The Secret History of America’s Worthless Confederate Monuments
During an interview in late June, President Trump lingered for a few minutes on the Confederate monuments that protesters were tearing down across the country: “You don’t want to take away our heritage...
View Article“Family Life Coaches,” Private Jets, and the One Percent’s Pandemic Economy
A “family life coach” position in Aspen pays between $80,000-$100,000—the ideal applicant “wins,” is willing to make time for “overnight stays,” and possesses the “3G’s: Grit, growth, gratitude.” A...
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Death by a Thousand Cuts for One of America’s Last Great Institutions
The carriers I know call it marriage mail. The average person likely thinks of it as junk mail—the coupon booklets from local businesses dumped immediately in the trash, save for maybe the extreme...
View ArticleThe Fall of the NRA
In January of 2017, the National Rifle Association was at the peak of its power. Already known as one of the mightiest interest groups in the United States, it had been an early backer of Donald Trump,...
View ArticleThe Real Reason BP Is Getting Greener
BP seems nervous about being a fossil fuel company these days. On Tuesday, the 12th most carbon-intensive company in the world announced plans to slash its oil and gas production by 40 percent over...
View ArticleThe Problem With MSNBC Isn’t That It’s Too Liberal
Public departures have been one of the biggest media stories of the summer. The New York Times opinion editor Bari Weiss walked off the job in July, claiming the newspaper was now being edited by woke...
View ArticleNew York’s Punishment May Not Fit the NRA’s Crime
The National Rifle Association once ranked among the most powerful political organizations in America. Now it could face dissolution under a lawsuit filed by New York Attorney General Letitia James. In...
View ArticleCorporate America’s Hollow Denunciations of Systemic Racism
In a video that circulated on social media two weeks after George Floyd’s death, 14 white celebrities gathered to take responsibility for “every not so funny joke” they’d laughed at and each time...
View ArticleThe Brutal World of Waiting for the Barbarians
It’s not clear quite what era you’re in. The place seems dislocated in time, an imperial outpost somewhere in the desert, its manners and materials evidently imported from some far-off capital. It...
View ArticleThe Wildly Unequal “Shecession”
When the pandemic lockdowns in the United States first began, there were troubling signs that women would bear the brunt of the coming economic collapse. As layoffs started, more women than men lost...
View ArticleThe Helpless Outrage of the Anti-Trump Book
On October 7, 2007, I attended a lecture by Seymour Hersh at the University of California, Los Angeles titled “The Road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib and Beyond.” At the time, Hersh was one of the most...
View ArticleDon’t Blame Never Trumpers for the Left’s Defeat
The failure of Bernie Sanders to take control of the Democratic Party in the 2020 primaries was understandably traumatic for the American left. Having rapidly ascended from seeming irrelevance to...
View ArticleThe Deadly Coronavirus Vaccine Gold Rush
A return to normal life after the pandemic, which we can only hope will be better and more equitable than the one that preceded it, depends on the creation of a safe and effective coronavirus vaccine....
View ArticleFarms Can’t Save the Planet
In late June, overlooked amid pandemic, economic crisis, and protest headlines, a bipartisan cohort of United States senators introduced a bill to establish a U.S. Department of Agriculture, or USDA,...
View ArticleHow to Write About Climate Change
Just as the physics of our atmosphere is no longer only the concern of atmospheric physicists, so has climate change become a dominating theme for writers of otherwise different concerns. From Jeff...
View ArticleHow Mike Pompeo Built a Blood-for-Oil Pipeline
Donald Trump’s plan in Syria is simple: Commit war crimes. Last October, the president unilaterally withdrew most American troops from their positions in Syria. He was convinced to leave only a few...
View ArticleThe Unfinished Business of Women’s Suffrage
Years before the Nineteenth Amendment would be ratified, Elizabeth Cady Stanton devised a history of women’s suffrage. In her telling, the movement traces its origins to a convention, which she...
View ArticleThe Christian Devotion to a White America
For a number of reasons, the history of American slavery has been in the news over the past year. The New York Times’s 1619 Project–commemorating the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the first...
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Tom DeLonge’s Warped UFO Tour
Luis Elizondo wanted me to believe. I’d spent the past few hours nursing Diet Cokes at the Chart House bar north of San Diego while Elizondo, a retired Army counterintelligence special agent and former...
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The Unequal Future of Consumption
In early May, after eight weeks in quarantine, Italy embarked on fase 2 of its coronavirus response and, step by step, relaxed its restrictions. From that day, families were once again allowed to meet...
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