The New Deal Wasn’t Intrinsically Racist
In recent decades, “racial disparity” has become the central framework for discussing inequities affecting African Americans in the United States. In this usage, disparity refers to the...
View ArticleNot Even Tom Hanks Can Save A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
In the aftermath of every school shooting, some well-meaning sort cites Fred Rogers—that’s Mister to you—and encourages us to look for the helpers. It’s Rogers quoting advice from his mother: It’s...
View ArticleThe Crown’s Case for the Monarchy
It would be easy to see The Crown as a show about Elizabeth II, the monarch whose nearly 70-year reign has seen the decline of Britain as a world power. It is, after all, structured around her life,...
View ArticleIf Michael Bloomberg Wants to Run for President, He Should Sell Bloomberg News
For most journalists, covering Michael Bloomberg’s late entry into the 2020 presidential race will be straightforward. Some will focus on his three terms as mayor of New York City, interrogating his...
View ArticleIs It Imperialist to “Green” the Military?
It was a bold twist on an old progressive saw. “In short, climate change is real, it is worsening by the day,” the announcement stated; then came the reveal: “and it is undermining our military...
View ArticleThe Gentle Pleasures of Terrace House
In Haruki Murakami’s 1Q84, the protagonist, Aomame, a martial arts instructor, is forced to live in a safe house. Tamaru, her bodyguard, suggests that she read Proust’s In Search of Lost Time: “This...
View ArticleThe War-Crimes Presidency
Eight years ago, a friend sent me a photograph of Marines in Afghanistan proudly posing with a Nazi SS flag. As a former soldier, Iraq veteran, and historian who focuses on the German military during...
View ArticleThanksgiving Is Another Reminder of What America Forgot
In a December 1862 letter to the Senate, President Abraham Lincoln ordered the execution of 39 Sioux citizens. In 1851, the Santee Sioux had ceded the land known as Minnesota to the United States in a...
View ArticleThe Real News Crisis Isn’t Fake News
In the aftermath of the twin shocks of 2016—Brexit on one side of the Atlantic, Donald Trump on the other—many in the media identified “fake news” as the culprit and as one of the emergent evils of the...
View ArticleThe Surprising Maturity of Marriage Story
You appear to have been dropped in at the climax of a romcom, when the man enumerates the large, small, and idiosyncratic things he appreciates about the woman, all those reasons he can’t love anybody...
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The Factory Is a Chilling Account of the Contemporary Workplace
There’s a scene in The Golden Girls (hear me out) where the sardonic Dorothy, teaching a professional development class, encounters a bunch of adult slackers, save one: a Mr. Tanaka. He tells her that...
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Welcome to the Monkey House
Locals call it the Monkey House. The decaying, three-story cement fortress sits among weeds in the wooded, hilly outskirts of Dongducheon, a Korean city of 96,000 that encircles Camp Casey, the closest...
View ArticleThunberg Isn’t the Only Young Voice We Should Be Listening To
Greta Thunberg, the 16-year-old Swedish climate activist, captured global attention with her emotional speech at the United Nations in September. Her relentless advocacy for an international focus on...
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The Lives of the Left Behind
Intermittently, Americans are beginning to get upset that their government is locking tens of thousands of human beings in camps. At present, more than 50,000 people suspected of having entered the...
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What Happened to Peter Daou?
In November, the liberal activist and Twitter personality Peter Daou got into a spat with an unlikely adversary: Neera Tanden, the head of the Center for American Progress and Daou’s erstwhile ally in...
View ArticleThe Smartest Guys in the Clubhouse
In 2017, the Houston Astros stopped striking out. That wasn’t the only reason why the team went from 84 wins to 101 and catapulted from finishing third in the American League West in 2016 to winning...
View ArticleWhy Is the UNC System Giving Confederate Apologists $2.5 Million?
Last Wednesday, with large swaths of the American workforce winding down and looking ahead to a long weekend, an unusual deal was struck. The University of North Carolina’s board of governors, the...
View ArticleThe Failure of the Adults
Greta Thunberg, a 16-year-old climate activist, has captivated the world. The Swedish teenager, who just a little over one year ago conducted a lonely, solo school strike in front of her country’s...
View ArticleImpeaching Trump Is About More Than Punishment
Impeachment is often understood as a punitive measure. When the president (or any other federal official) breaks their constitutional oath, Congress can step in and deprive the person of the office....
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Life Under the Algorithm
Henry Noll was one of the most famous workers in American history, though not by his own choice and not under his own name. Employed at Bethlehem Steel for $1.15 a day, and known among workmates for...
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