The Conservative War Against the Black Church
On December 12, two days before the electoral college confirmed President-elect Joe Biden’s win, Trump supporters gathered in Washington for a “Jericho March,” a prayer walk inspired by the Old...
View ArticleMake Media Small Again
In 2020, the media got bigger. The New York Times continued its hegemonic expansion, announcing that it had topped five million subscribers in March, six million in June, and seven million in November....
View ArticleMonopolization Is Killing Art
When some colleagues and I recently met to discuss the past year in culture, we easily agreed on one thing only: Corporate consolidation, and not just the pandemic, took a heavy toll on the arts this...
View ArticleBillion-Dollar Book Companies Are Ripping Off Public Schools
For most of America’s 10 million middle schoolers, English class means enjoying—or, perhaps, enduring—the timeless narratives of the Western canon: Fahrenheit 451, Black Boy, The Giver, Parable of the...
View ArticleThe Case for Giving Workers Ownership Rights
It’s a certainty that we’ll be entering both the new year and a new Democratic administration with the American economy on its knees. We’ll return to something resembling normalcy with time, but...
View ArticleLet Them Eat $600
Nine months. That’s how long it took Congress to pass a second round of legislative relief in response to a global pandemic recession. In the interim, the economy imploded, the death toll reached and...
View ArticleThe Lethal Inequality on American Farms
When Flavio first heard about a temporary farm work program in the United States, it sounded like a great deal. Everything from his salary to his housing would be guaranteed in advance by his employer,...
View ArticleFlight of the Barr Bros
The New York Times on Monday published a mea culpa by career lawyer Erica Newland, who joined the Justice Department under Obama and then served under Trump. Working in the Office of Legal Counsel, she...
View ArticleCongress Doesn’t Care About Your Surprise Ambulance Bill
While campaigning this spring in the Democratic primary for Missouri’s first congressional district, then–insurgent candidate Cori Bush found herself struggling to breathe: a hallmark symptom caused by...
View ArticleIf the U.S. Already Had a Covid Variant, We Wouldn’t Know
News of specific, potentially more contagious coronavirus variants in the United Kingdom and South Africa have swept global headlines in recent days. The two unrelated variants, health officials say,...
View ArticleThe Return of Corporate Tax Incentives Is a Bad Omen for Blue States
In September, New Jersey officials announced a plan to borrow $4.5 billion to cover what The New York Times referred to as a “gaping financial hole” in the state’s budget. It was an understandable move...
View ArticleCongress Is the Problem Child of American Democracy
When Americans learn about Congress in civics classes, they’re taught that passing legislation can be a lengthy, multi-stage process. Bills are introduced by a member of either the House or the Senate,...
View ArticleMeritocracy on Trial
In 1958, a British sociologist named Michael Young, in a book called The Rise of the Meritocracy, portrayed a dystopia. He imagined a society in which the old class system of Britain had been swept...
View ArticleThe Green Fantasy and Messy Reality of Nuclear Power
Joe Biden will have to do more about climate change than any president before him. He has no choice. Already, close U.S. allies are openly expressing their relief about the end of the ecologically...
View ArticleEnd the Cops’ Cannibalization of Our Budgets
Six months ago, after Minneapolis police killed George Floyd, the city moved to defund the department. That was the headline in June, but the story in the months since has been more complicated....
View ArticleHow to Make Kleptocrats Fear America Again
Four years ago, the United States was widely viewed as the towering, swaggering leader of global anti-corruption efforts. While other countries struggled with money-laundering banks and corrupt...
View ArticleCarbon Capture Is Not a Climate Savior
In December, the Vatican became one of the latest entities to unveil a plan to reach net-zero emissions by 2050, joining far less pious actors like BP, Shell, and President-elect Joe Biden. Net-zero...
View ArticleSimply Talking About the Pandemic the Right Way Can Help Rebuild American...
It’s democracy’s death knell: The feeling that the future is beyond us, the sensation that we’ve lost, as citizens, the ability to direct our lives together in a meaningful way. Sometimes it feels as...
View ArticleRevenge Is Sweet in Promising Young Woman
Sexual violence and misogyny have for so long provided mainstream film and television with a wellspring of entertaining tropes, that when writers and directors set out to examine their workings...
View ArticleWe’re Outsourcing Our Self-Awareness to Silicon Valley
Would you like to give your friends and loved ones the gift of surveillance this holiday season? Your options abound. The market for “smart” devices is booming: There are smart toothbrushes that...
View Article