What Did the Democrats Win?

The minority repeatedly thwarting the will of the majority is intolerable and untenable.

December 17, 2020 issue

Democracy’s Afterlife

Trump, the GOP, and the rise of zombie politics.

December 3, 2020 issue

Hopes for the American Experiment

November 19, 2020 issue

The Con He Rode In On

Why do people hardly even talk about all the car plants Donald Trump has brought to Michigan?

November 19, 2020 issue

The Mystery of the Missing Viola

A parable of the prodigal player whose instrument was lost and now is found.

December 1, 2020

‘This Planet is Our Spaceship’: An Interview with Cauleen Smith

“Art at its best gives much and demands little in return. Wouldn’t it be marvelous if we applied that ethic to every other aspect of life?”

November 28, 2020

In Uganda, Another Museveni Crackdown

As an election approaches, opposition to the strongman’s long, brutal rule is gathering—but it has to reckon with his security state and its international enablers.

November 25, 2020

Death on the Via Dolorosa

The police shooting of an unarmed autistic Palestinian man in Jerusalem this summer provoked brief outrage, but little sign of a lasting movement for change in Israel.

November 23, 2020

The Powerful Reticence of Felix Gonzalez-Torres

Rather than presenting himself overtly as a gay artist in the age of AIDS, he preferred to work as a secret agent in the house of culture.

November 22, 2020

The Case for Prosecuting Trump

Putting the former president on criminal trial carries big political risks. But to let this lawless leader off scot-free may be more dangerous still.

November 20, 2020

‘This Planet is Our Spaceship’: An Interview with Cauleen Smith

“Art at its best gives much and demands little in return. Wouldn’t it be marvelous if we applied that ethic to every other aspect of life?”

November 28, 2020

Everyday Resistance in ‘Time’

Garrett Bradley’s intimate documentary shows how one person’s incarceration affects the lives of so many more.

October 24, 2020

An Interview with David Adjmi

David Adjmi’s newly published memoir, Lot Six, as well as his play Stunning, are testament to a rapturous ability to capture the cadence and idiosyncrasies of a group never previously brought to dramatic life in mainstream culture.

July 23, 2020

An Interview with Artist Chloë Bass

I first encountered the work of conceptual artist Chloë Bass when I came upon a reflective billboard—a giant mirror—planted in the grass of Harlem’s St. Nicholas Park, with the words “How much of love is attention?” written across it.

August 19, 2020

An Interview with Chantal Joffe

Chantal Joffe’s signature quicksilver strokes are tender, yet devoid of sentimentality. With each sweeping stroke, she charts life on the point where things change—adolescence, pregnancy, grief, old age.

September 19, 2020

An Interview with Yevgeniya Baras

Yevgeniya Baras’s small, knotty paintings look like talismans from an alien culture. Pushing aside painting norms, she works on both sides of the canvas to slowly conceal and reveal cryptic and voluptuous iconography.

May 30, 2020