Paolo Sorrentino’s Loro Will Make You Feel Complicit
How a political film should aim to make you feel is a tricky question. There’s the Ken Loach approach, worthy and moving but, in this overcrowded landscape, arguably not fashioned to persuade (or even...
View ArticlePete Buttigieg’s Health Care Plan Is the Worst Yet
Rejoice, Democratic lovers of Plans, for your presidential field’s second-string wonk candidate Pete Buttigieg has produced details for his health care plan. (To be fair, this is more than can be said...
View Article“What About China?” Is a Bad Response to the Climate Crisis
Whenever the subject of climate policy comes up in the United States, someone in the room, sooner or later, is sure to point out that China today emits more carbon dioxide than the U.S. What is China...
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The MAGA Plot
Ben Lerner writes novels about Ben Lerner. This sentence might have once sounded like a criticism. But since writing that collapses the distance between fiction and author—so-called autofiction—is au...
View ArticleThe Case Against the Popular Vote
Two hundred years ago, the Founding Fathers made a mistake. They decided that the president of the United States should be elected by a popular vote held among the entire country’s citizens. The...
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How to Sneak Up on Area 51
Two Christmases ago, my friend Doug Laux asked me to drive with him on Nevada 375, the Extraterrestrial Highway, to stay in the haunted Clown Motel and then roll to the back gate of Area 51. Naturally,...
View ArticleDemocrats’ Drug Price Bill May Be Dead on Arrival
After nine months of negotiation, Nancy Pelosi has unveiled her proposal to reduce drug prices. The bill would allow the Secretary of Health and Human Services to negotiate with drug companies on the...
View ArticleThe Argument Against D.C. Statehood Is Rooted in Racism
In February of 1873, James Shepherd Pike, a radical Republican journalist and longtime advocate for black suffrage, was assigned by the New York Tribune to cover a Deep South state legislature in the...
View ArticleKamala Harris Is Moving to Iowa
How do you break out of a funk? A change of scenery always helps. That, at least, will be Kamala Harris’s approach. After her notable performance in the June debate for Democratic presidential...
View ArticleThe “Cancel Culture” Con
On April 1, 1964, Herbert Ruhe, an ex-CIA agent formerly stationed in Vietnam, submitted a surveillance report to the office of the Manhattan District Attorney about a person of interest to city...
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Painting Over the Dirty Truth
In four minutes on Season 3, The Sopranos nails the ethical dilemma that has long mired the art world. Carmela Soprano’s consultation with the Jewish shrink is priceless: Facing the truth about Tony,...
View ArticleDonald Trump’s Best Ally Against Impeachment
There’s a certain rhythm to the last two presidential scandals that led to impeachment proceedings. Richard Nixon denied that he had tried to cover up the Watergate break-in during the two-year scandal...
View ArticleThe Democrats’ Disappointing Rhetoric on LGBTQ Rights
It was Valentine’s weekend in San Francisco in 2004. The city’s new mayor, Gavin Newsom, had been in office for less than two months when, in defiance of California state law, he began issuing marriage...
View ArticleWhy White Supremacists Are Hooked on Green Living
On Saturdays, Sarah Dye and her husband, Douglas Mackey, sell seasonal vegetables and eggs at a farmers’ market in Bloomington, Indiana. Sarah stands behind a stall piled high with heirloom tomatoes,...
View ArticleThe Conscience of Bret Stephens
There is a type of conservative who constantly clamors for war, who believes corporations and the men who run them are benevolent, who equates the cause of freedom with Western domination over the...
View ArticleBolsonaro Won’t Save the Amazon—But Corporations Could
As the Amazon continues to burn, Brazil’s president Jair Bolsonaro is attending his first United Nations General Assembly this week—not just any General Assembly, but the first time UN leaders will...
View ArticleDemocrats Can Do Better Than This
Rich people are just like us, in that they enjoy simple pleasures: Good food, vacations, and joining corporate boards. They simply can’t get enough of being on corporate boards—or sometimes charity...
View ArticleFinally
Nancy Pelosi has run out of excuses for inaction. In a press conference late Tuesday afternoon, the House majority leader announced the launch of an “official impeachment inquiry” in President Donald...
View ArticleImpeach Him For Real
Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s Tuesday announcement regarding the House Democrats’ impeachment plans is less significant than the build-up had suggested. After months of pressure from Democratic colleagues,...
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How War Made the Cigarette
On July 11, many thousands of people heard a fascinating story on NPR and WBUR’s Here and Now radio program, in which two esteemed historians asserted that Americans never would have been as dependent...
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