Republican Phantasmagoria
With the end of the Cold War, and the victory of democratic market-capitalism over Marxist-Leninist socialism, Republicans were set free to concentrate their fire on dismantling the remaining legacies...
View ArticleJohn Bolton: American Coward
Long ago, in the distant mists of the Before Time, the House of Representatives impeached President Donald Trump for abuse of power and obstruction of justice. Both charges came in response to Trump’s...
View ArticleHow to Survive Supermax
This work is supported by a grant from the Solitary Confinement Reporting Project, managed by Solitary Watch with funding from the Vital Projects Fund. Since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, the...
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Lessons From the Long Movement to Defund the Military
Since the beginning of June, mass protests in over 750 towns and cities have decried the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis by police officer Derek Chauvin—and they have remade the possibilities...
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How Democracy Dies at the Ballot Box
On Saturday, April 4, Wisconsin Republican state lawmakers gaveled in a special legislative session. Seconds later, they gaveled the session to a close. With the Covid-19 pandemic rapidly spreading,...
View ArticleTrump’s Ineptitude Keeps Dream Alive for DACA Recipients
The Trump administration’s incompetence has once again undone one of its signature policy initiatives. The Supreme Court handed Trump a major defeat on Thursday in his campaign to end the Deferred...
View ArticleA Worker Uprising at Planned Parenthood
As Covid-19 hit New York, staff at a number of Planned Parenthood health centers found themselves facing two crises at once: keeping health services going and keeping their jobs. As some health centers...
View ArticleThe Government Can Afford Anything It Wants
If you’re like me, once or twice in your life you have jolted awake from the edge of sleep wondering, How exactly does the government pay for the military? As we all know, the military is an expensive...
View ArticleTurn Rikers Island Into a Solar Farm
The past and present of Rikers Island can tell you a lot about the United States. Richard Riker—the owner of the island, which had been in his slave-owning Dutch-German family since the 1660s—was an...
View ArticleAmerica Owes More to Its “Essential” Immigrant Workers
Beatriz knows that the piece of paper she was given by her employer, certifying her as a critical worker, is not what makes her essential. “I know they say now we’re essential, but we always have been,...
View ArticleIn Miss Juneteenth, a Mother’s Dream Deferred
Among the many schadenfreude-themed reality TV shows popular in America in the late 2000s, beauty pageants, particularly those involving children with capped smiles and unhinged mothers, form their own...
View ArticleYour Road Trip Is Not More Important Than Indian Country
In an article published last week by The Wall Street Journal, novelist and reporter Mark Childress wrote that he wanted to spend time traveling to “the parts of the country where nobody is.”...
View ArticleWhere Do Black Journalists Go From Here?
Talking about the whiteness of the media isn’t anything new but, this time, feels different. Earlier this month, Black New York Times staffers organized a public campaign to denounce a racist op-ed...
View ArticleTrump Is Terrorizing America
It is one of the oldest divisions of labor in politics. The presidential candidate points with pride at the past and waxes inspirational about the future. The running mate, in contrast, plays partisan...
View ArticleThis Is How Trump Plans to Beat Biden
There are few things the press and liberal commentators seem to enjoy more than tallying up the empty seats at a Trump rally. They can almost be forgiven for it—Trump’s boasts about crowd sizes...
View ArticleThe Myopic Fantasy of Returning to “Normal”
At the beginning of March, there were plenty of signs that normal life would soon be upended in the United States: The Chinese government had quarantined a city of 11 million; the Italian government...
View ArticleConservatives Might Want to Reconsider Their Love for Winston Churchill
In recent days, protests against racism in the United States have spread to the United Kingdom, where activists are advocating the removal of statues honoring Prime Minister Winston Churchill because...
View ArticleBehind the Conflicting Advice on Coronavirus Safety
The now-infamous event occurred on March 15: A choir gathered in Skagit County, Washington, for a socially distanced practice indoors. One choir member with coronavirus symptoms showed up to sing. Of...
View ArticleNo Money, No Lawyer, No Justice
In 1954, Kevin Green got his Social Security card and started picking cotton for $3 per hundred pounds in a tiny agricultural town in California’s Central Valley. He was five years old. One of seven...
View ArticleOttessa Moshfegh’s Pursuit of Disgust
The novel is a matter of seduction. Most novelists ply us with something we cannot resist—language, character, humor, story—to win our attention. Ottessa Moshfegh works by standoffishness, her language...
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