Politics
What Does It Take to Get Women Elected?
If women’s suffrage was the battle of the twentieth century, women’s representation will be the battle of the twenty-first.
The Death and Rebirth of American Internationalism
Internationalists are plotting their return, but they still haven’t learned from the failure of liberal universalism.
The Problem Isn’t Just Police—It’s Politics
Sociologist Alex Vitale explains how the U.S. policing crisis begins with politics—the decision to embrace neoliberal austerity and to turn the social problems it creates over to police.
Confederates in the Capitol
The National Statuary Collection announced the unification of the former slave economy’s emotional heartland with the heart of national government.
America’s Long War on Children and Families
A new book shows how Trump’s family separation policy belongs to a much longer history of child-taking by the U.S. government.
A New Age of Protest Music
Through online fan communities and digital platforms like TikTok, popular music is finding powerful new ways to shape everyday activism, protest, and resistance.
The Politics of the Mask
Today we face the paradox of states simultaneously criminalizing masks—because of protests—and mandating them because of COVID-19. In this interview, social theorist AK Thompson explores the history of masks in protests and why rioting is politically effective.
The Future of U.S. Global Leadership
The assumption that only the United States can lead the free world increasingly looks imperiled. What would foreign policy look like without it?
Some Statues Are Like Barbed Wire
Activists fighting to remove statues of slavers and colonizers understand better than most how public memorials can be a form of violence.
Protest, Passion, Politics
The reissue of Vivian Gornick’s The Romance of American Communism invites a new generation to reflect on what it means to live a life of political commitment.
We Should Be Afraid, But Not of Protesters
The rage on display in Minneapolis is not only about police violence. It is also about the country’s utter disregard for the pain of black Americans.
The Minneapolis Uprising in Context
A proper understanding of urban rebellion depends on our ability to interpret it not as a wave of criminality, but as political violence.
The Case Against Mars
Contrary to the boosterism of billionaires, the need for space colonization must be argued for, not assumed. And the arguments aren’t good.
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