Ideas
Arguments. Essays. Inquiries.
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John Duricka / AP A 1985 Recount Is Suddenly Relevant Again
In the fight over Indiana’s Bloody Eighth, Democrats won the seat, but lost the larger narrative.
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Pascal Rossignol / Reuters Amazon’s HQ2 Spectacle Isn’t Just Shameful—It Should Be Illegal
Each year, local governments spend nearly $100 billion to move headquarters and factories between states. It’s a wasteful exercise that requires a national solution.
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Andres Martinez Casares / Reuters What Happened When a Nation Erased Birthright Citizenship
The Dominican Republic deported an estimated 70,000 to 80,000 people of Haitian descent over three years. Those left behind live in a state of institutionalized terror.
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Molly Riley / Reuters America’s Struggle for Moral Coherence
The problem of how to reconcile irreconcilable values is what led to the Civil War. It hasn’t gone away.
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Charles Platiau / Reuters The Day Europe Fell Silent
In 1918, a father lost his son to World War I. From his grief came the first moment of silence.
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Charles Platiau / Reuters Trump Fails His Rendezvous in France
A century after thousands of Americans laid down their lives, the president of the United States absented himself from the ceremony commemorating their sacrifice.
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Vincent Kessler / Reuters An Open-and-Shut Violation of Campaign-Finance Law
The relevant law is favorable to candidates. But it appears Trump still managed to violate it.
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GABRIEL BOUYS / AFP / Getty / Wikimedia ... The Hottest Trend in American Literature Isn’t From the U.S.
In 2018, American literature no longer means literature written by Americans, for Americans, about America.
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Mike Segar / Reuters What Beto Won
The Senate hopeful lost his race to Ted Cruz, but reanimated the Texas Democratic Party.
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Gonzalo Fuentes / Reuters The Virtues of Nationalism
Can civic equality and national unity prove mutually reinforcing?
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Charlie Neibergall / AP It’s Probably Too Late to Stop Mueller
The prospects for interference are dimmer than many imagine.
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Ringo Chiu / Reuters Why Did an Ex-Marine Open Fire in a California Bar?
A shooting in Thousand Oaks, California, leaves many questions unanswered.
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Eduardo Munoz Alvarez / Getty Goodbye to All Quack
Central Park’s most famous resident bids New York City farewell and heads for sunnier climes.
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Bettmann / Corbis / Getty The Day of Fate
Kristallnacht, on its 80th anniversary, still offers a potent lesson: We all face the choice between right and wrong, responsibility and recklessness, conscience and complicity.
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Charlie Neibergall / AP It Wouldn’t Be Easy for Whitaker to Shut Down the Trump Investigations
The new acting attorney general is likely, at least initially, to move slowly.
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Jonathan Ernst / Reuters Now I Know Why They Said I Lied
Trump supporters accused me of smearing his campaign manager. Today they’re smearing Jim Acosta.
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Alexander Drago / Reuters The Central Challenge of the Fight Against Trumpism
The midterms showed that the president has a real political constituency—one that gerrymandering and voter suppression make it hard to defeat.
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Carlos Barria / Reuters Trump Bet Conservatives Wouldn't Denounce His Racist Ad. He Won.
The president knows he can get away with bigotry.
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Kyle Grillot / Reuters For Conservatives Like Me, Tuesday Couldn’t Have Gone Better
The midterm results were frustrating for revolutionaries and reactionaries, great for muddlers-along.
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Kevin Lamarque / Reuters Republicans Must Choose Between Trump and the Rule of Law
The president’s actions Wednesday portend a choice for GOP officials: Is their greater loyalty to the president or to the public’s right to know what he’s done?
