The War on Terror Only Created More Terror in America
Historians will spend decades parsing the tragic from the ridiculous in the events of the first few weeks of 2021, and many books will be written about the Capitol insurrection alone—perhaps the...
View ArticleThe Capitol Riot Revealed the Darkest Nightmares of White Evangelical America
White evangelicals believe they see truths that you and I cannot. While Americans around the country watched an inflamed mob overrun the Capitol on January 6, the evangelical participants in that mob...
View ArticleThe Dream Job That Wasn’t
When I was young, my dream job was to be a horse. I didn’t want to be a horse girl, but a girl who is a horse. This made sense to me back then and also now. People respect horses, whose reputation is...
View ArticleThe Incredible Power and Learned Helplessness of Twitter and Facebook
Despite being the CEO of both Twitter and the payments company Square, Jack Dorsey has an aw-shucks habit of seeming uncomfortable with the power he wields. On Wednesday, he tweeted a stem-winding...
View ArticleHow to Fight Climate Change and Fascists at the Same Time
Politicians in the United States have long had a single, instinctive response to crises both real and imagined: make new kinds of cops. After 9/11, the Bush administration created the Department of...
View ArticleThe Republican Plot to Rig the 2024 Election
The Republican Party is in rough shape. Under President Donald Trump, the GOP has now lost the House, the Senate, and the presidency in just four years—a feat unmatched in American politics since...
View ArticleAll That’s Left of Trumpism Is Hilariously Stupid, Deadly Serious Social...
The first sign that something may have been a bit amiss about last week’s MAGA insurrection at the Capitol arrived in a viral video on Twitter, amid the unfolding chaos. A distressed, red-eyed woman...
View ArticleA Brief Cultural History of Work Sucking
In Bullshit Jobs: A Theory, the late David Graeber laments the proliferation of meaningless sectors and jobs that are not productive but seem to exist solely to keep people working. Plenty of jobs have...
View ArticleAn Impeachment Trial Will Be Good Practice for Actual Oversight
“We’re not looking backward, we’re looking forward” was 10 days ago. Remember? That was Hakeem Jeffries, the fifth-highest-ranking Democrat in House leadership and a potential future Speaker, should...
View ArticleHow the GOP Fell in Love With Cancel Culture
In the aftermath of the pro-Trump riots that left five dead at the United States Capitol, Republicans have focused on the real problem: cancel culture. Citing the president’s removal from just about...
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John McCain’s Apache Land Grab Is Finally Happening
In 2014, the late Senator John McCain quietly slid a dagger into the backside of the Arizona tribal nations he was ostensibly elected to represent. Deep in an appropriations package for military...
View ArticleI Went to High School With Biden’s Homeland Security Team
“Probably the battle of Waterloo was won on the playing-fields of Eton, but the opening battles of all subsequent wars have been lost there.”—George Orwell, The Lion and the Unicorn, 1941Future...
View ArticleWhy the Environmental Justice Movement Should Think Locally
On a chilly December morning, Gabriel Jamison stood in front of a construction site in Brownsville, Brooklyn, with a sign and a megaphone. “National Grid has the nerve to sit there and come into a...
View ArticleMedicare for All Needs a Sunrise Movement
In mid-December, a loose coalition of leftist YouTube pundits hit the gas on an ill-fated gambit to boost Medicare for All under the digital banner #ForcetheVote. Led by pugnacious commentator Jimmy...
View ArticleThe Response to the Capitol Riot Is Whitewashing the History of Black...
In 1811, between 200 and 500 enslaved Black people armed themselves in a revolt that began on a sugar plantation a few miles outside of New Orleans. Charles Deslondes, a slave driver of Haitian...
View ArticleRashida Jones’s Battle With Sex Workers Reveals a New Era of Internet...
At the beginning of this year, news circulated that Rashida Jones, Meryl Streep, and Laverne Cox had all signed on to produce a “documentary adaptation” of Sell/Buy/Date, a one-woman play about the sex...
View ArticleMurder the Filibuster and Never Look Back
As the authorities worked to clear the Capitol of rioters last week, the Associated Press called Georgia’s remaining Senate runoff race for Jon Ossoff, confirming that Democrats would be entering the...
View ArticleMy Life Sewing T-Shirts for 26 Cents an Hour
At 5 a.m., I’m awoken by the bell and roll over to turn on my light so the corrections officer can see that I’m alive. After the C.O. finishes the morning count, I start getting ready for work. My cell...
View ArticleThe Ideological Emptiness of “PlayBook”
Ben Shapiro almost certainly got what he wanted out of a stint guest-hosting Politico’s flagship “Playbook” newsletter last Thursday. His turn at the helm—he followed Chris Hayes, Ken Burns, Yamiche...
View ArticleThe Presidency Is a Bad Job
I wanted to be president when I was younger, but grew out of it before middle school. Some people never do. If all goes according to plan, we will have a new president come Wednesday afternoon. The...
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