The Midwives of Appalachia Get Organized
When Laura Browning was pregnant for the first time, she knew what she wanted from her birth experience. She wanted a home birth with a midwife, ideally, and if that wasn’t possible, she wanted a...
View ArticleRon DeSantis Is TNR’s 2020 Scoundrel of the Year
For so many of us, the person of the year is Nothing. The thing that killed mom or laid out the elementary school teacher was Nothing. Nobody saw it. Either dad tracked nothing home from the grocery...
View ArticleMitch McConnell Is Giving Us a Sneak Preview of the Political Hell to Come
President Trump says he wants most Americans to receive $2,000 checks from the federal government. So does the Democratic-led House of Representatives, which voted Monday to bump up the total from $600...
View ArticleGetting to Denmark
In his 2011 book, The Origins of Political Order, Francis Fukuyama says, “The problem of creating modern political institutions has been described as the problem of ‘Getting to Denmark.’” He goes on to...
View ArticleThe Pragmatism of the Radical Climate Left
Even before the 2020 election cycle, centrist Democrats had a habit of portraying leftists and progressives as unflinching ideologues imposing purity tests on their fellow party members....
View ArticleThe Year of Magical Thinking in American Politics
Never in living memory has late December been so welcome; 2020, the year that lasted centuries, is nearly done. A lot of us didn’t make it. But for all the anxiety that mounted throughout the summer...
View ArticleWhen Historical Fiction Is a Crime
Ahmet Altan, one of Turkey’s most skillful historical novelists, lives in solitary confinement in a cell four meters long, at Silivri Prison, Europe’s largest penal facility. In I’ll Never See This...
View ArticleInstacart Is a Parasite and a Sham
The pandemic has devastated wide swaths of the U.S. economy, causing more than 22 million job losses and about 25 percent of small businesses to close, many of them for good. But some companies have...
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How to Fix the House of Representatives
In 2021, every state will use the results of the 2020 census to redraw the maps of American political power. Some states give independent commissions or nonpartisan officials the power to redraw their...
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This Year’s Underground Sensation: Modern Monetary Theory
At the close of 2020, it’s hard to think of another year in living memory that has forced such a radical rethinking of our politics and social life. The Covid-19 pandemic will be remembered as a dire...
View ArticleWill Joe Biden Betray the Climate Movement Like Justin Trudeau Did?
Tzeporah Berman has some words of warning for climate advocates elated that Donald Trump will no longer be president: Don’t do what Canadian activists did five years ago. Just as the American left...
View ArticleThe Importance of Brutal Honesty in This Pandemic Winter
In an address on Monday afternoon, Joe Biden offered a bleak preview of winter. “We need to be honest,” the president-elect said. “The next few weeks and months are going to be very tough ... maybe the...
View ArticleCancel Our Debts, Then Cancel Debt
The story of the pandemic is also a story about debt. One recent survey, conducted in October, found that more than a quarter of respondents had accumulated over $10,000 in new debts during the crisis....
View ArticleThe Future of Trumpism Is Not Josh Hawley. It’s Trump.
Missouri Senator Josh Hawley announced on Wednesday that he would take the courageous step of trying to overthrow an American election. When Congress formally counts the Electoral College votes on...
View ArticleThe Complicated Truth of Climate Change in the Marshall Islands
In 2011, as an anxious Republican from Utah, I fly with my husband and nine-month-old son to Majuro Atoll, the capital of the Marshall Islands. We fly D.C. to L.A., L.A. to Honolulu, then Honolulu...
View ArticleA Pandemic Dividend for Every American
With vaccinations underway and the Biden administration about to assume power, attention will soon return to an assessment of the true damage that Covid-19 has wreaked on the American economy. At this...
View ArticleThe Accused Fraudster Behind the Bitcoin Boom
Times are bad, which means, by the perverse logic of American capitalism, stock markets and speculative investments are flourishing. Bitcoin, the digital currency whose value is pegged to nothing but...
View ArticleHow Biden Can Bring Transparency Back to Government
On January 20, workers will disinfect every inch of the White House complex to prepare it for the new administration. While they’re doing that, President-elect Joe Biden could do some sanitizing of his...
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