James Weldon Johnson’s Ode to the “Deep River” of American History
Marches and mobs in Washington, D.C., have been much on the minds of Americans of late. So, too, for James Weldon Johnson in 1930, when the longtime secretary of the National Association for the...
View ArticleThe Supreme Court Case That Lays Bare Puerto Ricans’ “Second-Class Citizenship”
In 2013, Jose Luis Vaello-Madero moved back to Puerto Rico. He had lived and worked in New York since 1985. His wife had already moved back to the island for medical reasons; now he would join her...
View ArticleThis Is How Sex Workers Win
The morning after the 2016 election, in a tidy, scenic park along the Hudson River, I met up with Sarah Marchando, a plaintiff in a class action suit against the city of New York alleging...
View ArticleWhy Are Troops Leading the Vaccination Effort?
Last September, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who relishes undermining subordinate local politicians and interjecting himself into the management of his state’s largest city, complained about how...
View ArticleIs Merrick Garland Really the Right Man for the Job?
When Merrick Garland testified last week before the Senate Judiciary Committee to be confirmed as attorney general, he offered, among other things, that he was committed to showing “respect” for “the...
View ArticleHow Did Obama and Bruce Springsteen Make Such a Bland Podcast?
In 2009, during Barack Obama’s tumultuous first year in the White House, the telecommunications giant Comcast bought NBC Universal, raising the alarm of antitrust activists. As a report released...
View ArticleChris Cuomo Is Everything Wrong With the Media’s Coverage of Andrew Cuomo
On Monday evening, Chris Cuomo began his CNN nightly show, Prime Time, with an unsurprising announcement. He would not be covering the day’s biggest story: the sexual harassment allegations that had...
View ArticleRip Up the Unemployment System and Start Again
In April of last year, I sat down in front of my computer for a Zoom call with my supervisor at the small technology consulting firm where I was an analyst. It was supposed to be one of those routine...
View ArticleThe Supreme Court Is Not Going to Save Voting Rights
The Supreme Court appears poised to uphold two voting restrictions from Arizona in a challenge brought by Democrats under the Voting Rights Act. In oral arguments on Tuesday, the court’s six...
View ArticleThe Sexism at the Heart of Cuomo’s Boss State
“You make that gown look good,” New York Governor Andrew Cuomo told Dr. Elizabeth Dufort in front of reporters back in May of last year, as she tested the governor for Covid-19 during one of his...
View ArticleJohn R. MacArthur Is a Disgrace
Is there a more embarrassing column on the internet than the Publisher’s Note at Harper’s? This is where you can find the addled musings of John “Rick” MacArthur, the mercurial proprietor of what was...
View ArticleThe Dark Side of Bill Gates’s Climate Techno-Optimism
“No” is probably not a word the world’s second-richest man is all that accustomed to hearing. Bill Gates, one might imagine, exists in a world of near-limitless possibility. When he throws money at...
View ArticleVaccines are Free at CVS and Walgreens. You’re What’s for Sale.
Even the most cautious voices now seem to agree that we’ve reached a turning point in the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic. With three vaccines authorized, and a production deal recently brokered by...
View ArticleThe Deficit Hawks That Make Moderate Democrats Cower
This week, the first true headline-grabbing legislative battle of the Biden administration and the Democratic Congress has begun as the $1.9 trillion pandemic relief package takes center stage in the...
View ArticleThe Unnatural Endurance of Bipartisanship
Joe Biden ran for president promising to “revive” the spirit of bipartisanship, put an end to factional battles, and bring Americans together after an era of painful division. Yet faced with an...
View ArticleThe Cult of the Thuggish Democratic Politician
Less than a decade ago, it wouldn’t have taken much to imagine either Andrew Cuomo or Rahm Emanuel in the Oval Office as president about now. Cuomo, elected New York governor in 2010, and Emanuel, who...
View ArticleDr. Seuss! Mr. Potato Head! Why the Culture Wars Have Never Been Dumber
Speaking on the House floor on Tuesday, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy updated Martin Neimoller’s famous post-Holocaust poem. “First they outlaw Dr. Seuss,” he solemnly intoned, “and now they...
View ArticlePence Is Still Pushing Trump’s Big Lie
It’s been almost two months since former Vice President Mike Pence narrowly escaped a violent mob of Trump supporters in the Capitol building that wanted to lynch him for betraying the former...
View ArticleChang-Rae Lee Skewers a Globalized Get-Rich-Quick Scheme
By March 2020, there was no denying that the mysterious virus that had ravaged the city of Wuhan—and placed large parts of China in varying levels of quarantine—had arrived in the United States....
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The Tribal Coalition Fighting to Save Monarch Butterflies
Seventeen years ago, Jane Breckinridge came home. A citizen of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation with a great-grandmother who was Euchee, Breckinridge had left Oklahoma after high school to attend Macalester...
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