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Playing Soldiers
The World’s Only Corn Palace was crowded on this post–Independence Day weekend when I visited to see it thank me for my service. An estimated half-million tourists a year trek to Mitchell, South...
View ArticleTrump and His Deplorables
Hillary Clinton had a point. In September 2016, the Democratic presidential candidate, criticized some of her rival’s supporters for backing him. “You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could...
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Lila Savage’s Say Say Say Is a Breakthrough in Women’s Fiction
Kirkus Reviews recently called Lila Savage’s debut novel Say Say Say, about a care worker who tends to a middle-aged woman with a serious brain injury, “tedious,” condemning her as “an author who is...
View ArticleThe Man Who Fell to Earth
For most of this year, Joe Biden has strutted across stages in New Hampshire and Iowa, and at swanky fundraisers in New York and California, as if he were already the Democratic nominee. Questions...
View ArticleMake the Guarantee Clause Great Again
The Supreme Court’s 5–4 ruling in Rucho v. Common Cause last month dealt a harsh blow to American democracy. For the last decade, federal courts were the strongest bulwark against partisan...
View ArticleMen of God and the Genesis of the U.S.-Saudi Relationship
On February 14, 1945, Saudi Arabia’s King Abdulaziz Ibn Saud, his advisors, and United States Envoy William Eddy crossed the gangplank from the USS Murphy to the USS Quincy for the first ever meeting...
View ArticleWhen John Paul Stevens Eviscerated Antonin Scalia
John Paul Stevens, who died on Tuesday, served on the Supreme Court for 35 years. His tenure, the second-longest in the court’s history, placed him in the middle of the great legal controversies of the...
View ArticleIt’s Not Strategy, It’s Racism
The idea that Donald Trump plays “3D chess” has never been particularly plausible; still, it was one of the most persistent themes of the 2016 election. The concept was (and is), to be fair, quite...
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The Very Small World of VC
In the nineteenth century, there was a lot of money to be made tracking down sperm whales off the coast of Massachusetts—harpooning them, melting down the fat into oil, and bringing the bones ashore. A...
View ArticleWe’re Having the Wrong Debate About a $15 Minimum Wage
The Democratic Party has moved left on myriad issues in recent years, but perhaps nowhere more dramatically than on the minimum wage. It wasn’t long ago that President Barack Obama and Democrats in...
View ArticleMississippi Quotes John Roberts to Defend Its Racist Election Law
Virtually every state in the Union elects its governor and other statewide offices by popular vote. Mississippi does something different. First, a candidate must win a majority of the statewide popular...
View ArticleBiden’s Pitch to Voters: Dream Small
If there’s one thing Joe Biden wants people to know about his new health care plan, it’s this: It is not Medicare for All. “Read the plan,” he told reporters about his proposal, which would bolster...
View ArticleFacebook Is a New Form of Power
Typically for Silicon Valley, Facebook’s June announcement of plans to launch a global, digital currency—Libra—spoke of empowering billions of people, especially those without access to banking. Also...
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The Banality of Lindsey Graham
It may be hard to believe now, but Lindsey Graham was once considered a relative moderate. During the Obama years, the South Carolina senator backed legislation that would create a legal path to...
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Svetlana Alexievich’s Child’s-Eye View
Svetlana Alexievich was born in 1948 in Ukraine, three years after the end of World War II. Shortly afterwards, her father moved the family back to his homeland, Belarus, where Alexievich would grow up...
View ArticleDon’t Depoliticize Abortion
Last week, when Planned Parenthood Federation of American abruptly pushed out President Leana Wen after less than a year in her position, it brought a long-simmering debate at the organization into the...
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What Women Want
The notion of “privacy” has done a lot to protect predators. The #MeToo movement has tried to trespass on that boundary, to remove the veil that had hidden the behavior of successful men. But ordinary...
View ArticlePlease Don’t Blow the Mueller Hearings
When lawmakers question witnesses on Capitol Hill, they typically do so in order of seniority. That’s why Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, one of the most prominent House Democrats despite being elected only...
View ArticleAfter 48 Years, Democrats Still Haven’t Gotten the Memo
In 1971, soon-to-be Supreme Court Justice Lewis F. Powell Jr. wrote a memo to Eugene Sydnor Jr., the education director at the United States Chamber of Commerce. Powell told Sydnor and the Chamber that...
View ArticleThe Obscene Difficulty of Depriving a Troubled White Man of a Gun
Darryl Varnum, a technology contractor for the Pentagon, is facing federal charges for threatening to kill Florida Democratic Representative Frederica Wilson over a vaccination bill. He’s a gun owner,...
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