Fintan O’Toole

Savior Complexes

The final weeks of Joe Biden’s campaign were most dismaying for the ways he mirrored Trump.

Savior Complex

Biden’s tragedy is that he has come to feel that he alone can rescue America.

Like ‘Being Friends with a Hurricane’

For the fixers, enablers, and vassals who surround Donald Trump, the rewards of his friendship are not worth the risks.

Making Sense of the Missing 

“Some people were allowed to belong in families and others weren’t.”

No Comfort

As we encounter Shakespeare’s tragedies it becomes terrifyingly clear that we are not in a moral universe of comeuppances and rewarded virtues.

The Whistleblower We Deserve

The ambiguous hero of Henrik Ibsen's An Enemy of the People is a man of science who insists on the primacy of truth and evidence. But he’s also, possibly, a bit of a fascist.

Laugh Riot

To understand Trump’s continuing hold over his fans, we have to ask: Why do they find him so funny?

The Memory Hole

By drawing broad conclusions about Joe Biden’s mental capacities, Robert Hur’s special counsel report went far beyond its remit—but it still leaves Democrats with a political dilemma.

Eldest Statesmen

As we enter an election year, can the Democrats prevent age from becoming a serious obstacle?

Biden’s Selective Outrage

The rhetorical choice to pair Israel and Ukraine has not created a common moral cause. It has exposed a double standard.

No Endgame in Gaza

After weeks of bombardment and thousands of deaths, what are Netanyahu's political and ethical limits?

The Many and the Few

Israel’s own pre-statehood history illustrates the dangers of distinguishing between “civilized” and “barbarous” peoples.

Defying Tribalism

In her new polemic, the philosopher Susan Neiman charges her fellow leftists with intellectual betrayal and calls for a return to universal ideals of justice and humanity.

Eyeless in Gaza

What lessons do people actually learn from the cruelties they applaud and the ones they suffer in return?

Paradise Lost

In spreading lies about the risks of vaccines, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has long played on anxieties about purity and pollution.

The Trouble with Ancestry

Two recent family histories authored by Americans connected to Europe’s terrible twentieth century by their fascist grandfathers seek to occupy the void between history and memory.

A Frame-Up in Georgia

By launching a campaign of lies and harassment against an innocent Georgia election worker, the Trump team proved how much cruelty it was willing to inflict on ordinary people who stood in its way.

Invasion of the Democracy Snatchers

This week’s indictment details how Trump and his co-conspirators tried to destroy American democracy by creating empty replicas of its procedures and values.

Unrepentant Pence

Mike Pence’s religiosity may be entirely sincere, but it is also instrumental and highly politicized. He, like Trump, is in show business.

The Ultimate Deal

Trump’s hoarding of official secrets is both breathtakingly careless and utterly calculated.