The writing is on the wall—or, rather, the doors. Following the failed passage of $2,000 stimulus checks in early January 2021, the two most powerful members of Congress found their homes vandalized. “Were’s [sic] my money” was spray-painted on Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell’s front door in Kentucky. In San Francisco, Nancy Pelosi’s garage door…

The first recorded case of Covid-19 in the United States was reported on January 20, 2020—a person who traveled from Wuhan, China, to Washington State. As the virus spread across the country, global supply chains that are usually invisible suddenly became highly visible. News headlines tracked a surge in demand for personal protective gear for…

Earlier this summer, ProPublica released a so-called bombshell report with income tax data leaked from the Internal Revenue Service. The report showed how little America’s twenty-five richest families paid in effective tax rates compared to the average American. How they paid so little was no surprise to anyone who has worked with high-net-worth individuals…

Throughout 2021, U.S. stock market valuations have hovered near all‑time highs. In June, the unadjusted price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of the S&P 500 index eclipsed the tech boom record of 2000. Many other asset classes have attained, or nearly attained, record valuations as well. Stratospheric valuations may be partially attributable to the unique circumstances surrounding Covid-19…

On July 1, 1987, Senator Edward Kennedy took to the Senate floor to deliver perhaps the most famous denunciation of any judicial nominee in American history. His target, whose Supreme Court nomi­nation had been announced that very day, was a graying sixty-year‑old judge on the powerful Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, with a…

For nearly three decades, conservative orthodoxy has summed up its central objective in the mantra “starve the beast.” Although Grover Norquist may have been exaggerating slightly when he said he hoped to make government so small he could “drown it in the bathtub,” his sentiment certainly captures the myopic obsession of the GOP during the…

Competition between the United States and China frequently trig­gers Cold War comparisons. Ideologies are contrasted, alliances are touted, and geopolitical maneuvers are proposed. These sorts of comparisons are tempting. China is no longer Maoist in orientation, but still ostensibly Communist and still autocratic. The Cold War is also still within the living memory of most…

At a nationally televised press conference in Panama City in March 2019, a China-funded team of Chinese and Panamanian engineers took the stage. They unveiled the results of their feasibility study of the proposed high-speed Panama-Chiriquí Railway. They announced that the megaproject would cost $4.1 billion and take six years to build. Travel time from…

From the perspective of an outside observer, one of the most striking features of the American discourse over race relations is how insular it is. Slavery is often spoken of as though it were a uniquely “American curse,” or an “original sin,” the legacy of which has been transmitted to each subsequent generation in the…

Conservatism has a “women problem.” Conservative women exist, of course, but as a political movement conservatism is associated with opposition to feminism. And feminism is popularly understood as the movement for women’s liberation. Why would women oppose their own liberation? So, the argument goes, it takes perverse dedication to the interests of the patriarchal enemy…

In 1654, Peter Stuyvesant, director general of New Amsterdam (later New York) barred Jews from entering the colony. Then all progressive hell broke loose. Under pressure from shareholders, the Dutch West India Company reversed Stuyvesant’s decision and grad­ually “cancelled” him. It was an early example of political activism in business…

Just over a decade ago, in the autumn of 2010, the Danish state broadcaster DR aired the first season of a drama titled Borgen, centering on a smart and charismatic forty-something politician, Bir­gitte Nyborg, who leads the relatively minor Moderate Party. In an election rocked by a late-breaking scandal, the Moderates gain an un­expected fifteen…