Does Trump Care That the American West Is Aflame?
I spend a lot of time writing about what President Donald Trump says. But sometimes I have to write about what he’s not saying: In this case, he’s saying virtually nothing about the wildfires engulfing...
View ArticleThe Ridiculous War-Gaming of the 2020 Election
Commentators have worried from the moment his presidency began that Trump might challenge the 2020 election results or even stay in the White House in the event of a loss; anxieties about this are so...
View ArticleHow Corporations Pillaged the Free Market
To conservatives, corporations are the pinnacle of capitalist development. That’s the reason the American right affords them such deferential treatment in terms of taxation and government regulation....
View ArticleThe Democrats’ Excessive Bed-Wetting Over Joe Biden’s Campaign
After Ronald Reagan’s meandering performance in his initial 1984 debate with Walter Mondale, the political press corps responded with the joyous discovery that there was indeed a horse race. A...
View ArticleThe Rhetorical Weapons of Liberal Nimbyism
The West Side Community Organization describes its mission as twofold: to “advocate for a restored quality of life for residents, visitors, and the small business community” and “advance safer and more...
View ArticleWhy Aren’t Voters Blaming Donald Trump for the Bad Economy?
Even by Donald Trump’s standards, his September has been dismal. No convention bump; allegations that he called soldiers killed in the line of duty “losers”; a bombshell Bob Woodward book in which...
View ArticleThe Biden Adviser Who Gives Climate Activists Nightmares
If you haven’t heard of Ernest “Ernie” Moniz, there’s still a good chance you’ve seen a picture of him. The 75-year-old nuclear physicist, MIT professor emeritus, multimillionaire, and former energy...
View ArticleThe Most Hysterical Worst-Case Election Scenario
Shadi Hamid, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, has surveyed the state of the 2020 election and drawn an unusual conclusion from it. “As someone who has argued against catastrophism—I don’t...
View ArticleHow White-Collar Criminals Get Away With It
Over a decade since the financial crisis revealed an unimaginable level of white-collar crime by some of the highest-status people in our society, a major question remains unanswered. Why did no one go...
View ArticleThe Era of Disaster Militiaism in America
Sunday night, wildfires still had most of Clackamas County, Oregon, under a “level 3” evacuation order—which comes with the guidance of “Go! Evacuate now!”—while the sheriff’s office has been juggling...
View ArticleAmerican’s Food Supply Chain Was Already Deadly. Then Came the Wildfires.
In a video shared by the United Farm Workers on Friday evening, the sky was orange and the air hazy. In Oregon City that day, the Air Quality Index was hovering between 201 to 300, deemed “very...
View ArticleThe Personal History of David Copperfield and Emma Are Perfect Movies for a...
Critics rarely recommend movies their readers have little chance of seeing in the near future. Nonetheless, you can only watch Armando Ianucci’s new film, The Personal History of David Copperfield, by...
View ArticleA Diversity of Terrible Bosses
A visual feature recently assembled by The New York Times reveals in stark detail the dearth of people of color, in the year 2020, in the country’s halls of power. Of the 24 people in the Trump...
View ArticleThe Good Life That Keynes Promised America Got Stolen
A century ago, economic experts thought everybody living in the present era would have it made. And broadly speaking, we do: We live longer, we seldom try benightedly to “cure” gay people, we no longer...
View ArticleWe Work in Climate Justice. Our Office Burned Down, Thanks to Climate Change.
Our office burned down last Tuesday. The little green and white rented bungalow along Route 99 was filled with art, houseplants, laughter, and sometimes tears. It was a meeting place for Latinx youth...
View ArticleLet Congress Barge Into ICE Detention Camps
It is hard to choose the worst story of the Trump era, but a whistleblower complaint filed on Monday with the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general is surely among them. The complaint,...
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From I to We
The Upswing, Robert Putnam and Shaylyn Romney Garrett’s ambitious new study of American Progressivism found and lost, opens with a disturbing vision. If Alexis de Tocqueville, who chronicled the...
View ArticleWhy Does The Washington Post Publish This Never-Trump Drivel?
Three weeks ago, as protests against police violence raged in Kenosha, Wisconsin, and Portland, Oregon, Never Trumpers had a stern warning for Joe Biden: Condemn the violence or lose the election....
View ArticleICE Is the New Face of America’s Legacy of Forced Sterilization
Earlier this week, multiple human rights organizations filed a complaint on behalf of women detained at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Georgia. Based on accounts from detainees and...
View ArticleCorporate America and QAnon’s Joint Mission to Let the World Burn
The Republican Party this week is looking like a house divided on climate change: Specifically, it seems split between business interests who want at least the veneer of corporate responsibility and...
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