The Unheroic Life of Stan Lee
A nerdy slacker is hanging around the mall, having been dumped by his girlfriend earlier that day. He is staring in the window of a lingerie store, when a sharply dressed older guy with gray hair and...
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The Comedy Industry Has a Big Alt-Right Problem
In the dark recesses of the internet lurks a man who goes by ToxicCisWhiteMaleFat. He makes his home on onaforums.net, a community named after the shock jock duo Opie & Anthony—a safe space to say...
View ArticleOverworked, Underpaid, and Cutting Corners: The Crisis in Home Health Care
A few years ago, Stella started working as a nursing assistant at Almost Family in Chilton, Wisconsin. She liked the job at first—the hours were flexible, and she had a good connection with her...
View ArticleCan We Stop Obsessing Over Every Personnel Decision Made by The New York Times?
Who edits The New York Times? This is not, at least at first glance, a particularly complicated question. Dean Baquet has been the executive editor of the newspaper of record since 2014, a period of...
View ArticleThe Worst Impeachment Defense in American History
If you tuned in to the first day of Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial, you saw the process at its worst and its best. Tuesday’s proceedings were devoted to resolving the question of whether it...
View ArticleModerate Democrats’ Cruel Calculus on Who Deserves Stimulus Relief
Late last week, as Thursday turned into Friday, the Senate took the first major step toward passing the Biden administration’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package through budget reconciliation,...
View ArticleThe Unfulfilled Promise of Julian Bond
Three years before he died at 75 in 2015, Julian Bond sat down for an interview on his life and work. Asked how he would like to be remembered, Bond replied, with his characteristic alloy of amiable...
View ArticleThe Dakota Access Pipeline Trades Temporary Jobs for Lives
President Joe Biden has a decision to make. Wednesday, February 10, marks the court-mandated deadline for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to declare its immediate plans for the Dakota Access Pipeline,...
View ArticleBiden’s Pledge to Pull Back in Yemen Is Full of Holes
In a major foreign policy address at the State Department on February 4, President Joe Biden announced an end to U.S. support for the war in Yemen waged by a coalition led by Saudi Arabia and the...
View ArticleA Covid Uprising in America’s Jails
Where there was once a window on an upper floor of the St. Louis City Justice Center stood a row of people in yellow prison uniforms, with masks over their noses and mouths, framed by shards of broken...
View ArticleDoes Jack Dorsey Have Any Clue What He’s Doing?
Donald Trump, the twice-impeached former president, is permanently banned from Twitter. If you didn’t see this coming—if you expected Trump to return to shit-posting after being sent to the corner for...
View ArticleThe Damnable Senators of the Republican Party
When Trump was impeached for the first time, I wrote article after article about the various defenses that his allies had employed and why they didn’t hold up to scrutiny. The Ukraine scandal, after...
View ArticleThe Entire Republican Party Is on Trial
The choice ahead for the 50 Senate Republicans is stark. In the words of that old labor song, “Which side are you on?”In their masterful and, at times, heartbreaking presentation, the House impeachment...
View ArticleMachiavellian Moments
Niccolò Machiavelli is viewed in the popular imagination as a sinister figure who dispensed cynical advice to ambitious politicians on how to achieve and exercise power. His reputation among scholars...
View ArticleMardi Gras Is an Environmental Disaster
Residents and businesses along the Gulf Coast may be missing the Mardi Gras festivities canceled due to the pandemic this year. The planet probably isn’t.Shiny Mardi Gras beads used to be few in number...
View ArticleLauren Oyler Is a Tough Critic of Contemporary Fiction. Can Her Novel Do Better?
We all know the story. Boy meets girl. Boy tells girl about his life. Girl goes home and cyberstalks boy. Girl discovers boy lied about his life. Girl confronts boy. Boy comes clean. Boy and girl start...
View ArticleThe Press’s Strange Memory-Holing of Trump’s First Impeachment
No piece of Covid-era filmmaking has been praised quite as much as the 13-minute montage that opened the second impeachment trial of Donald Trump. CNN’s Chris Cillizza argued that it was “unfathomable...
View ArticleHow the Democratic Party Can Create a Majoritarian Coalition
The Saturday afternoon following Election Day 2020 felt like a holiday Democratic voters feared would never happen. In cities across the country, interracial crowds, united in masked joy, rushed out of...
View ArticleTrump’s Guilt Is Far Beyond a Reasonable Doubt
Watching the House managers present their case in Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial reminded me less of an actual criminal trial and more of the conclusion of the HBO miniseries Chernobyl. In the...
View ArticleFire Louis DeJoy
If you’ve sent or received any mail over the last few months, you may have noticed that the United States Postal Service is not in great shape. After Louis DeJoy, a Republican fundraiser, took over as...
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