Politics Literature Arts Ideas

Politics

United States International Human Rights Climate Change Election 2020

Fintan O’Toole

Democracy’s Afterlife

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

December 3, 2020 issue

David Cole

A New Assault on Marriage Equality

A case before the Supreme Court tests whether its conservative justices will violate their long-standing constitutional principles in order to expand religious liberty.

December 3, 2020 issue

Barbara Demick

China’s Clampdown on Hong Kong

Despite mass protests and China’s promises when it took back Hong Kong from Britain in 1997, Beijing’s new security law is crushing the former colony’s autonomy.

November 19, 2020 issue

Francisco Cantú

The Lie of American Asylum

Three new books offer searing portraits of the people affected by family separations and the criminalization of asylum in the Trump era.

November 5, 2020 issue

Fintan O’Toole

William Barr: Enabler in Chief

The attorney general exemplifies the growing influence of right-wing Catholicism under Trump.

November 5, 2020 issue

Susannah Jacob

The West Wing We Knew

The last four years have tarnished the national romance about the American presidency, tempering my own reminiscence of the White House. And yet…

October 29, 2020

Mark Danner

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

Caroline Fraser

The Representative

Ilhan Omar’s ability to survive, even thrive, under chaotic conditions appears to have been a harbinger of a taste for political battle.

November 19, 2020 issue

The Latest

Helen Epstein

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

Gal Koplewitz

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

Ankush Khardori

Holding the Fraudster-in-Chief to Account

“To my mind, the Justice Department as an institution is in its worst state in decades,” says the former federal prosecutor.

November 21, 2020

Ankush Khardori

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

Michael Tomasky

What Did the Democrats Win?

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

December 17, 2020 issue

Shirley Elizabeth Thompson

Georgia On My Mind

The suburbs of Atlanta, where I grew up in an era still scarred by segregation, have transformed in ways that helped deliver Joe Biden the presidency. But some things never change.

November 19, 2020

David Cole

Can Liberals Win in a Conservative Court?

Recent history suggests the justices don’t like being too out of step with the country—especially if they feel under scrutiny. So that’s our job: watch them.

November 17, 2020

Ali Winston

On the Far Right and Policing in America

“There is an appetite for accountability reporting that is a direct result of the change in public attitude.”

November 14, 2020

Walter M. Shaub Jr.

The Presidential Transition Meets Murphy’s Law

One senior official is charged with ensuring a peaceful transfer of power when there is an apparent election winner. The Trump appointee is jeopardizing all that.

November 13, 2020

Ali Winston

New York’s Finest?

An already strained relationship between many New Yorkers and the NYPD has only been exacerbated by the force’s brutal response to protests this year.

November 12, 2020