction,” several fallacies became associated with the increasingly vigorous commercial genre and never entirely went away. The first...
View ArticleI Captain a Rescue Ship. Global Warming Is Sparking a Whole New Refugee Crisis.
For my first voyage on an icebreaker ship in 2011, I was a ship’s officer and had just completed my bachelor’s degree in Nautical Sciences. I had an idea of what it would be like: There would be lots...
View ArticleHow the GOP Bamboozled The New York Times’ Politics Desk
When it comes to impeachment, no one with a brain is disputing the facts of the case: Donald Trump pressured Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskiy to investigate Joe Biden, using the president’s power over...
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The World The Economist Made
Warnings of a crisis of liberalism have become commonplace, as it is assailed by an illiberal right on the one side and a socialist left on the other. The situation is plain, and it is at least...
View ArticleYou Know What Tucker Carlson Believes
Five nights a week, Tucker Carlson uses his platform on Fox News to tell millions of viewers what he believes: that “the world’s poor” make the United States “dirtier and more divided,” that “the...
View ArticleCongress to Misplace Its Health Care Priorities One Last Time in 2019
As Democrats fight over whether to replace our rotting health care system or to instead build on the Affordable Care Act, the slow chipping away at the legacy of Obama’s signature achievement...
View ArticlePete Buttigieg Is No Foreign Policy Maverick
During last month’s Democratic presidential debate, on November 20, a tense moment—one of the few that night—arose when candidates Pete Buttigieg and Tulsi Gabbard clashed over, of all things, sending...
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Merce Cunningham’s Dance Out of Time
That dance is evanescent might be its most significant aspect, just as it’s said that death gives meaning to life. But culture depends on preservation. This tension seems impossible to reconcile. We...
View ArticleAmerica’s Toady
Every twelve months, Time magazine awards its Person of the Year title to a person or group of people who had the greatest impact on world events for that year. In 2001, the objective choice would have...
View ArticleCan the Internet Survive Climate Change?
In a tiny apartment in the Spanish coastal town of El Masnou, just outside of Barcelona, Kris de Decker runs a website completely powered by a small solar panel crammed into the corner of his balcony....
View ArticleTrump’s Plan to Let Big Banks Get a Piece of the Stadium Scam
In an age when banks like Wells Fargo actively scam poor people and are gifted multibillion tax breaks many times the size of whatever penalties they may face, it stands to reason that they don’t need...
View ArticleThe Truth Is, Donald Trump Wants No Part of This
A recurring theory is that President Donald Trump wants to be impeached, or that he is at least eager for the political brawl it represents. The New York Times’ Ross Douthat mused in September that...
View ArticleHow the Democrats Blew Trump’s Impeachment
Throughout the day Wednesday, the impeachment of President Trump was compared variously by Republicans to the Salem Witch Trials, Pearl Harbor, and the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. As of 4 p.m., 9/11...
View ArticleFacebook Is a Right-Wing Company, Part One Million
Peter Thiel is Big Tech’s most prominent Trump supporter. He is an unabashed enemy of the free press, having covertly funded a lawsuit that bankrupted Gawker three years ago. He has become one of the...
View ArticlePresident* Donald Trump
The House of Representatives voted to impeach Donald Trump on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress on Wednesday. For most of the members of the House who were there, it will likely be...
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A Unified Theory of the Trumps’ Creepy Aesthetic
From one day to the next, the Trump presidency unfolds more or less like a normal Republican presidency—that is, by committing one determined act of rote negligence or flamboyant cruelty at a time,...
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