Tag: business leaders
America’s Dysfunction Has Two Main Causes
How has America slid into its current age of discord? Why has our trust in institutions collapsed, and why have our democratic norms unraveled?
All human societies experience recurrent waves of political crisis, such as the one we face today. My research team built a database of hundreds of societies across 10,000 years to try to find out what causes them. We examined dozens of variables, including population numbers, measures of well-being, forms of governance, and the frequency with which
Gordon Sondland, The Only Ambivalent-About-Trump Pundit
From 2017 to 2021, a string of businessmen with long, lucrative careers entered government service and left with their reputations tarnished. Rex Tillerson was a world-bestriding CEO who found himself hated by both his new boss and his new employees. Steven Mnuchin, a successful though largely anonymous moneyman, developed an image as a sloppy supervillain. President Donald Trump was arguably the paragon of the class, transforming himself from a famous personality to an infamous threat to democracy.
Gordon Sondland was
Why Did Cotopaxi Leave San Francisco?
Hayes Valley is an aspirational neighborhood located in central San Francisco, the main strip of which is lined with trendy stores and restaurants. It’s also a neighborhood where, according to Davis Smith, the CEO of the outdoor-gear brand Cotopaxi, retailers have begun to lock their doors during the day for fear of being robbed in broad daylight.
Last week, Smith announced that he would be temporarily closing his company’s flagship outpost on Hayes Street, which he says has been robbed
The Domino Effects of New Anti-Abortion Laws
This is an edition of Up for Debate, a newsletter by Conor Friedersdorf. On Wednesdays, he rounds up timely conversations and solicits reader responses to one thought-provoking question. Later, he publishes some thoughtful replies. Sign up for the newsletter here.
Question of the Week
Should Americans have a right to privacy and/or bodily autonomy? If so, what should those rights encompass and exclude? Abortion? Carrying a pistol? Selling a kidney? Taking heroin? Keeping a Swiss bank account? Assembling explosive devices
Gavin Newsom’s Case for a More Aggressive Democratic Party
On May 4, two days after Politico rocked Washington by revealing the draft of a Supreme Court decision to overturn the constitutional right to abortion, California Governor Gavin Newsom delivered remarks at a Los Angeles Planned Parenthood office—and triggered a small earthquake of his own.
Newsom pledged that, however the Court ruled, California would ensure legal access to abortion. But it was something else he said that really stood out: Republican-controlled states are moving not only to restrict or
Defending Democracy Is No Longer Popular Within the GOP
The next few weeks will likely answer the most crucial question that emerged from last year’s insurrection by supporters of Donald Trump: Can one political party defend American democracy on its own?
In the days after the January 6 attack, it appeared possible that many Republicans would join Democrats in a cross-party coalition to defend democracy against the autocratic threat. But instead, Trump has consolidated his control over the GOP, led a movement to purge Republican elected officials who
How Freedom Was Used to Defend Residential Segregation
Conservatives in America have, in recent months, used the idea of freedom to argue against wearing masks, oppose vaccine mandates, and justify storming the Capitol. They routinely refer to themselves as “freedom-loving Americans.” Freedom, as a cause, today belongs almost entirely to the right.
This was not always the case. In the early 1960s, civil-rights activists invoked freedom as the purpose of their struggle. Martin Luther King Jr. used the word equality once at the March on Washington, but he