The Unnatural Endurance of Bipartisanship
Joe Biden ran for president promising to “revive” the spirit of bipartisanship, put an end to factional battles, and bring Americans together after an era of painful division. Yet faced with an...
View ArticleDr. Seuss! Mr. Potato Head! Why the Culture Wars Have Never Been Dumber
Speaking on the House floor on Tuesday, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy updated Martin Neimoller’s famous post-Holocaust poem. “First they outlaw Dr. Seuss,” he solemnly intoned, “and now they...
View ArticlePence Is Still Pushing Trump’s Big Lie
It’s been almost two months since former Vice President Mike Pence narrowly escaped a violent mob of Trump supporters in the Capitol building that wanted to lynch him for betraying the former...
View ArticleChang-Rae Lee Skewers a Globalized Get-Rich-Quick Scheme
By March 2020, there was no denying that the mysterious virus that had ravaged the city of Wuhan—and placed large parts of China in varying levels of quarantine—had arrived in the United States....
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The Tribal Coalition Fighting to Save Monarch Butterflies
Seventeen years ago, Jane Breckinridge came home. A citizen of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation with a great-grandmother who was Euchee, Breckinridge had left Oklahoma after high school to attend Macalester...
View ArticleJust Rewrite the Senate Rules Already
As part of their ongoing effort to delay passage of the Democratic Covid-19 relief bill, Republicans are forcing Senate clerks to read the entire text aloud on the Senate floor. The bill is around 600...
View ArticleHow Real Is Nomadland?
The director Chloé Zhao’s films have been described as poetic. That could mean that her work seems always to be seeking the sublime: in the wide, luminous stretches of South Dakota’s Badlands, where...
View ArticleThe NatSec Bros Who Want to Save Congress From QAnon
Marcus Flowers may be the most mysterious person in American politics. On January 18, which was also his last day working for the Defense Department in a position he refuses to disclose, the career...
View ArticleThe Manifest Destiny Marauders Who Gave the “Filibuster” Its Name
In the summer of 1855, William Walker, a ruthless, ambitious, famously short Tennessean, invaded Nicaragua with a private militia, declared himself president, and reintroduced slavery. For his brief...
View ArticleMy Pandemic Year Behind the Checkout Counter
A few weeks ago at work, a man came in the door, crouched down, and shit on the floor. Colleagues who witnessed it happening were shocked but not surprised. This kind of thing—incidents having to do...
View ArticleJoe Manchin Wants to Pass a Popular Gun Control Bill That Will Save Lives,...
It’s difficult to remember now, but one of the last major items on the table for Congress before the novel coronavirus swept the globe last year was a gun control bill. Early in 2019, House Democrats...
View ArticleCall the Fossil Fuel Industry’s Net-Zero Bluff
This week marked a kind of coming out party for the Biden-era fossil fuel industry. At CERAWeek, the industry’s annual energy conference, its top brass talked about how eagerly they’re participating in...
View ArticleDoes Biden Want Less War or Just War With More Rules?
A clandestine airstrike here, a little diplomacy there, a wink and a nudge to America’s favorite Saudi failson dictator, and some paeans to democratic accountability at home—President Joe Biden’s...
View ArticleDavid Brooks and the Endless Grift of the Conservative Commentariat
How do you get rich? Writing last month in the preferred mode of his late career—the hastily written commencement address—David Brooks let his readers in on one weird trick that will help them enter...
View ArticleKyrsten Sinema’s Self-Defeating, Nonsensical Defense of the Filibuster
This year, all around the country, Republican state lawmakers are pushing an alarming array of bills that are designed to make it harder to vote. They’re targeting absentee voting, early voting, voting...
View ArticleInside a Long, Messy Year of Reopening Schools
Last month in Chicago, after months of heated negotiations, the teachers union and Chicago Public Schools emerged with one of the most detailed school reopening agreements in the nation. Brad Marianno,...
View ArticleThe Gen X Culture Warriors Who Never Grew Up
Other than the joys and sorrows of leaving New York City (or staying there), no recent topic has launched more exasperating essays than “cancel culture.” When Glenn Greenwald departed The Intercept...
View ArticleThe Outlaw Chemists Who Deserve a Cut of the Psychedelic Gold Rush
On November 6, 2000, Kansas Highway Patrolmen pulled over a rented Buick LeSabre on what seemed like a routine traffic stop. That was until the driver, 58-year-old William Leonard Pickard, bolted from...
View ArticleThe John Birch Society Never Left
The Republican Party is facing what many observers are describing as a William F. Buckley moment—a make-or-break opportunity to purge the racists and conspiracy theorists who are rapidly gaining...
View ArticleThe Great Blind Spot in Hurricane Preparedness
Hurricane season is creeping its way deeper into spring. Last month, The Washington Post reported that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is considering officially moving up the start...
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